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Fairbanks fisherman Ryan Ensminger has caught bigger king salmon that put more meat in the freezer than the 32-pounder he caught Sunday in Homer, but none of them put more money in the bank.

Ensminger netted $11,102 for placing second in the annual Homer Winter King Salmon Tournament, the state’s richest fishing derby.

“It’s not the biggest one I’ve caught, but it’s definitely the most profitable one,” Ensminger, a 33-year-old heavy equipment operator at Pogo Gold Mine, said of the bright, shiny 32-pound chinook he reeled in.

In addition to a hefty check for second place, Ensminger and his fellow Fairbanks fishing mates — his father, Daryl Ensminger and friends Robert Standley and Cory Bodyfelt — earned another $19,950 in side bets that put their boat’s total winnings at $31,052.

“We’re pretty happy,” said Ryan Ensminger, adding that the plan is to divide the winnings equally among the four fishermen.

His fish was two pounds smaller than the winning king caught by John Forster of Ninilchik, who earned $16,653 for catching a 34-pound king.

Now in its 15th year, the Homer Winter King Salmon Tournament is the most lucrative fishing derby in the state. This year’s total cash payout was $107,250. A total of 793 anglers in 236 boats paid the $100 entry fee to enter the one-day tournament.

While the derby is popular with Southcentral anglers, few Fairbanksans make the long journey south to Homer for the derby. The Ensmingers planned to enter last year’s tournament until it was postponed for two weeks because of ice in Kachemak Bay.

“We were going to go last year but it was canceled for two weeks, and we didn’t make it with our work schedules so we ended up going this year,” said Ryan Ensminger.

It paid off, so to speak.

Only 94 fish were weighed in during the tournament, and Ensminger and crew caught two of them. In addition to Ensminger’s 32-pounder, Standley caught a 21.6-pound king to take 16th place, which earned him an overnight stay for two in a cabin on an island in Kachemak Bay.

Their boat, the Dirty Bird, was one of only two boats to put more than one angler in the top 20.

“We represented Fairbanks pretty good,” boat owner and captain Daryl Ensminger said. “I picked a good crew.”

Making their success even sweeter was the fact that the four Fairbanks anglers were fishing in Daryl Ensminger’s 20-foot Custom Weld river boat, which solicited chuckles from many of the locals when they pulled into Homer, said the elder Ensminger.

“We took my little river boat down there with an in-board jet and everybody was laughing at us,” said Daryl Ensminger, who works at Fort Knox gold mine with Bodyfelt and Standley. “We told them we either had a choice of the airboat or the river boat.”

Just getting to Homer turned out to be an adventure, he said. First, they had to dig the boat out of the snow in Fairbanks and outfit it with downriggers. The 10-hour drive south went fine until they passed Anchorage and hit a blizzard.

“It was 35 mph traveling the rest of the way,” said Daryl Ensminger. “We were celebrating just to have gotten there.”

This year’s derby was originally scheduled to be held Saturday but was postponed a day due to poor weather conditions. The four Fairbanks anglers scouted things out Friday and Saturday but didn’t catch a single fish.

The tournament started at 8 a.m. on Sunday, and Ryan Ensminger said he hooked his king about an hour into it using herring for bait on a downrigger trolling at about 60 feet.

Without a scale, the four anglers didn’t know how big the fish was but suspected it might be big enough to make the top 10.

“We were all taking guesses at it,” Ryan Ensminger said. "I was thinking closer to 25 (pounds).

“We thought it might be in the money,” he said. “We didn’t think it was as big as it was.”

They spent the rest of the day fishing and getting tossed around in their small river boat. Daryl Ensminger said it reminded him of the movie “Perfect Storm,” in which a crew on a fishing boat is caught in a horrific storm and finally succumbs to a massive wave.

“There was a couple (waves) coming at us that were twice as big as we were,” Daryl said.

Standley added, “It was ugly.”

When they arrived at the weigh-in station and Ryan Ensminger’s fish tipped the scales at 32 pounds, they knew they had a money fish. Still, they weren’t sure where it ranked until the weigh-in was over and they learned they had the second-biggest fish.

“We were pretty happy,” Ensminger said. “We did a little better than we thought.”

Their happiness turned to ecstasy when they found out they had won almost $20,000 in side bets for the big fish. The four anglers put down $1,500 in six different side bet categories that they would catch the biggest fish of anyone who bet in those categories. They won five of the six bets.

“That was a pretty good little payday,” Daryl Ensminger said. “Everything worked out pretty good.”

The four Fairbanks gold miners were so happy after they struck it rich that they decided to make a sizable contribution to a fund that goes to stocking the Homer Spit fishing lagoon with silver salmon smolt with part of their winnings.