Coho Can Opener? (O. kisutch)

Posted on April 30, 2009, 11:32 am, by JB, under Artistic, Fish, Fishing Life.

jborger_5anad_coho

Big coho—silvers—get some funny looking faces, rivaled only perhaps by male Atlantic salmon. Sure, sockeye and other Pacific salmon get some gnarly curled snouts and wicked teeth, but the coho just looks like it could double as a kitchen implement of some kind.

I must admit that coho/silvers are my overall favorite salmon to catch, whether in the estuary of an Alaskan river or from the riffle of a Lake Michigan trib. I love their aggressiveness (fish ON!), their fight (fish REALLY on!), and their size (big enough, but not too big). They aren’t bad to eat, either!

My favorite fishing for silvers is for the estuary, or “just-in” fish—still shiny and with sea-lice firmly in place. The greatest day I ever had with silvers was slinging and stripping streamers for those “just-in” fish. I don’t remember how many fish I had to hand, but it was enough to wear me down. I can still feel the sling of the long casts, the cold water dripping over my hands as I retrieved, the heaviness of the hoped-for takes, and the yanking runs of the still-salty fish. Some of those silvers ended up on the table, and while not quite the same as a shore-lunch, they always brought back the true flavor of that special day…

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