How to Catch Silver Salmon: The Complete Guide for Beginners

How to Fish for Silvers in Saltwater

By Marcus Weiner

Coho fishing in the saltwater can often be spectacular. I’ve been lucky enough to see wide-open bites in many salty places around the Great Land. A fight with any chrome buck that weighs 15 pounds or more will give you a lot to remember. I caught one just under 21 pounds in Sitka in 2014, and it made me think I was fighting a big Chinook. Needless to say, I will always remember that fish.

When the bite is white-hot, a boat can be limited in a few hours. This could mean six coho for each fisherman, since the species is common in Alaska and limits are pretty low. In general, coho get bigger the longer they stay in the saltwater around much of Alaska that is full of food. This means that fish caught in the second half of the season are usually bigger.

Successful anglers look for schools of bait, bait congregation structure, migration lanes, birds working bait, and rip lines. Coho will also venture into open water without structure. Finding the depth where the silvers are schooled is another important element for success. Start high in the water column and work your way deeper. They can gather anywhere from the surface to several hundred feet below, but most of the time they are higher in the water. When there isn’t much light, like at dawn or dusk, baitfish and coho salmon tend to gather in the top 30 feet of water. Tide change is also a particularly effective time to target silver salmon.

For the most part, anglers in saltwater catch coho by trolling and mooching. Additional techniques include jigging, power mooching, and casting and retrieving spinners, spoons and flies. We’ll start by examining these techniques as well as the basics of gear and tackle.

When you troll, you put bait and/or lures in the water and move the boat with the motors or by hand powered oars. This gives the lures action. Generally, anglers troll for coho from 1. 5 to 3. 0 mph and are usually more effective when trolling with the current, as coho face into the current. Coho move quickly and like lures that move, so if you’re not getting bit, try slowing down or speeding up your troll. If during turns and coho hit the outside rod, that tells you they want a faster moving lure. If the inside rod gets bit, that indicates that the silvers want a slower presentation.

Saltwater trollers generally use either downriggers or divers to get baits to the right depth. Another good way to catch salmon when they are high in the water is to flat-line the bait—use a 1- to 6-ounce banana weight to get it down to the fish. Typically flat-liners let out 50- to 150 feet of line.

I believe that downriggers are the best way to consistently throw baits to salmon. They also let you fight the fish without a weight on your line. Downriggers are available in both electric and manual options, with many models and brands to choose from. Typical units use a 10-pound downrigger ball to get offerings to the right depth. Set out 20 to 30 feet of line, connect your rod’s mainline to the downrigger clip, and then free-spool the rod. Let the downrigger ball down smoothly to avoid fouling your gear and choose a starting depth. On a well-equipped vessel, each angler has a downrigger to use. If space or budget is a factor, then multiple rods can be stacked on a downrigger. For example, attach one rod to the first downrigger clip and lower to 20 feet. After that, connect a second clip to the downrigger cable and another rod. Then, drop the ball another 40 feet. This would allow you to fish one rod at 40 feet and the other at 60. When a coho grabs the lure, the force of removing it from the clip usually sets the hook.

Since coho are a school fish, I’ve often found that when one fish bites, more will soon. So don’t be quick to get the other gear out of the water. I’ve been on boats where the captain would keep trollin’ while the fisherman fought a coho, which often made more fish bite. When the action is really going, fishermen fight coho by netting fish, pulling up downrigger balls, and dropping another lure into the zone. It only takes a short time to catch a lot of coho when everyone works together and the fish are biting.

Divers are another good way to get the lures to the right depth, but they can only go to the depth that was designed for them and aren’t as flexible as a downrigger. Still, they are very effective. Many people like the Luhr Jensen Deep Six diver. It comes in three sizes: the 000 goes down to 40 feet, the 001 to 60 feet, and the 002 to 90 feet. The diver’s tension can be changed to work with different currents and troll speeds. It will still trip when a fish strikes or when the fisherman wants to get the diver back.

Flat-lining isn’t the best way to catch coho, but it can be useful as an extra way to look for fish while downriggers and divers are also being used to find depth. When coho are near to the surface, fishing a flat line is very effective.

Trolling Rods, Reels and Tackle

People who like to fish have a lot of good options these days because there are many companies that make good rods. It’s 7 1/2 to 9 feet long, has a solid backbone and a soft tip, and is made in the baitcasting style. A solid coho trolling rod can handle 10- to 20-pound-test line, which is monofilament. We recommend Lamiglas, Okuma, Penn, Ugly Stik and Cousins.

So that anglers can pile line back on when a coho makes a long run, reels will need to have strong, smooth drags, a lot of space, and an aggressive gear ratio. If you’re not using a downrigger, getting a reel with a line-counter is especially helpful because you can better see how much line you’ve let out and repeat that distance when you catch the coho. There are many reel manufacturers covering this segment; we recommend Penn, Daiwa, Quantum and Okuma.

We recommend using braid for your mainline and fluorocarbon for leaders. Thirty- to 50-pound braid is strong, has a small diameter and no stretch. We use braid from Ande, Izorline, Western Filament, Seaguar and P-Line. For the bottom of our leaders, we usually use 20-pound fluorocarbon. P-Line, Izorline, Ande, and Seaguar are all good choices. Above the flasher, we use 30 to 50-pound monofilament.

Most of the time, saltwater anglers use herring or man-made lures to catch coho. Most of the time, flashers are used to make the lure or bait move. Popular fake baits are trolling spoons like the Silver Horde Coho Killer or Luhr Jensen Coyote, hootchies (about 2 to 4 inches long squid imitators; we like Silver Horde, Macks, and P-Line’s), flies like the Silver Horde Ace Hi Fly, spinners like the Mepps Aglia, and combo spinner/hootchies like the Macks Sledge Hammer or Cha Cha Salmon series. Many different flashers are on the market, and we prefer those by Hot Spot.

You should add scent to any artificials you use, and you might also want to do that with bait, especially if the bite is slow. We like many of the oils, gels, bait wax, super sauces and scents that Pro-Cure makes.

When using a downrigger, tie your mainline to a barrel swivel. About 6 feet of 30-pound monofilament will be tied above the flasher as the leader. Another 12 to 30 inches of 20-pound fluorocarbon will be tied below the flasher and connect to the lure or hooks that hold the cut-plug herring in place. The flasher will make the lure or bait move more if the bottom part of the leader is shorter.

Herring are usually cut at a compound angle just behind the gill plate, which makes the roll tighter. We use a Folbe plug-cut guide, which works for both Chinook and coho and makes it easy to cut the angle we want every time. You can tilt the knife about 20 degrees one way and 30 degrees the other way if you don’t have a mitre.

It’s best if the herring are semi-frozen, as this makes it easier to make a clean cut. As long as the knife is very sharp, the cut must be smooth. If there are any rough edges, the bait will tear when it is fished.

Having good herring is the start of success. Choose herring that is vacuum-packed, bright, and still has its scales. Stay away from herring that is freezer-burned, has blood in the tray, or has eyes that are sunken or bloody. If you can get fresh herring or catch them yourself on sabiki rigs, even better. Brine the herring before fishing as this will preserve the scales and firm the meat. We prefer Pro Cure’s Brine ’N Bite. Putting the herring on a salt tray will also help the meat get firmer and the baits last longer while you fish.

First, put the lower hook through the short side of the herring as far back into the cavity as you can reach and out by the lateral line. This sets up the cut-plug herring for trolling. Work it in slowly and try and keep the hole as small as possible. Pull the leader through so that the lower hook is hanging by the tail of the bait. Salmon are short strikers so that dangling back hook will often hook fish. The eye of the top hook should be close to the hole that the hooks went through when you put it through the first hole. You want the hooks to be lined up along the short side’s center of the herring. This will help give the line a tight spin. People either hook the back hook into the herring just above the tail or let it hang.

Some people insert a toothpick along the spine of the herring while keeping it as straight as possible. This will increase the durability of the bait, particularly when trolling.

Some anglers also use a whole herring while trolling. There are a number of things you can use to hold the herring in place and get the right spin to attract fish. You can choose from the Pro Troll Roto Chip Baitholder and Pro Troll EChip Baitholder Heads. You can also choose the Sure Spin Herring Helmet and Krippled Fishing Herring Heads from Angler Innovations.

Tie the mainline into the diver, run 4 to 6 feet of 30-pound monofilament to the flasher, and then 12 to 30 inches of 20-pound fluorocarbon to the lure or bait. I use a diver. When flat-lining, use the same method: mainline to banana weight (1 to 6 ounces), 4- to 6-foot lengths of 30-pound monofilament to flasher, and 12- to 30-inch lengths of 20-pound fluorocarbon to bait or lure.

Mooching is the act of lowering a lure or bait to a certain depth and then pulling it back up through the area where fish are living. If a group of salmon are 80 feet down in the water, fishermen would go down to about 80 feet and work their way up to the surface. They may bring the bait or lure all the way to the surface, or they may work from 50 to 80 feet below and do it again. One good thing about mooching is that it lets anglers keep fishing while someone else plays a salmon. And because coho salmon are school fish, when one is hooked, others will often come over to check it out, which can lead to more than one hook-up at the same time. People who fish should keep their baits moving at a steady speed. You don’t have to hurry or slow down the drop or retrieve.

Most often, anglers use a cut-pug herring as the bait. What coho like about the bait is that it spins tight and fast when it goes down and when it is reeled back up. For most fishing, a 1- to 6-ounce banana weight is attached to the mainline. Then, an 8-foot leader with two Octopus-style hooks is added. Hooks range in size from 1/0 to 5/0 depending on herring size. Many anglers use two-hook mooching rigs that have one size larger hook at the front. On average, I like a 3/0 size for my front hook and 2/0 for the back. The Pro V Octopus from Trokar is one of our favorite hooks, and their pre-tied two-hook mooching rigs with Seaguar fluorocarbon are great too. If you want to tie your own two-hook mooching rigs, there’s ample instruction on the Web. Some prefer slip knots so that you can adjust the hooks to the bait size. Some people like a solid tie so the top hook doesn’t slip down and cut or foul the line. If tying a solid tie, leave about 2 inches between hooks.

For plug-cutting herring, see the tips in the trolling section. Good herring that has been properly cared for, brined, plug-cut with a sharp knife, and hooked is essential to an angler’s success.

Bites can be anything from light nibbles to brutish strikes. In many cases, salmon take the herring on the way down and you feel slack. Instead of jerking the rod to try to set the hook, which is what most anglers do, reel fast until you feel tension. This will usually be enough to bury sharp hooks. A small hook-set is acceptable.

For a variation on the technique, consider motor mooching. Kick your motor into gear to get the boat moving at about 2 mph. This change will let you go farther and maybe find more salmon. It will also change the way the fish is presented, which could make them bite. Every once in a while, put the motor in neutral and make zigzags or quickly and slowly drive. Note what elicits a strike and repeat.

How to Catch Silver Salmon – OPST

FAQ

What is the best bait for silver salmon?

How deep to troll for silver salmon?

What is the best time of year to catch silver salmon in Alaska?

Where are silver salmon found?

How do you catch silver salmon in saltwater?

Tide change is also a particularly effective time to target silver salmon. For the most part, anglers in saltwater catch coho by trolling and mooching. Additional techniques include jigging, power mooching, and casting and retrieving spinners, spoons and flies. We’ll start by examining these techniques as well as the basics of gear and tackle.

How do you fight silver salmon?

To experience the fight of silver salmon at their best, you want to challenge the fish while they are still in salt water, or shortly after they’ve entered a river and are still within the tide-influenced section, near the mouth. Fish fresh from the ocean, commonly called chromers, are silver bright and full of life.

When do silver salmon spawn?

The last Pacific salmon species to spawn throughout most of their range, silvers begin to make their way into major river systems in mid to late summer, continuing into autumn, although exact timing for the best fishing varies with the river system. On the proper size fly tackle, silver salmon provide plenty of sport. Gary Caputi

How do saltwater trollers catch salmon?

Saltwater trollers generally use either downriggers or divers to get baits to the right depth. When salmon are high in the water column, another effective means is to flat-line the offering—use a 1- to 6-ounce banana weight to get the bait down to the fish. Typically flat-liners let out 50- to 150 feet of line.