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PETERSBURG, ALASKA The winning fish in the Petersburg Chamber of Commerce 27th Annual Salmon Derby is the second-largest fish brought to the docks over the weekend. Petersburg resident Sparky Swainson takes the first place prize of $7,500 for her 45.1 pound king caught early Saturday morning. Swainson was not atop the leaderboard when the derby finished up Monday night at 5 p.m. That honor belonged to another local resident, Dan Vick, who weighed in a 45.6 pounder just before 7:00 Saturday evening. However, according to Chamber of Commerce officials, Vick decided to withdraw his fish from the derby. He was fishing on a commercial vessel and forgot to cut the dorsal fin from his king salmon after landing it. That’s a state regulation and a local derby rule, designed to stop anyone sport fishing on a commercial boat from selling their catch.
In total, angers brought in 431 kings on the weekend, only seven fewer than last year. Neither the 10-thousand nor the five-thousand dollar tagged fish were caught.
So the new leaderboard has Swainson taking the first prize, Brian Doyle wins the $3,500 cash prize for his 43.2 pound Chinook weighed in at 10:36 Monday morning. Larry Peterson takes the third place prize of $2,750 dollars for a 42 pounder weighed in just before 4 o’clock Monday afternoon. The winner, Swainson, says she was just happy to be on the leaderboard. Joe Viechnicki talked with her about catching the winning king.