Grant Ferris
Grey/Bruce Outdoors

The big circus tent that served as derby headquarters came down yesterday. It was just one more chore for some of the 300 volunteers who made this year’s Owen Sound Salmon derby live up to the “Spectacular” name it earned for the 14th time.

A lot of water has passed over the Mill Dam since that first derby in 1988 and a lot of salmon as well. Once again visitors came from miles, even hundreds of miles away to attend the event. Others, wanting to sample the best that our area has to offer, included the big derby in their traveling schedule. Oleg Schmagunov attended the fish fry last Saturday night and will have an interesting conservation piece for his friends when he returns to Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia. Derrel Hewitt came for the whole derby and enjoyed taking photographs of events to show his wife and friends back in Clackamas, Oregon.

The ten derby days seemed to blur together for some of the Sydenham Sportsmen’s Association members, ten days and ten nights of old and new faces, great musical entertainment, fish frys and entertainment for kids. Except for hard chores and leftover prizes, the derby is over… but only for this year. Soon, in fact very soon, the derby committee under Chairs John Ford and Fred Geberdt will begin meeting again. It’s almost time to begin the year-long planning process that will result in the 15th Annual Owen Sound Salmon Spectacular for 2002. 

The Salmon Spectacular prize structure is unique among derbies, it can be described as ten mini-derbies rolled into one. Every day there are ten prize winners for the heaviest salmon weighed in and one prize for the heaviest trout. Every day of the ten days there are ten salmon winners and one trout winner but unlike other derbies, there isn’t a final top ten or top twenty-five record prize list. Only the single very largest in each class receive anything other than the prizes they won on their day of entry. The final tally of salmon prizes issued is ten times ten days for 100 plus ten trout prize packages and then the single largest from each class qualify for further prizes. Both have special mounts made using their fish as models by Advance Taxidermy and the grand salmon winner moves on to receive the grand derby prize. 
 

On Sunday the final fish entry by Maria Sojak of Wardsville took place just before the 1:00 pm derby close. At about 4:00 pm derby chair Fred Geberdt and Gary Byers began to call out names for prize awards. 

SSA president Richard Manley , Salmon Spectacular Grand Prize Winner Mike Murphy from Chesley and Molson's Ontario representative Greg Barbour with Murphy's winning prize boat and the fish that won it for him.

Trout winner Joe Cosgrove is also a Chesley resident and by a stretch of fate is a fishing buddy of the grand prize winner. Cosgrove caught a 15.47 pound lake trout on a Lyman lure on the first day of the derby; his prize package included a Coleman canoe. 

From the approximately 5000 derby ticket entries, the one purchased by John Tozer from RR#1 Lion’s Head was drawn giving the lucky angler a 14 foot Princecraft boat, 8 hp motor and Princecraft trailer. 

The special Salmon Spectacular draw boat prize of a 17.5 foot Princecraft boat, 75 HP Yamaha motor and Princecraft trailer was won by Donna Bevan of RR#1 Wiarton who made a special trip to derby headquarters to pick up her ticket just in time to win.

When the last of the prizes were either awarded or stored and the tent emptied of everyone but the unpaid volunteers, Sue-Anne Geberdt, a volunteer from Goderich, explained that a successful derby “gives its own special reward, you know you helped the club (SSA) and all of its conservation projects.”