CHARLESTON - If there ever was a day to be fishing on the Pacific Ocean, it was Wednesday.

About mid-day, ocean swells registered around 2 feet at eight seconds, the wind was but a breeze from out of the north, and the salmon were biting - in a few areas, at least.

Commercial trollers were landing their first coho they'd been able to keep in years.

They weren't the only ones enjoying silver success: Sharks and sea lions bit huge chunks right out of the bellies of several fish.

“Oh darn it,” Winchester Bay troller Alvin Gorgita said from his boat a few miles offshore. “Another shark just got another one.”

Otherwise, his day was going pretty well on the big blue.

“I'm happy. No complaints,” he said.

Many fishermen - Gorgita included - reported spotty catches of coho but they didn't have to switch fishing gear to target them. Both silvers and Chinooks often are attracted to the same tackle. Fish holds gradually were filling with kings and cohos as the day progressed.

Fifteen years ago, commercial catches for the Coos Bay area, which includes Bandon and Winchester Bay, were down to as few as 5,300 fish. Gone were the banner years of catches of 101,500 fish in 1991; 159,500 fish in 1989; 196,400 coho in 1988; and 177,100 in 1987, let alone a hopper year of 266,000 in 1979. The coho fishery was closed after 1992.

Retailers now are trying to figure out how to market a locally-caught fish that hasn't been seen since 1992.

“That's what's scaring me,” Seahawk Seafood owner George Paynter said. “I haven't had silvers since I've been in business here.”

Still, a tasty salmon is a tasty salmon and coastal customers have stuck by wild-caught fish, even as Chinook prices skyrocketed last year when the season was closed. This year, fishermen still get more than $5 a pound for kings, which translates into more than $10 a pound for filets at the local retail level.

Coho prices may be a different story.

Paynter said he's heard buyers planned to pay fishermen around $2 a pound for silvers on Wednesday. Other processors were planning to pay about $1.50.

It all comes down to how much and where they can sell their fish.

“We'll buy a few and see what we can do with them,” Paynter said Wednesday.

The Charleston Seafood Festival will be in full swing this weekend and there may be fresh coho around for sale at bargain prices, compared to Chinook.

Silvers still are in their growth stage, Paynter said, and are a little bit skinnier than some of the monster Chinooks that have been delivered. Coho will fatten up later in the year, before they start to head upstream.

In Winchester Bay, Sportsmen's Cannery and Smokehouse owner Bill Karcher had fileters busy in the evening cutting, cutting, cutting the salmon that commercial fishermen delivered earlier in the day.

Karcher said he had a few fishermen deliver between 10 and 20 coho apiece, in addition to their Chinook landings, but one troller had about 50 coho. Karcher had to turn him away.

He, too, is struggling with marketing all the coho - even though the season will be relatively short. But he has a plan.

Soon, the Sportsmen's Cannery label will show up on his shelves with fish that hasn't shown up in 6- or 8-ounce servings in years.

“I'm going to do a big can,” Karcher said.