"Way to go, Gary," says Ben Secrest of AFTCO, who has needled Loomis about his brother, the namesake of G. Loomis, in this manner ever since the airport. We're all getting bit, including Secrest, who somehow survives a look that should have killed him, and, since the rods were equipped with Shimano line counter levelwind reels, everyone pays close attention to Kain as he keeps a close eye on the sonar. "There are some fish at 60 feet and 40 feet," he says, and that sets everyone's minds to quick meter-to-feet conversions. Yet it is the senior Loomis who is on fire and he quickly approaches the six-fish limit for silvers. So I study his technique. The fairly heavy sinker puts a bend in the limber rod, and Bob uses the bend to advantage - sort of a pre-hookset bend - by keeping the tip in the water. When the silver hits, he puts the reel in gear and lets the fish take the rod tip deep in the water before he lifts up and the salmon is on the hook. Bobby Loomis and Ben Secrest do fairly well with soaking their bait in the zones Kain names, but I combine the senior Loomis' hookset method with my own approach, which calls for a fairly rapid retrieve to the fish holding depth, but then only a slowdown instead of a complete stop. The silvers want it on the move. But, hey, the bite is so wide open that we all have limits in the fish box in not time at all. It's time to move onto larger, more serious prey - the giant halibut of Sitka. We make a long run around the outside of Kruzof Island, and as Kain sets the anchor on the spot, he tells us this is a good spot for number of flatfish in the 100 to 200-pound range. That brings the 16-pound test IGFA men's line class record for Pacific halibut into the realm of possibility - the existing record is only 165 pounds.