newsminer.com

The Valdez silver salmon and halibut derbies ended on Sunday and there were no late entries that made any waves.

In fact, the biggest surprise may have been how small the winners in this year’s halibut derby turned out to be.

Jan VanderVaart of Anchorage captured the $15,000 first-place check with a 251.5-pound halibut he caught aboard a charter on Aug. 3.

It was the smallest halibut to win the derby since 2003, when Joe Prax of Valdez won first place with a 251-pound halibut.

The last four winners were all more than 300 pounds and VanderVaart’s fish was almost 100 pounds smaller than last year’s winner, a 340-pound caught by Jim Adams of North Pole.

Second place and $5,000 went to Lorena Jenkins of Valdez with a 244.2-pounder and David Gatch of Fairbanks brought home $2,000 for the 207.2-pounder he caught way back on June 9.

Derby weigh-in coordinator Bonnie Woods can’t remember when three fish that small remained on the halibut leader board for that long.

“The only three that were weighed in over 200 pounds stayed on the board, that has to be a first,” Woods said. “Last year there were like 13 over 200 pounds.”

In addition to being the derby weigh-in coordinator, Woods is also an annual contender in the derby. She finished third in last year’s derby with a 274.5-pounder and took third back in 2004 with a 258-pounder.

“Where were they this year?” lamented Woods.

It was VanderVaart’s first time halibut fishing. He was fishing with Dave Wiley aboard the Dan Orion.

“I’m afraid of the water,” VanderVaart said when he accepted his winning check at Spawn ‘til Dawn Derby award party on Sunday night in Valdez. “But my father-in-law made me go out.”

VanderVaart said the $15,000 check will come in handy with he and his wife expecting a child in six weeks.

While VanderVaart won the halibut derby with a “small” fish, Derek Werder of Valdez took home the $15,000 first-place check in the silver salmon derby by landing a derby-record 22.14-pound silver salmon on Aug. 23.

Werder’s fish was the largest caught in the silver derby dating back to 1976. The previous record was a 21.76-pounder caught by Albert Verrall of Palmer in 2002.

Werder told derby officials he planned to use his winnings “to take care of some bills.”

The $5,000 second-place check went to Tom Lane of Fairbanks, who caught a 19.12-pound silver on Aug. 17 while Charle McCay of Anchorage won $2,000 for her third-place silver weighing 18.96 pounds caught on Aug. 16.

Lane never got a call from derby officials telling him that he had held on to second place and didn’t find out until Monday when he returned from a day of moose hunting.

“I checked the Internet when I got home and found out,” said Lane, a 55-year-old aviation safety inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration in Fairbanks.

When he caught his fish with two weeks to go in the derby, Lane figured it would be too small to win and was just hoping to stay in the money.

“I’m not complaining,” Lane said. “I wasn’t holding my breath for first place.”

Lane said he will use some of the $5,000 he won to take his wife and fishing partner, Lisette, out to dinner and pay for the gas they used on the trip.

The rest will go into the bank to be used for a trip to Hawaii in two years for their 25th wedding anniversary, Lane said.