Last summer was the 49th anual Salmon Derby. There are a few thousand people who fish it every year. You turn in all the coho (silver) salmon and King Salmon that you catch. All those fish that get turned in go towards 4 college scholerships. To be able to get one of these scholerships highschool students will right an essay and then they pick the top 4. When you add up all the total fish they are worth a around 10,000 dollars. This is then divided out amung thouse 4 students. To win the Salmon durby you have to catch the biggest fish. And when there are thousands of people competing thats pretty hard. They give out 47 prizes for the top 47 biggest fish. First prize is 10,000 dollars, second is a 2 way trip anywhere alaska Airlines flies, and there are many great prizes. The 46th and 47th placed fish still even get 1500 dollars worth of prizes. So if you place thats still pretty good.
This was the biggest salmon I cought in the derby and I got 7th place. It almost weighed 30 pounds!!! I got a few thousand dollars worth of money from that. Me and my 2 friends got a total of about 20 salmon over the derby weekend. They got 42nd and 16th which is still really good. My boss let me go out in the gillnet boat that i commercial fish in. We would dock up at night at a place called taku lodge. It is about an hour boat ride from my hometown of Juneau.