With a chance to catch salmon and earn prize money, can summer be far off?
As snow continued to pile up Monday morning, fishing season seemed little more than a fanciful dream. But in less than two weeks, perhaps 1,000 anglers will gather in Homer for its one-day Winter King Salmon Derby.
Winners should find it a lucrative day on the water. Ninilchik angler John Forster earned $16,653 last year for his winning 34-pound king. Even 10th-place finisher Ben Stuart of Homer collected a tidy $1,189 for his 23.8-pounder.
Forster reeled in his fish aboard the boat Blood Vessel captained by his friend, George Veney, just as the duo was contemplating the ignominy of getting skunked after trolling the bluffs along Kachemak Bay most of the day. They headed back to the harbor for the 4 p.m. end of the tournament without a fish in the boat, still trolling.
"We got a bite," Veney said, "and John jumped on it. As soon as we got it in the boat, I said, 'This is a money fish.' Another boat (nearby) saw it and they gave us a thumbs-up."
By 4 p.m., the fish was on the derby scales, tipping them 2 pounds heavier than the second-place fish of Ryan Ensminger of Fairbanks. But Ensminger was hardly disappointed.
"It's not the biggest one I've caught, but it's definitely the most profitable one," the 33-year-old told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
How profitable? Try more than $31,000 -- or about what the 13th-place finisher in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race earns. Ensminger and his father Daryl Ensminger as well as friends Robert Standley and Corey Bodyfelt earned $11,102 for the second-heaviest fish of the derby and another $19,950 in side bets.
And that's not all.
Standley pulled in a 21.6-pounder to earn 16th place, good for a free night in a cabin on Kachemak Bay. Ensminger's boat, Dirty Bird, was the only one with two anglers in the top 20.
"We represented Fairbanks pretty well," said Daryl Ensminger.
Late March is still winter in Alaska, making traveling and fishing iffy at times. Homer's 2007 tournament was postponed two weeks because of ice on Kachemak Bay. A year later, lousy weather pushed the start back 24 hours to Easter Sunday.
Most of that day, the weather was fine. But clouds and cold temperatures rolled in about 3:30 p.m. "By 6:30, it was snowing pretty heavy and the waves were coming in," said Tina Day, the Homer Chamber of Commerce executive director.
Few anglers felt the rough conditions as much as the Fairbanks trio, who were aboard Daryl Ensminger's 20-foot Custom Weld river boat, which they first had to dig out of the snow before outfitting it with downriggers.
The nasty weather reminded Daryl Ensminger of the movie "Perfect Storm," in which a fishing crew is caught in a terrible storm and is finally smacked by a huge wave.
"There was a couple (waves) coming at us that were twice as big as we were," Daryl said.
But diehard anglers can handle ugly conditions for the pretty smell of fresh fish -- not to mention cold cash -- in March.
Organizers are promising $100,000 in cash and merchandise this year. That kind of loot and the prospect of landing one of the always-tasty winter kings brought out 793 anglers aboard 236 boats last year.
But remember, this isn't Russian River red salmon fishing, and the odds aren't great. Only 72 kings were landed last year.
Reporter Mike Campbell can be reached at mcampbell@adn.com or 257-4329.
By MIKE CAMPBELL
mcampbell@adn.com