The Homer Winter King Salmon Tournament will be occurring on March 21 at 8 a.m. The tournament is a one-day fishing event sponsored by the Homer Chamber of Commerce. It is the longest running winter king salmon tournament in Alaska. More than 700 anglers on average participate in the tournament every year.
The Homer Chamber calls the tournament “the premier fishing tournament of Alaska.” Every March, anglers take to the waters of Kachemak Bay in search of King Salmon. The one-day tournament awards tens of thousands of dollars in prize money to the largest kings caught. In 2019, over 1400 fisherman and 426 boats competed.
Brad Anderson, Executive Director of the Homer Chamber of Commerce: “This is our biggest event of the year! It’s actually the biggest fishing tournament in Alaska, so this is an opportunity to bring a lot of people down into Homer, enjoy some of the scenery and everything that our area has to experience, and then just have an incredible day out on the water. Shayna Perry was our big winner last year. That was her first time fishing in the tournament, and her fish was about 27 pounds, but it actually won in a few different categories, so she had almost $73,000 that she won for that one fish in the tournament. Needless to say, she and her group on her boat were very, very happy.”
He also elaborated on how folks can enter the tournament: “If they want to enter the event, you go to HomerWinterKing.com, or if you go to our Chamber’s website which is HomerAlaska.org, there will be links on there as well with more information about the event. This year, it’s $150 to enter. It’s a one-day tournament. After 24 years, we finally had to look at raising the price of the tournament – to put it on and keep the prize money the way it was, we had to look at finally doing an increase in the price.”
There are additional opportunities for the Tournaments Within a Tournament, prizes offered every hour of the tournament. After the fishing lines are pulled from the water, attendees can join the festivities at the weigh-in located at Coal Point on the Homer Spit. There will be music, food, beer, and lots of fish.
