GARDINER — The 10th time is the charm for Sequim’s Rob Schmidt.
Schmidt, who has never placed a fish in the annual Olympic Peninsula Salmon Derby, formerly known as the Discovery Bay Salmon Derby, hooked the biggest blackmouth of the event early Monday morning.
The Sequim angler has been fishing the same derby, which wasn’t held last year, for at least the past 10 years without any luck.
But his luck grew about tenfold Monday when he landed an 18.9-pound blackmouth salmon for first place, taking home the top $10,000 prize.
He caught his prize-winner in Discovery Bay at daybreak Monday using a red flasher with white leader and a barbless blued hook.
“I’m going to Disneyland,” was Schmidt’s rehearshed answer about winning.
Actually, he is going to split the money fifty-fifty with his partner, Bill Davis — also of Sequim — who was his troller and netter in the boat.
“I’m happy, real shocked and I just can’t believe it,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt works for Quality In Counters of Port Angeles.
(See complete listing of top 50 anglers in Scoreboard, Page B2 of today’s editions.)
Dan Tatum, the president of the Gardiner Salmon Derby Association — which hosted this year’s event after a one-year absence — said this year’s derby was “a complete success and a great community effort.
“We’ll be back next year, bigger and better.”
There were 757 tickets sold for the three-day event, held Saturday through Monday during Presidents Day weekend.
A total of 248 salmon were officially weighed in.
There were anglers as far away as Spokane, Portland, Ore., and Santa Cruz, Calif.
