Sport: Paris Derby

At 5 o’clock one morning last week a bomb burst over Seattle’s water front. By the dawn’s early light, rowboats scurried into Elliott Bay. Some anchored. Others rowed around. For four hours, ferryboats plying between Seattle and Bremerton had to detour to avoid the milling fleet. It was the grand finale of the Ben Paris Salmon Derby, oldest and biggest of the Pacific Northwest’s latest sport craze.

It all started because bombastic Ben Paris, owner of Seattle’s biggest sporting-goods stores, thought he was selling far too few fishing rods. The commercial fishermen, he argued, were snaring the great silver horde before the fish had a chance to get into Puget Sound or the inland lakes and streams. “Give the salmon back to the sportsman!” he shouted — so loud and so long (and at the right people) that the State Legislature five years ago outlawed commercial salmon traps in Puget Sound.* That boosted the salmon derby Ben Paris had started, with the aid of the Seattle Star, five years before. Other derbies sprang up.

This year there have been at least 25 salmon derbies around Puget Sound — at Port Townsend, Port Angeles, Everett, one for high-school kids, one for Boeing Aircraft employes, one for Elks, one for those who have never qualified for any other derby. All spring and summer, Western Washingtonians combed the waters of the Sound, trying to land a salmon big enough to qualify them for one of the derby finals — and a chance to win an automobile or a whopping cash prize.

Last week the 535 men & women who had qualified for the Ben Paris-Seattle Star final rowed out into Elliott Bay. Japanese are barred (because they are too skillful). So are outboard motors. Contestants are permitted to troll (drag lure through the water) or spin (cast from anchored boat). In each boat is an “observer” supplied by a rival fisherman to prevent petty cheating.

While they milled around, thousands of spectators jampacked Gowdy’s Boathouse, the official weighing-in headquarters. The moment a fish was reeled in, contestants scurried to the boathouse (salmon weigh most when just out of water). There a radio announcer broadcast a weigh-by-weigh description of the catches. At 9 o’clock, when the all-in bomb went off, 75 salmon were lined up on the display table. Largest was a 27-lb., 5-oz. King, boated by a 19-year-old girl, Lily Torkellson of suburban Seattle.

Great was the cheering, for Lily Torkellson, who had never fingered a fishing rod until last spring, was the first woman to be crowned Champion Saltwater Fisherman of Puget Sound. After mumbling a few words over a nationwide radio hookup, Champion Torkellson drove away in a Deluxe De Soto sedan—followed by four lesser prizewinners, all driving De Soto sedans.

— Not outlawed were the famed salmon traps on the Columbia River, farther south.