The Olympic Peninsula Salmon Derby is just another reason why the Northwest Salmon Derby Series is so awesome. We broadcast the Outdoor Line live from the Harborside Inn on Saturday morning and then enjoyed three days of great blackmouth fishing in the waters surrounding Port Townsend. The Oly Pen Derby area is enormous and covers waters in Marine Areas 6, 9, and the banks in area 7. There's a LOT of water to fish in this derby.
Nelly and I definitely had our chances at money fish over the course of three days of fishing and unfortunately two really nice fish slipped the hook. Barbless hooks...what are ya gonna do. We hooked a lot of blackmouth and the two nice ones that got away, however, will get us to come back next year for more. Here's one that did hit the deck of Big Red though
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Team Lowrance cranking on a fish of their own in the derby. Here they are reeling in a nice blackmouth on day one
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The blackmouth are all weighed, logged, scanned, and scales are taken off of each fish for aging. Pretty cool to see all the data that is collected at all of the derby events
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I was lucky enough to have my wife Nicole show up with Ava for one night of the derby. Here's Ava with uncle's Tom and John in front of Sea Marine on Saturday
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Nelly and I decided to fish a reef complex today in hopes of banging a big one. We banged a nice fish alright...and it spit the hook damned near to the boat. Ug!
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And then I said make me a sammich Nelly
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Dan Tatum and the folks that put on this derby do an excellent job. They sold a total of 820 tickets for the event and the $60,000 Northwest Salmon Derby Series boat was even on hand at the awards ceremony today.
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None other than my old friend Jerry Thomas from Mt. Vernon took top honors in the Olympic Peninsula Salmon Derby with a 15.90 pound blackmouth that he hooked first thing in the morning on day one. Jerry and his buddies are fixtures at the derbies in the San Juans, but it was their first time fishing this derby. I'm guessing we'll see them again next year. Great job Jerry
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Lauren Selvig from my home town of Port Orchard represented nicely with a 14.80 pound blackmouth to grab second place. Way to go Lauren
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Fishing was not easy in this derby, but nonetheless there was still 351 fish weighed in. That's a LOT of blackmouth.
Here's a worthy sidenote...the last three derby winners have all been members of the Fidalgo/San Juan chapter of the Puget Sound Anglers. Mark Shinman won the Resurrection Derby in December, Pete Nelson won the Roche Harbor Derby two weeks ago, and Jerry Thomas just won the Oly Pen Salmon Derby. I'm calling the Collusion Hotline...somethings fishy here
We owe a huge thank you to derby chairman Dan Tatum for having the Outdoor Line at the event and for the Harborside Inn for putting us up...or more like putting up with us. Nelly and I are already talking about next years derby
Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 7:49 pm