Soo crew sweats out last couple of hours before winning top prize
by Peter Jakey Managing Editor Casey acLaren and Chuck Norton of Sault Ste. Marie had an idea that that the 21.35-pound Chinook salmon that was caught during the 20th annual Rogers City Salmon Tournament had a chance to bring in some big prize money. MacLaren reeled in the salmon Saturday during a spurt in which the two-man team caught three fish. Other than that, there wasn?t much biting that day.
?We knew that was a pretty good fish, the way fish had been running,? said MacLaren. ?Anything can happen.? The anxiety of being on top of the leader board and hoping no other teams bring in a bigger fish can be as grueling as getting tossed around by waves on Lake Huron. MacLaren and Norton waited, and probably thought the money was as good as theirs in the final hours of the tournament, but had a bit of a scare when a group of Alpena fishermen on the boat ?Wild Bill? brought in their cooler near weigh-in deadline.
MIKE AVERY, who was the emcee for the event, acknowledged that there was one good fish in the cooler and asked crew members from the boat to guess the weight. One of them said, ?about 17 pounds.? It ended up being 19.80 pounds, which was good for second place on the leader board, but still a few pounds lighter than the overall winner of the tournament. ?We just happened to hook the one that counted, had a little belly to him,? said captain Chuck Norton. The winning weight this year would have been good for third in 2004.
The team won $4,800 from the tournament and an extra $1,000 from the Rogers City Travelers and Visitors Bureau. The group of motel and resort owners pledged to give an extra $1,000 to the winner if he or she was staying at one of their establishments. Norton and MacLaren were staying at the North Star Motel. ?We come down and enjoy the week,? said Norton. ?We had a pretty good time. We like co
THE SALMON numbers were light, continuing a downward trend of the past couple of years, and so were the number of boats and participants. There were 130 boats and 419 registered anglers. Just five years ago, there were 360 boats and 1,225 fishermen taking part. Last year there were 195 boats and 662 entries. The poor fishing conditions have been a major contributing factor to the steady decline in the number of participants.
The Department of Natural Resources has been studying the