On Sat, 10 Sep 2005 18:49:30 -0700, JR wrote:

It seemed that the silvers were a mix of bright chromers and dark fish.
Is that the case? If so, what was the approximate proportion of each
would you say? How was the fight of these fish, compared, say, to the
fight of a fresh steelhead of the same size?

A dark fish means they are pretty far upstream from the sea and are
either ready to or have already spawned. The farther upstream Silvers
go, the less feisty they get. The ones we caught at both the Kamishak
and the Big River were fresh from the sea as evidenced by their green
backs and sea lice on their sides, and we were fishing only a few
hundred yards from Cook's Inlet. I have taken Chinook (King), Chum,
Silver, and Pinks when they were in the spawn and they fight a helluva
lot less than when they are fresh from the sea. In fact, this time if
we hooked into a chum all colored up, we broke it off rather than land
it. We didn't see any colored Silvers.

Dave