Tales of the Salmon Seekers

Aug. 21, 2011

Tales of the Salmon Seekers: Champion fisherman Scott Alpers fought his way back from injuries

By Patrick Sullivan

If the best fish stories are about the one that got away, charter boat
Captain Scott Alpers has a story four times better.
One year during the Salmon Classic, an annual salmon fishing contest on
Grand Traverse Bay, Alpers and his crew wound up with a bunch of fish
hooked all at once early in the tournament.
Things looked good aboard his boat, the Big Kahuna. Until they got too
hectic.
His crew of four guys had six lines down and five fish on. They had their
hands full.
They landed two of the fish which they kept in nets as they struggled to
keep the boat out of the way of other traffic, Alpers said.
There was just too much going on at once to keep track of everything.
“It was just a mess because the fish were running back and forth across
the boat,” Alpers said.
Two fish were lost when their lines were cut by downrigger wires.
Then there was more bad news.
“The two that were in the nets -- we didn’t even notice it, they jumped
out of the nets,” Alpers said.
Out of the five fish that had been hooked, the crew wound up with one fish.
“Too much is not always good,” he said. “That’s one thing about fishing
that you learn -- sometimes you run too many lines.”
But for fishermen like Alpers, that’s what the Salmon Classic is all
about: one big adrenaline rush.

BACK FROM A CRASH
Alpers is lucky to be fishing at all. A bad car crash in March of 2008
could have taken his life.
Alpers, 52, said he was stopped at a light waiting for oncoming traffic to
pass so he could make a left turn, when a car came from behind at full
speed and slammed into his vehicle.
His life has not been the same since and he has trouble getting out on the
water to fish nowadays.
He says he can’t go fishing on Lake Michigan anymore because the pounding
waves irritate his back and neck. Alpers hopes another surgery this winter
will improve his condition. In the meantime, his crew does the charters
now.
That hasn’t kept him from his favorite tournaments, though.
He couldn’t do the first tournament that spring after the crash, but he
was able to get out that year for the Salmon Classic. In fact, he’s never
missed one since 1991, the first year of the tournament.
“Even the year of the car accident, I did go out with the guys, but it was
pretty much dead calm that year,” Alpers said.
Over the years he has won the pro division five times, including in 2009.
And he plans to be out there again this year on his 10-meter Trojan
charter boat.
The Salmon Classic, hosted by the Grand Traverse Area Sport Fishing
Association, takes place Sept. 2 through 4 and first prize in the “main
event” is $5,000. There are other prizes, including for the overall
largest fish caught during the tournament.

ONE LAST FISH
Fishing is about a long list of things that you can control and a
shorter list of things you can’t, Alpers said. Things under the
fisherman’s control include the depth where the bait is set, the speed
of the troll, the location where you fish and the number of lines used.
What you can’t control is whether the fish will bite.
“It’s getting them on the hook. That’s what I enjoy,” Alpers said.
Alpers said his favorite thing about a tournament is getting that last
fish on the line in the closing seconds before time is called.
“I guess it’s catching that last fish when they call five minutes left,”
he said. “We’ve done that two or three times. I mean, the adrenaline
flows.”
It can take 40 minutes or more to land a large salmon. In the final
minutes of a tournament, a team might need to bring it into the boat in
five or ten. When a last-minute catch is on, the crew pulls all of the
other lines and throws the boat into reverse to speed things up, things
fishermen wouldn’t do in ordinary conditions, Alpers said.
“That’s when the time gets really critical, when you’ve got a 20-pound
fish on and he may not want to come in right away,” he said.
Another feature of the Salmon Classic is that so many boats crowd around
the hole in the bay near the mouth of the Boardman River.
That’s where conventional wisdom says people will find the most fish, but
Alpers doesn’t believe that’s always true.
“We’ve won the tournament going up along the shore, just staying out of
that mess,” Alpers said.

AMATEUR FUN
Marty Ross won the amateur division in last year’s tournament.
For Ross, the tournament was a family affair. He just enjoys being out on
the water with his wife, son, daughter and son-in-law on his 22-foot
Pro-Line, Against the Flow.
“We do it for the fun of it,” said Ross, who is a construction
superintendent for Grand Traverse Construction. “Win or lose, we’re going
to enjoy this.”
Ross has been salmon fishing since the mid 1990s and he’s only entered in
a few tournaments. Before last year he entered as a crew member on a
friend’s charter a couple of times.
During last year’s Salmon Classic, the fishing time got cut from two days
to one day due to rough seas.
Fishing that Sunday, Ross said he thought he had trouble landing the limit
for the day, six fish, and he wasn’t too impressed with his catch as he
drove back to shore.
“We had a slow start, we didn’t have anything... for two hours or so,”
Ross said. “It wasn’t a pretty box; it wasn’t a really heavy one as
competitions go.”
Turns out everyone else on the water had trouble that day and when the
score was tallied Ross and his family had the most points. Boats earn
points for the number of fish caught and the weight of the catch.
Ross got into the tournament last year because he and his family had won
the Wednesday night fishing league the year before. Part of that prize was
a free entry into the Salmon Classic.
“Everything kind of worked in our favor,” he said. “We didn’t have to pay
to get in it and we ended up taking their money, so it was fun.”
Ross said he hadn’t decided whether he’s going to enter this year’s
tournament because the rules have changed and now amateurs and pros
compete head-to-head. There is a division for amateurs, but they must
enter with boats shorter than 17 feet.

WOMEN WELCOME
Salmon fishing is not exclusively a men’s sport.
There’s been a women’s division in the Salmon Classic for several years.
“That’s something that is not uncommon,” said Ryan Matuzak, president of
the GTASFA. “I would say that it’s something that is growing in
popularity.”
Women also compete as crew members in the other divisions, including in
the pro division, he said.
Women are also frequently found on charter trips. They have their own
tournaments.
“It used to be that wives never went. Well, now all these tournaments, the
tournament trail, they call it, have put in women’s tournaments,” Alpers
said.
“Women have a great time on charters, too. They’re hesitant to come out
with their husbands, but once they come out, they have a great time.”
For more information or to register, go to gtasfa.com.