SILVER METTLE

A MID THE RICH WATERS OF SOUTHEAST ALASKA, SILVER SALMON FLOURISH IN LATE SUMMER

- JIM HENDRICKS

The scene is primordial to its core. Cool ocean currents scour ancient rocky shores draped with kelp. Steep mountains studded with pines sprouting ferns shrouded in mist. Suddenly, the water erupts with showers of candlefish. From the depths, often within yards of shore, arise behemoth humpback whales, bursting upward to engulf terrified mouthfuls of the tiny fish. $ This is Southeast Alaska in late summer. These waters course from the Pacific through an incalculable number of islands, inlets, fjords and channels, a movable feast in the Alexander Archipelago-a mind-boggling biomass of candlefish known to the indigenous Chinook nation as eulacheon.

Easy pickings attract more than humpbacks. It is here that silver salmon mass to feed and fatten in anticipation of the fall migration, which will take them up the coastal rivers and tributaries where they had hatched to complete a primeval, generational pilgrimage of reproduction and complete their life cycle.

Late summer in this temperate rainforest is a time of plenty, and the best sport fishing left for silvers-also known as coho salmon-that can grow to weights of more than 20 pounds. Though silvers don't grow as large as king salmon, they prove more plentiful this time of year and, unlike kings, stage rambunctious aerial displays that delight anglers.

My brother, Joe Hendricks, and I had a chance to sample Southeast Alaska's great late-season silver salmon fishing last August with Capt. Colin McCrossin, who guides out of the remote yet comfortable Waterfall Resort on Prince of Wales Island, about a 40-minute flight by float plane from Ketchikan (see sidebar).

McCrossin has fished these waters for 25 years and knows each nook, cranny and islet of the jagged, barnacle-encrusted shores along which the silvers feed.

BEST SEASON IN YEARS