Why ?

With limit or near limit catches every single day for weeks now it makes me ask that question....I'll get back to that in a sec, first I want to post a few pics like this 0 dark thirty flash shot of my new friend Gary Walker with the 1st fish of the day on the first foggy morning of the year. Pretty cool shot.

We had new I-phones in the boat this morning so the shutters were just a clickin. Chris here with about as big a female Coho salmon as I've ever seen took this cool action photo...I'm usually just a bit too busy to even think of getting a photo like this but as soon as I get my new Go Pro camera set perfectly ( and learn how to use the files which is holding me up ) we should have some cools pics like this.

Just as our King runs here are famous for 70 pounders so it seems our late silvers are known for 16 pounders.... the thing is you seldom see either. All the gorgeous thick bodied males that we catch and remark about being 16 pounders look that way and weigh 14, sometimes 15. In all my years I've seen only a hand full or legit 16 pounders and only two ( that we caught on the same trip )18 pounders. But Gary caught this guy for sure...a legit , not just 16 but a 16 1/2 pounder....excellent.

But Jesse King's 15 pounder was the fish of the week until I got Gary in the boat....this guy is guide material the way he poses a fish. Long arm syndrome.

His dad Craig brings the guys down from Anchorage every fall and I'm flattered to have them. Craig is an excellent fisherman himself and Trevor there owns a boat with Matt that they towed along and fished themselves the day before....look at the overall size of this harvest.

Our friend Teresa Kittridge from Mazatlan recomended me to a Minnesota bunch. In fact they were from Brainerd which is home to a legendary fishing family that I am close to. We got a little late start that morning and by the time we went looking for some real estate all the good ' runs' were pretty full. I worked the edges some and moved around with no success before heading to Soldotna an hour before quiting time without a single fish....and walla, we found ol slimey. This was a pretty good catch for the hand we were dealt. Thanks for coming  Mike Hills and kids......

Of all the stocks we fish this late run of Silvers is no doubt the most steady and stable. For all my years here it has stood up to floods and a growing sport fishery and seems to be getting better and better. I can't answer the question , why ?...but I can offer some observations and a few take away's starting with the obvious....we have wonderful pristine Silver salmon habitat....and....

1. As far as I know the only numeration of these fish are the guide logbooks that we send in. ADF+G doesn't really know all that much about this run of salmon....that could be good , that could be bad.

2. It's not commercial fished...

3. Our in river sport fishery is really quite ineffective. It's just not powerful enough to over harvest a stock in my opinion. When our early run King's were in ' low abundance ' all you heard from the guys with the nets was " we don't fish on this stock at all and look what has happened to it ".....well they don't fish on this silver stock either and " look what has happened to it '....

4.....Think I'll leave the fish politics at that....

And just to take the edge off the serious stuff, thanks Chris for sending this along.