Small Winning Fish In Seward Silver Salmon Derby

As the Anchorage Daily News reports, the winning coho was only small in size, not small in prize money for the winner, Anhcorage’s David Frenier:

Frenier, a 67-year-old from Anchorage, earned the $10,000 first-place prize for reeling in a silver nearly 1.5 pounds lighter than the previous smallest derby winner.

He landed his 13.61-pound silver Thursday while fishing the south end of Montague Island with Aurora Charters. It was the biggest of the 18 silvers caught that day by members of his fishing party, and it turned out to be the biggest of the nine-day derby.

Until this year, no coho weighing less than 15 pounds had won the derby. The previous smallest winner was a 15.01-pound fish caught in 1958; the biggest was a 22.24-pounder caught in 2002.