Valdez skipper Stacey Mitchell, captain of the charter boat Martie Kay, presents the first fish of the day to Betty Pfaff. (JIM LAVRAKAS / Anchorage Daily News)

Valdez holds payload of silvers
Big returns of hefty salmon draw anglers from around the world

By CRAIG MEDRED
Daily News outdoors editor

For Betty Pfaff’s 52nd wedding anniversary last summer, husband John dressed her up in a rubber suit and treated her to silver.

Silver salmon, that is.

For the Pfaff’s this was a return to yesteryear.

"We spent our honeymoon fishing," Betty said, and they knew just the place to come for the anniversary.

This 15-mile-long bay supports the state’s top silver fishery. Forget the Kenai River or Resurrection Bay. They’re midgets by comparison. Most years, at least twice as many silvers are caught here as in those fisheries.

Only moments after the hooks went in the water off Gold Creek in mid-August, John struck his first silver. He missed, but there was another fish only moments later.

Off toward the city of Valdez, the sun cut through gray clouds. Along the south shore, fog shrouded the pipeline terminal, but the huge tanks that store the North Slope crude oil on the hill above the dock shifted in and out of view.

Stacey Mitchell, skipper of the Martie Kay, said thanks to the weather gods.

"It’s nice that the sun is going to shine," she said. "We were out here yesterday in a driving rain. Man, it was cold."

Such is Alaska. Mitchell spent the day in a suit of rubber and still got wet. A day later, the heat had her stripping down to blue jeans and tennis shoes.

Gray-haired Betty stayed in her yellow rubber rain suit a little longer, but it wasn’t long before it was too hot for her, too. She sat and watched the Chugach Mountains slide past as the nearly silent four-cycle trolling motor putt-putted the Martie Kay down the bay.

Forty-five feet below hung a 10-pound lead ball at the end of a downrigger. Attached by a clip to the cable from the ball to the surface was the fishing line on which an orange flasher shimmied side-to-side in front of a green plastic squid – what anglers call a "hoochie" – in front of a chunk of herring.

Out of the fog emerged other boats. Into the fog they disappeared. The traffic toward favored fishing holes along the eastern rim of Prince William Sound was steady but not heavy.

"You should see it on a weekend," Mitchell said.

There are always those who believe the fishing’s better another mile out. Mitchell preferred to do her long-range trolling by radio or cell phone.

Boats farther out in the Sound reported a bite here or a hit there, but nothing more than a fish or two. It hardly seemed worth a long run.

"Oh, oh. I’ve got a nibble," Betty said.

High above the blue water, the tip of a graphite rod twitched, then witched again. Betty jumped up to grab it.

"Wait, you’re getting a bite," Mitchell said.

Then the rod went still. Betty watched it a good long while, but it never moved again.

"Huh, I didn’t hook ’em," Pfaff said, settling back into a comfortable seat.

Minutes later, the rod twitched again, then bent sharply as a fish pulled the line free of the downrigger clip. Betty grabbed the rod, but nothing was there.

"I’m sorry," she said. "I wasn’t paying attention."

Not to worry, Mitchell said, arguing any fish that didn’t hook itself was probably too small to keep anyway.

Big fish are the norm here. Released from the Valdez Fisheries Develop-ment Association’s Solomon Gulch Hatchery, these salmon spend two to three years at sea fattening up. By the time they start returning in August, they weigh seven to 15 pounds.

Tasty, hard-fighting fish, they lure anglers from around the world. The Pfaffs arrived from Sequim, Wash., a community on the Olympic Peninsula, by way of Montana.

Age had forced Betty to cut back on her Montana passion – skiing – but she was as hot as ever for the fishing.

"Tell your fish story," John Pfaff urged.

"Your double fish story," Mitchell added.

Betty had been fishing with Mitchell before on a day when the angling was exceptional. After she hooked one salmon, it managed to wrap her leader around another. Betty pulled them both in for Mitchell to net.

"One on the line and one that had the leader wrapped around its gills," Mitchell said.

Two silvers at a time. Now that’s great fishing.

It’s enough to draw a crowd in everything from 50-foot charter boats to float tubes. By early September, shore anglers are even catching fish off the beaches near Allison Point next to the tanker terminal. These September fish attract so many visiting anglers that locals have taken to referring to Allison Point as Winnebago Point.

You can fish or just watch the fish. They jump all over the bay. John liked to point at them. Betty oohed and aahed until her rod tip banged down hard and fast.

"Fish on," Mitchell said.

Betty grabbed the rod out of its holder and started cranking. Only a couple minutes were needed to play, net and club to death the 4-pound salmon.

"It’s a little one," Betty Pfaff said.

"It’s a nice one," her husband consoled.

The salmon was as bright as a newly minted quarter. Sea-lice clung to its scales on botsides. Bigger fish would come.

By the time the Martie Kay returned to port in mid-afternoon, there were silvers of more than 10 pounds in the cooler. Betty and John Pfaff couldn’t have been happier.

"We wouldn’t miss this as long as we’re able to," Betty said.

All around, sharp-edged mountains rose to the sky. Alpine glaciers clung to the passes between. Green walls of alder and cow parsnip, and some evergreens here and there, climbed up from the deep blue sea. Jumping silvers flashed in the sunshine.

They seemed almost to be asking to be caught. John and Betty Pfaff were happy to oblige. They planned to spend the week. It is something they do almost every year.

Retirement is great, Betty Pfaff said.

"We’ve been having one awfully good time," she said.

With fishing like this, who wouldn’t?

Skipper Stacey Mitchell alerts client Jim Pfaff to a strike on his pole as they troll for silvers. (JIM LAVRAKAS / Anchorage Daily News)