One of the rules in the Golden North Salmon Derby is that all participants have to be fishing from a boat. For those of us without boats, this presents a real dilemma. Since most of the local charters choose not to sell time during the derby in order to reserve their space for family and friends, finding an available vessel can be nearly impossible.
This particular tournament happens to be Alaska’s largest derby with prizes awarded to the 100 largest fish. In addition to the first place prize of over $15,000.00, there are also prizes for the biggest salmon of the day, the biggest coho of the day, the biggest coho in the derby, and innumerable other awards offered by local merchants. Of course, most everyone in the derby would be happy to catch any money fish, every angler is really hoping to catch the one with the $100,000.00 tag on it.
As mentioned, I don’t currently have a boat, but I do have the Internet! So, I placed the following ad on a couple of different forums:
Wanted: Space on your boat during the derby. Passenger will pay for fuel, food, and split his winnings with the boat (after taxes).
As it turned out, a really nice guy, Tom, and his son, Tom JR. had wanted to get out in the derby on their boat, but figured it was going to cost too much to run the boat for the weekend. For them, I was an ideal match. They took my bait, and I landed a boat.
As promised, I met the Toms at the gas pump and filled up the tank on the 26’ cabin cruiser. I also presented them with a Kershaw Blade Trader fishing knife as a token of appreciation. This apparently meant enough to them that before we had launched, they decided that rather than taking half of my prize if I won, we would split all money fish 3 ways with each of us getting equal
shares regardless of who caught what.
Since Tom manages a commercial fleet of nine boats that fish out on the Aleutian chain, I assumed that I might have found the perfect partner for the derby. However, as he pointed out, there is a huge difference between fishing for sport and industrial fishing. The fact is, he is new to the sport-fishing scene and finds it to be quite challenging. Still, with his ability to read the water and currents, and my knowledge of the local fishery, we were able to boat 11 fish over the weekend. Not quite as good as previous years when you might catch your limit of 6 salmon per day each, but substantially better than most boats were doing in this strangely hot summer.
While it would have been nice to catch a money fish, I personally think I ended up netting something more valuable. The camaraderie and conversation was instantaneous between the three of us. We talked of future outings, and, of using the boat as a base camp for hunting along the nearby islands. We planned out the remainder of the summer, trolling for salmon, jigging for halibut, dropping crab pots, and taking deer along the shores.
Where my herring had failed to catch a large fish during the derby (this year), my little Internet ad had landed me a new best friend!
