Precious metal is scattered around Alaska, and it's not only gold, platinum and copper. Silver, in the form of the coho salmon, can be more beguiling than a movie-star-sized diamond, and more precious than any metal. Combine the silver's aggressive nature in inhaling flies and tackle, its remarkable courage once on the hook and its ability to take up many forms on the dinner plate, and this salmon is at the top of my list.

There are many outstanding locations in Alaska to catch plentiful coho in solitude. Several require time, money and experience in travel logistics in order to fish-these are places like the Alaska Peninsula, the Lost Coast or along the outer reaches of Kodiak Island. Fish Alaska magazine was privileged last summer to fish one of these locations at Rocky River. The beauty of this destination is that it is easily accessible, yet the amount of anglers on the river is limited to residents of Port Graham and guests of Rocky River Lodge. This makes for a very private experience.

My friend Kirk Studebaker joins me on a three-day trip to Alaska Tree Tops Lodge in Seldovia in late August. I've been to Carole and Corky's place before and look forward to the lavish accommodations, incredible food and outstanding camaraderie. We'll be joined by Tom Willison, a friend and avid outdoorsman, and his friends Peter and Annetta Van Dyke. The five of us will fly to the southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula to fish the Rocky River for silvers from Bernie Golling's Rocky River Sportsmen's Lodge. But first we'll have to indulge in some scrumptious appetizers, dinner and desert and tell some fish stories over a cocktail. Life is good at Alaska Tree Tops Lodge.

After a 15-minute flight the next morning, we touch down on a private runway at Windy Bay. We'll take a scenic 9-mile drive to the Rocky River Sportsmen's Lodge. It's a modern slice of life within tranquil surroundings, with cabins, dining hall and flush toilets. Bernie Golling shows us around the camp. This will be the staging point to fishing Rocky River. We meet Eric who will guide us around the river for the next two days.

We begin fishing in the "Bridge Hole," a deep hole formed by a sharp bend in the river. It is absolutely jam packed with pinks, and there is a nice pod of silvers circling the deeper sections of the pool. All five of us begin fly-fishing and all are hooked into pinks within minutes. I can see that the trick will be to find the right fly that entices the coho and drives off the pinks. This will be no easy task, but the polarized glasses will help to see when a frisky pink moves to the fly, allowing the angler to move it out of the way before the pink eats it. They also help in seeing one of coho break from the pack to smash the fleeing fly.

After cycling through varied pink and green leech patterns, I land our first coho on a black dumbbell-eyed leech. Annetta switches to a spinner and slams two nice silvers in ten casts. Tom comes tight to a feisty coho, and after landing the fish, it is time for lunch and to walk downstream.

As we move downstream, the river takes on the classic Alaska small-stream look, with runs, riffles, pools and lots of deadfall. It's in the deeper holes that we find fishable numbers of silvers. Kirk works the run just below "Bridge Hole" and manages to pull two nice silvers in successive casts from a tight, deadfall packed pool. It's an impressive sight as he poses with the fish like a maniacal half-breed of man and bear.

As we meander farther downriver, picking up a few fish here and there, we end up in a hole that is packed with as many silvers as pinks. A proper roll cast to the fish on the far bank results in a hook-up on about every fifth cast. I manage to land one that tops out over 15 pounds and lose several other bruisers. We land at least a dozen fish in this hole. A dumbbell-eyed Egg-sucking Leech (ESL) in pink and olive with some flash ends up being the fly of the trip.

The group finishes at "Hidey Hole" and finding it just too full of pinks, we hike about 20 minutes through the forest and back to the van. Everyone has had a great time catching all the pinks one wants, which makes the battles with the silvers even more precious.

On the next day, we all start at "Pink Hole" and finding it true to its name, Kirk and I hike upstream to locate some silvers while the rest of the group moves downriver. It's really exciting to sight-cast to a specific silver within a group of pinks and to get the fish to move to the fly and eat it. The water is crystal clear and this increases the agitation level of the coho, making them progressively more lock-jawed as they travel farther away from the salt. The trick is to put the fly about 10 feet above the silver, to make a mend or two upriver to allow the fly to sink, and to make small strips when the fly is within a few feet of the target. We spend the next hour doing this and move back downriver to the rest of the group.

Being closer to the river mouth than the day before, we are well within tidal influence and have to pay attention to water levels. The path that we hike on to the river will later be covered with six feet of water. We're within a few miles of the saltwater and this means that we are fishing to very fresh fish, and the sea lice that we find on them confirms the analysis. Their fierce desire to attack the flies that we throw to them further confirms the short interval that these fish have spent in the river.

After landing many nice fish on the fly and filling out a limit, I switch to a bait-cast combination and begin to throw spoons and spinners. My hypothesis is that a large enough spoon or spinner should be too much for the pinks, but hopefully not for the silvers. It took three casts with an #5 EGB spoon to affirm the hypothesis. The pink salmon school parted as the spoon was retrieved and an angry buck silver moved 15 feet to slam the spoon. In an acrobatic, head shaking, all-out tail dance, it managed to snap my 12-pound mainline. Once I got my heartbeat back under control, my gear, which 20 minutes ago had been sitting 20 feet from the waterline, was now under water. Sadly, it was time to head for higher ground.

If you are looking for an opportunity to fish for plentiful and aggressive silvers in solitude, consider Rocky River Sportsmen's Lodge and Alaska Tree Tops Lodge. It's a unique combination of luxury in Seldovia and good amenities and great fishing at Rocky River that made this trip special. Contact Carole and Corky Myers at Alaska Tree Tops Lodge at 907-234-6200 or csmyers3@ msn.com. Contact Bernie Golling at 888-756-4729 or rockyriverlodge@ aol.com.

Marcus Weiner is publisher of Fish Alaska magazine.