Whether you’re a resident looking to put fish in the freezer, or a traveling angler from out of state, coho, or silver salmon, are the hot fish in Alaska. In an effort to alleviate the pressure on Alaska’s precious king salmon, we at Rainbow Bend Lodges, on the Naknek River, encourage you to consider targeting coho salmon.
One of the biggest hurdles for many anglers to overcome is breaking traditional thought. Everyone who fishes in Alaska wants a mighty king salmon, just as every hunter who travels to The Last Frontier wants a moose. The starting point to preserving Alaska’s king salmon starts with a change in thinking, and that’s where coho salmon come in.
Silver salmon runs are later in the summer than that of kings, so you don’t have the mass hoards of anglers congregating in small sections of rivers. Coho runs are also much longer, lasting months instead of a few weeks. August through October are prime times to catch silver salmon. Limits are also generous when it comes to coho, meaning you can put a lot of meat in the freezer.
As for the fight, if a 70 pound king battled as hard as a silver salmon, you’d be hard pressed to land it, pound-for-pound. Not only do silvers jump, they dive, twist, turn and make long runs. Coho can be caught in very remote waters, where battling 30 fish a day is common, and you’ll never see another angler; it’s the ultimate Alaskan fishing experience.
Cohos can also be fished for multiple ways, adding even more to the adventure and fun of catching them. Tired of dragging bait or backtrolling heavy gear all day for kings? Not a problem with coho. Coho salmon can be caught on jigs–both twitching and beneath a float–as well as on a variety of spinners, even by casting shallow diving plugs. They can be caught on topwater plugs–something bass and pike anglers love–and on poppers by flyfishing fans. Once you experience the thrill of a coho topwater take, you’ll be hooked on this approach. They can also be fished with bait in many Alaskan rivers.
Coho are easily accessed from the banks of big rivers, small streams, even some lakes, throughout much of their range in Alaska. Silver salmon can be targeted in tidewater, too. Stripping and swinging streamers through an incoming tide is a rush, as these fresh coho battle to the very end.
Once you’ve secured a limit of coho, you can keep fishing in most waters in Alaska. If releasing coho, don’t use cured eggs as bait, as the fish swallow them; also go with barbless, single hooks. Catch and handle the fish with care, meaning land them quickly and touch them as little as possible. Just because there are millions of these bright, gorgeous, great eating salmon out there, doesn’t mean they should be mishandled.
If releasing coho, land them fast, keep them in the water, revive them and set them free. Don’t net them, don’t pull them up on the bank where they flop around, bruise themselves and lose scales, and do not hold them by the gills for a photo, then toss them back into the river. When releasing tidewater coho, handle them with care, as they are much more frail than they will be once they acclimate to the river. Do anything in your power to avoid mortality to coho salmon, period, as we do not want a repeat performance of the dwindling Alaska king salmon numbers.
With king numbers declining in many Alaska streams, now is the time to change our train of thought and focus on a more abundant salmonid to catch, like the coho, before it’s too late. That’s one of our goals at Rainbow Bend Lodges.
