Sound once again in limelight
Prince William Sound creeks and bays hold variety of salmon

By ANTHONY J. ROUTE
Daily News correspondent

It took an errant oil tanker to cause Prince William Sound to slip from obscurity into the limelight. That was more than 10 years ago.

On a local level during the past couple of years Prince William Sound, via the Whittier tunnel, is once again being spoken of in a level above a murmur.

The heart of the issue is just how well the tunnel from Portage, newly opened for vehicular traffic instead of solely a conduit for locomotives, will work.

The conundrum is that the better it works the more trouble it is likely to cause.

A matter of space is one cause for concern. The tiny city of Whittier, surrounded by mountains at the edge of a fiord, has little room to put extra people never mind the cars and boats that come with them. Some say it will change the Sound forever.

There’s little reason to disagree with that notion, but it will certainly take some time for massive changes to develop farther out in the island-studded, largely protected waters of the Sound. Even something as catastrophic and internationally viewed as the 1989 oil spill had little effect on its fishing. Sport fishing, that is.

Prince William Sound has a solid history of commercial fishing and recreational activities such as sea kayaking, glacier viewing, and whale watching. Sportfishing, though, is something that has skidded along enormous only in its possibilities rather than what actually takes place there.

A cursory investigation reveals that the Sound is silly with salmon. You can’t, perhaps, find another spot – anywhere –where you will be surrounded by so many salmon. An angler afloat in the Sound who cannot catch a salmon should seriously consider taking up an alternative pursuit to fishing.

Pink salmon are by far the most numerous. Wherever you may be, from Whittier in the west to Valdez in the east, it is difficult not to find pinks. By mid July they are found en masse surging in with every flood of the tide. Creek mouths are the locations for the most action but even insubstantial trickles too small for pinks to swim upstream, still attract schools of them. Any creek, river, cove, or for that matter, any piece of water has pink potential.

Chum salmon aren’t as numerous as the pinks but will be found in lots of the same water at the same time of the season. They’re worth looking for, too, because they are easily four to five times the size of an average pink salmon.

There are enough silver salmon in the Sound, beginning in mid August, to keep things interesting right though September. And sockeye and king salmon, although they are less prevalent in situations where sport anglers can get at them with regularity, also swim through the Sound.

An added bonus for Sound anglers are the Dolly Varden and cutthroat trout.

Dollies are by far the most widespread. They can usually be found looking for eggs wherever salmon spawn, and they’re also quite active in estuaries during the springtime when pink salmon fry are emerging from the gravel and are entering saltwater.

Cutthroat trout, on the other hand, are not as easily encountered. Look for them mainly in the estuaries and small, wooded streams of the eastern Sound. Even though cutts are not found in great numbers, the few anglers who go out of their way to look for them will find more than enough to keep them busy.

That seems to be Sound’s situation at the moment. There are many, many, many more fish than anglers who set out to explore Prince William Sound’s angling possibilities. At least for now.