Sports

Airman's persistence pays off with early Ship Creek king

Christopher Pouncey was rewarded for his fishing fanaticism on Friday night with the first confirmed king salmon caught at Ship Creek.

He wasn't alone.

Within an hour after Pouncey pulled in his shiny, 18-pound salmon the airman from Anchorage said fishing had begun to heat up at the downtown fishing hole.

"There's been three more caught right after I caught this one," he said.

Pouncey said he fishes at Ship Creek as often as five times a week during the summer, typically trying his luck after work at nearby Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. He was fishing the incoming tide Friday evening just below the pedestrian footbridge. As the tide neared slack, he said he felt a strike on his Spin-n-Glo lure baited with cured salmon roe.

"It put up a pretty good fight," said Pouncey, who noted he caught the fish around 9 p.m. using a lightweight salmon rod.

Dustin Slinker, who operates the streamside Bait Shack tackle shop told Alaska Dispatch News that Pouncey's was the first king catch he's heard of.

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According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, there have been rumors of earlier kings caught this year, but nothing that's been confirmed.

Pouncey said he's been a regular at Ship Creek for about a decade. He said there were only a handful of die-hard anglers who fishing on Friday evening.

"There wasn't many of us down there," he said.

That might not be the case on Saturday now that Pouncey's fish story has been told.

Alaska Dispatch News reporter Sean Doogan contributed to this report.

Matt Tunseth

Matt Tunseth is a former reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and former editor of the Alaska Star.

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