Third and first place winners in the Fifth Annual Slammin' Salmon Derby in Hessel Saturday, August 19 include (from left) Ryan Wilson of Cedarville with his third place, 19.68-pound salmon, and Stan Kownacki and Gary Koben, with the first place, 21.06-pound fish. Gary Koben Sr. of St. Martin's Point, Hessel, caught the largest fish in four years of the Islander Bar's Slammin' Salmon Derby, hauling in a 21.06-pound Chinook to win the contest Saturday, August 19. He said he caught the fish around 8:15 a.m. west of Goose Island near Hessel, using a fly and fish attractor bait. They lost at least two fish before catching one, Mr. Koben said, and his fishing partner, Stan Kownacki, also of St. Martin's, said, "It was a group effort, but it was Gary's fish."

Mr. Koben won the $1,000 first place prize and will have his fish mounted by Matt Winberg, an employee of the Islander who has a taxidermy shop in Pickford and donated his services to support the tournament.

Mr. Kownacki won the raffle drawing for a pendant that bears the tournament's Slammin' Salmon logo.

Bucking a trend of lighter, leaner salmon caught over the past three years, all of the top seven fish weighed more than 16 pounds. By comparison, last year's first place fish, caught by Joe Lavender, weighed 16.28 pounds.

Dick Lindstrom of Chippewa Lake (left) and Dave Newth of Cadillac hold the second place fish in the Islander's Slammin' Salmon Derby, a 20.74-pound Chinook. The second place winner of $550 was a 20.74-pound salmon caught by Dick Lindstom of Chippewa Lake and Dave Newth of Cadillac. Ryan Wilson of

Cedarville, on the Aaron Burrows boat, won $450 for catching the third place salmon, weighing in at 19.68 pounds. The fourth place salmon, weighing 19.38 pounds, won $350 for David Altmaier of Cedarville. Kris Arnold of Wayland received $250 for the fifth place fish, which weighed 18.44 pounds. Norm Perkins of Cedarville won the $100 sixth place prize for a 17.76-pound salmon. The seventh place award of $100 went to Jeff Edgerly of Carp Lake for a 16.62-pound fish.

Phil Lavender of Topinabee won $500 for the largest total weight of all the fish caught by participants on his boat. The combined total of six fish weighed in at 66.94 pounds.

Organizer Donna Olmstead said the 70 fish caught in the tournament this year weighed 666.38 pounds, an average of about 9.5 pounds each, whereas last year, 89 salmon entered in the tournament weighed 578.10 pounds, about 6.5 pounds each.

Thirty six boats were entered in this year's event.

Next year's Slammin' Salmon tournament will be Saturday, August 18.

Total weights of fish caught and weighed from other boats include: Norm Perkins 51.66 pounds; Kris Arnold 51.58 pounds; Gary Koben 50.98 pounds; Pete Redmond 45.94 pounds; Jimbo Brown 43.50; Doug Blaskowski 40.76; Harold Glauch 38.86; Dick Lindstrom 35.76; Trent Miller 29.66; Brian Hilgendorf 28.86; Bill Mudloff 27.74; Hallums 27.00; Gene Ratcliffe 24.02; David Altmaier 23.68; Mark Merchberger 21.62; Bill Knaffle 21.32; Aaron Burrows 19.68, and Jeff Edgerly 16.62. One to six salmon were caught per boat.