The low morning sun is poking silver spears through the slivers of fog that are hanging in stratified ribbons over the hundred or so fish boats moored in Valdez Harbor, bouncing off the brightwork, lighting up the saltwater, warming my bones.

Skipper/guide Brandon Nemec nudges the 25-foot Trophy past the gas dock, past the bank-casting hot spot at Allison Point, past the oil storage tanks and security guards at the infamous Alyeska Pipeline terminal through Valdez Narrows toward a cliff called Sawmill Bay where he is confidently predicting that we'll find a few acres of the 100,000 silver salmon expected in Valdez this summer.

The salt water is flat, dappled with white birds, floating sea otters, kelp bulbs and the shimmering reflection of the mountains and glaciers that cradle this sport-fishing town. Brandon is talking about the monstrous silver salmon runs that surge into this little piece of Prince William Sound in late summer, guessing that Jim and I will have our 12 coho limit (6 each) in the boat before the coffee gets cold. I'm listening to the salmon talk, smiling in the sun but watching for shark fins.

Yesterday is less than 12 hours behind us, too close to forget a day filled with circling salmon sharks, dozens of fins slicing the oily green surface, hookups with 500 pound 50 mph predators, snapped 800-pound test braided stainless steel leader, 20/0 hooks, baits plug-cut from full grown cohos.

Jim Goerg, TRN publisher/editor and I are on the second leg of our Valdez shark and salmon expedition, the salmon leg. Yesterday we ran 70 miles up Prince William Sound to challenge quarter-ton salmon sharks at the edge of the Gulf of Alaska. Today, we fish for 12-pound silver cohos practically on Valdez' wet doorstep.

This is a combination package too tough to pass up: Tangling with monster sharks in salmon country, bunking in a colorful port town deep in a fjord surrounded by North America's tallest coastal mountains and the most heavily glaciated range in the Northwest, where sea level snow fall averages 27 feet, salmon are caught off the public dock, and both the oil spill of '89 and the 9.2 earthquake of '64 took place on Good Fridays.

Brandon Nemec is one of a handful of charter skippers riding point in Alaska's hottest new big game fishery—salmon sharks 10-feet long, up to a 1000 pounds, 50 mph reel burners, first cousin to a mako, second cousin to great white. When he's not salmon sharking he's skippering for salmon and halibut, and both are plentiful in the Valdez-PWS region.

Valdez, pronounced ValDeez, is one of those rare Alaskan "fishing paradises" with highway connections to the rest of North America. Located at the head of Prince William Sound, southeast of Anchorage, Valdez is on the Richardson Highway 305 wilderness miles from Anchorage and 2361 miles from Seattle. Ferries on the Alaska Marine Highway system also dock here.

Jim and I arrived by air in the late afternoon on August 9 on an ERA commuter flight from Anchorage International Airport. The 40 minutes between Anchorage and Valdez is a flight-seeing spectacular; a low-level crossing of wrinkled ice fields, monstrous glacial swaths, trackless peaks, heather basins and blue-green fjords salted with ice bergs.

Sharon Crisp, executive director of the Valdez Convention and Visitors Bureau, arranged for us to stay at Swifty's Alaskan Adventures on Mineral Creek at the edge of town. The owner, Bob Swift, is Brandon's grandfather, and the lodge is an interesting blend of comfortable sleeping rooms, fish stories, and a cook-it-yourself kitchen that is well equipped. And there are 11 restaurants in this town of 4100.

We're salmon fishing just 14 miles outside Valdez and salmon sharks, Brandon assures me, rarely venture this deep into Prince William Sound. Still, I watch.

And I keep watching until it becomes obvious that Brandon has parked the Bayliner on top of a smoking hot silver salmon bite. Green backs and chrome-bright sides flash under the boat. Forget yesterday's sharks, this is today and there are coho salmon to be caught.

More than 100,000 coho salmon jam into the tight walls of Valdez between mid-July and early September, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG), many headed for the Solomon Gulch Salmon Hatchery at the mouth of the Lowe River. This hatchery is also responsible for millions of the 26 million pinks that return to the east end of PWS annually.

According to ADFG, Prince William Sound has big numbers of both wild and hatchery silvers.

Wild silvers spawn in Eastern Prince William Sound's freshwater streams from August through October returning as 8- to 15-pound adults (some push 20). Because PWS streams infrequently get blasted by flooding wild fish returns vary with the year. The hatchery return, however, has been fairly constant and last year it was hot.

The top silver spots, according to ADFG, are in the Valdez Narrows and off the beaches of Allison Point, Anderson Bay, Mineral Creek, and Gold Creek.

Silvers arrive in Valdez Bay by the first week of August, and peak mid-August through early September.

There are also chums and kings in the Valdez area, but nowhere near the silver numbers. ADFG has launched a hatchery program to increase chinook numbers, and there is optimism that in the next several years the hatchery effort will grow a good king fishery.

For now, though, Valdez salmon sport fishing means silvers and this one has Jim wrapped under the boat and is smoking for the horizon.

We're on top of the school and all alone. The nearest boats are clustered in the distance below the 1,000-foot crash of a waterfall gushing from Anderson Glacier down the face of Mount Thomas.

With light mooching rods, 4 ounce red crescent sinkers, 3/0 hooks, and plug cut herring, we're fishing between 20 and 40 feet deep in 340 feet of 58-degree water and the silvers are on the slam. Jim brings his fish in, a nice 9-pounder. Brandon flips it free.

I have six hookups in six drops and these are hot fish: tailwalkin', back-flippin', line sizzlers.

My first one slams the herring just under the surface 20 feet out. I can see it strike and I'm reeling hard when the fish rockets under the boat and jumps on the other side The silver is running too hard and too fast, to allow slack to develop in the line. It's a good thing. I'd need a 10-speed reel and Superman hands to keep up with this fish.

Back off the drag, let him run, reel like crazy, grin and watch Jim hookup again.

Several times I watch a pod of half a dozen coho streak for the bait, competing for my herring. Gotta love that.

We're drifting, not trolling, because there's no need to move the baits. Drop the herring, crank it a few times and the salmon race to grab it. Incredibly, I sometimes don't even have to reel to attract a hook up. Fishing dead bait, with no spin, catches these competitive fish, it just takes a little longer.

When I finally take my eyes off the fish attack and look around, we're no longer alone. A few yards off the bow, the Happyjack, is crowded with day trippers who are playing fish constantly, sometimes two and three at a time.

By any salmon fishing standards this is a hot bite. Even by Valdez standards, it's exceptional, Brandon says. A year earlier and skippers scratched hard for coho. This year they can't keep 'em off the hook.

In less than 2 hours Jim and I have sorted through a couple of dozen landed fish, and boxed our 12 coho limit with silvers to almost 14 pounds. In another hour Brandon takes his 6-coho limit. In less than three hours we've kept 18 hooknosed silvers for an average of 6-fish limit every hour. Jim points out that that average doesn't count the lightweights – the 9 pounders and down – that we kicked back.

"I haven't been out once this year when I didn't come back with limits of silvers," Brandon says, adding, "It's not always this great but it's always good. We're having a great silver year."

Jim and I are having a great silver morning, I know that. And so is every other boat in our neighborhood. Rarely did I look at a boat that wasn't hooked up, sometimes with more than one rod bent.

Back at the dock we have our salmon filleted by a fishing machine named Pat, who runs a table on the waterfront and can speed finesse fillets for a buck a fish – a bargain.

The catch is flash frozen and vacuum packed at Fish Central for $1 a pound, boxed and waiting for us in the morning when we head for the airport.

The silvers – and halibut – are the backbone of several big money Valdez derbies.

The most popular is an $80,000 derby that runs for halibut from May-Sept. and silvers July 30 through Labor Day.

Winner of the 2004 silver derby weighed 19.44 pounds and Lloyd Jones took the top halibut derby with a 310.6 pounder.

In mid-August the city is holding a one-day Women's Silver Salmon Derby which is gaining popularity, and there's a pink salmon derby all of July.

When the pinks and coho arrive at the Valdez waterfront, docks and piers load with boatless salmon anglers, some throwing spoons and spinners, herring and jigs and others fishing standard plug cuts beneath bobbers. Several public fishing piers are available.

While Jim and I didn't get a chance to try for halibut or lings they are a major part of the Valdez fishery, according to ADFG  ( Alaska Department of Fish and Game ).

Some of the more popular halibut fishing areas include Knowles Head and Red Head, Galena Bay, and Sawmill Bay. Peak halibut fishing is June through July.

Both rockfish and lingcod are found throughout PWS waters. In Eastern PWS, lings up to 30 pounds are caught, according to ADFG.

PWS is also a promising spot to fill a shrimp pot. Pink, spot, and coonstripe shrimp are the main species in Prince William Sound. Pink shrimp occur over the widest depth range. Spot and coonstripe shrimp typically are found in shallower water and over rock piles or debris covered bottoms.

The Gulf of Alaska shrimp population has been in a steep decline since the mid 1970s, and a shrimp permit is required. The one dark cloud hangs over the crab fishery.

Because of low populations, Prince William Sound is closed to king, Dungeness, and tanner crab fishing.

Valdez's sharks and silvers may offer one of the most unusual combination fisheries in Alaska, but when you throw in halibut, lings, rockfish, shrimp and spectacular scenery, it becomes a must-do return trip.