When his alarm rang at 5 a.m. Sunday, Robert Hayes considered staying in bed and banking a few more hours of sleep.
Before slipping back into slumber, though, the Anchorage man remembered that he had paid $40 to enter the Slam'n Salm'n Derby at Ship Creek.
He remembered that Sunday was the last day of the derby. He remembered that, even though he's been fishing since May, he'd yet to bring home a salmon this year.
"At the last minute, I decided to go," Hayes said.
"I thought I could get lucky. And I did."
Luck struck around 6:30 a.m. Sunday -- less than nine hours before the end of the 10-day derby -- when Hayes hooked a 40.97-pound king salmon that made him the winner.
Hayes, 50, caught his winner on an incoming tide while fishing on the creek's north bank, between the C Street and railroad bridges.
His secret weapon: After getting skunked repeatedly while fishing with eggs as bait, Hayes switched to a blue super Vibrax. By the time the afternoon awards ceremony rolled around, Hayes was wearing the lure around his neck as if it were a precious jewel.
And in a way, it was: the lure helped Hayes reel in a boatload of prizes -- plus a boat to put them in. Among the prizes this year for the pro-division class was a 15-foot Klamath riverboat, a 25-horsepower, four-stroke Suzuki outboard engine and an EZ Loader.
"I'm gonna start the Ship Creek Yacht Club," Hayes said as he admired his new toy.
Hayes, a fire alarm technician for Guardian Security, topped a derby that was short on fish (only 120 kings were turned in) but long on entries -- about 1,100, according to derby director Marty Turnbow.
"That's by far our best ever, in spite of the slow fishing," Turnbow said.
In previous years, a trip to a swank fly-in fishing lodge was the big prize, and Turnbow thinks giving away a riverboat this year lured a number of anglers into upgrading from the $30 regular derby ticket to the $40 pro-class ticket.
That means more money for the Downtown Soup Kitchen, which relies on money raised in the derby to feed thousands of hungry people every year. Turnbow said the derby will bring in about $30,000 for the kitchen, or about 15 percent of its annual budget.
SPORTSMANSHIP AWARD
Besides rewarding the top three anglers in every category with a variety of gift certificates, cash and ulus, the derby unveiled a new award Sunday -- the Andy Sorensen Sportsmanship Award.
The award is named for Sorensen -- a fishing enthusiast and Ship Creek regular who died of a heart ailment this year at age 48 -- and it honors an act of integrity, sportsmanship or kindness witnessed during the derby. Nominations come from the anglers themselves.
Kirby Shurtz, 42, was named the inaugural winner Sunday for a feat that was not only sportsmanlike, but pretty skillful too.
Last week while fishing Ship Creek, Shurtz saw an elderly man fishing from the shore had hooked a fish but lost his rod and reel when the 30-pound fish took off with a jerk.
"Twenty bucks to the guy who gets my pole back!" the unlucky angler shouted to those fishing around him.
By then, Shurtz had already made one cast in an effort to retrieve the pole. He hit the rod, but didn't hook it. He tried again.
"All I got was the line," he said. "I reeled it in real easy and I grabbed the pole. A few minutes later, I got the fish."
Shurtz delivered the rod and fish to the man, and the man gave him $20. Shurtz spent it all at the derby shack, buying chips and sodas for the fishermen there -- a second act of sportsmanship, though it was the first one that earned him the award named after Sorensen and a $500 check.
In the days since, Shurtz has told the story over and over -- although unlike some fish stories, the fish hasn't grown in the telling. In other words, it's a fish story you can believe.
FATHER'S DAY PRESENT
As is the derby winner's story of almost sleeping through his triumphant day.
Hayes, who placed third in the 2004 king derby, said the thing that dragged him out of bed wasn't as much the vision of a riverboat as it was the vision of seeing a fish at the end of his line -- something he didn't see in five previous trips to Ship Creek during the derby.
"I thought, 'You joined the derby, you gotta do it' -- not just for the prize, but for the whole thing," said Hayes, who likes the derby because it supports the soup kitchen and because it keeps the Ship Creek fishery vital. "And I didn't have a fish on the (entry) board. I thought, just let me get a fish on the board."
After Hayes caught his fish and had it weighed at derby headquarters, he went home to take a shower and grab a nap. Before he returned downtown for the awards ceremony, his 18-year-old daughter Bruna and 17-year-old son Lucas presented him with his Father's Day present -- a T-shirt with a picture of Hayes posing with a fish printed on it, and a framed photo of Hayes with a fish.
Sweet, thoughtful gifts for the father who fishes. Soon to be overshadowed by a gleaming boat and motor, $1,500 in cash and $1,000 in gas.
"This is the best Father's Day ever," Hayes said.
Find Beth Bragg online at adn.com/contact/bbragg or call 257-4309.
