The Homer Chamber of Commerce and the Winter King Salmon Tournament Committee are very pleased to announce that the 30th Annual Homer Winter King Salmon Tournament will be held on Saturday, March 23, 2024.
“A lot of people wanted to go back to its traditional March time frame and so we did that last year and that’ll continue on going forward for the foreseeable future in in March,” said Homer Chamber of Commerce Executive Director, Brad Anderson.
Anderson said it was moved to April in 2021 due to COVID concerns and again for 2022 based on that record-breaking success. However, last year it was moved back to March to keep with the original tradition and to avoid conflicts with fishing restrictions that take place starting April 1st.
“We didn’t do it in 2020 so it had to be delayed to 21 and in in the in 21 we had we pushed it into April at the middle part of April. The goal was to try to get to the vaccine out a little bit more so people were comfortable going out into large events but but being this is all outdoors. We have a big event area we moved it to so but we had the largest response ever to that.”
For the March 2024 Tournament, the Chamber announced that it will also have new procedures in place for making weather delay decisions.
Homer’s large harbor and the beautiful ocean waters of Kachemak Bay make this the ideal setting to fish for these prized fish and have the chance to win thousands of dollars in prize money.
“We’ve been doing this for 30 years now and it’s now become the largest fishing terminal on the West Coast. So we we do this right before the the big fishing season kicks off as a way for locals and those in Alaska to celebrate getting through winter and kind of breaking out and go fishing once again. So we’re really excited about doing this and give people a chance to go out and do some winter king fishing at Kachemak Bay,” said Anderson.
The 2023 tournament handed out over $132,000 in cash prizes plus over $31,000 more in merchandise prizes and drawings.
The 2023 champion was Gail Bilyeu with a fish weighing 26.12 pounds earning him $62,036 in total cash prizes including the team’s side tournament winnings.
Follow all the tournament news on the event website HomerWinterKing.com or the Homer Chamber’s website at HomerAlaska.org.