Anchorage Daily News

Two years in the making, George Wambold's perfect summer was topped with a whale of a Kenai king salmon.

Only a day before the July 31 end of the season on the state's most popular salmon stream, Alaska Department of Fish and Game officials say Wambold landed the biggest Kenai king registered with the state trophy fish program this year. It weighed 72 3/4 pounds.

It had a girth of 32-inches, Wambold added, about the waist-size for a pair of pants for your average American male before the obesity epidemic hit.

An angler most of his life, Wambold had never seen such a fish.

"It looked the size of an alligator,'' he said.

The retired Pennsylvania steelworker could not have asked for more. He credited good luck.

"I'd rather be lucky than good,'' he added.

And was he ever lucky. He hit the jackpot with his first king on his first try on his first visit to the 49th state.

"This is the first time I was even in Alaska,'' he said be telephone from the comfort of his motor home on Wednesday. He and lady friend Arlene Sterner were still hanging out on the Kenai Peninsula where they've been sightseeing and fishing for weeks. "That was the first I ever fished for them (kings). That's what you call beginner's lucky.''

"This is the most perfect vacation we've ever had in our lives,'' added Sterner.

The couple wanted to visit the 49th state while fit enough to partake of the Alaska's fishing and scenic beauties, Wambold said. In May, they bought a motorhome and aimed it north across Canada determined to see Alaska "B4UDIE,'' as the state advertised several years ago .

"I'm going to be 70 years old in another month or two,'' Wambold said. "We planned for years on coming up here, and all I heard about was these king salmon.''

He finally hooked into one about 9:30 a.m. on July 30. He'd been out on the river since 6 a.m. with a boatload of anglers under the guidance of Mike Hopley of Alaska Adventure charters.

One of the other anglers had hooked and landed a fish around 6:15 a.m., "right after it (the guided fishery) opened,'' Wambold said.

Then things went quiet. The anglers spent hours drifting downriver waiting for salmon to grab the sacks of salmon eggs on the ends of their lines.

Wambold said that when he saw a fish hit his line he knew it was something way bigger than the bass and walleyes he catches back home, bigger even than the salmon he has pursued in New York state.

"When this one took it,'' Wambold said, "the pole bended, and it stayed bended.''

Then the drag on the reel starting screaming as the fish ripped off line even though it was going upriver against the rip-roaring Kenai current.

"When they can do that,'' Wambold said, "you know that's a big fish.''

Hopley skillfully gave chase with the boat, the angler said. And they got their net up to let everyone know they had a fish on.

"People were so nice,'' said Sterner who was on the boat with Wambold. Everywhere, boat loads of anglers scrambled to get out of the way so Wambold had room to play the big fish.

For 15 or 20 minutes, the two battled, Wambold pumping and reeling to recover line, the fish giving a little here only to make another run there. Eventually, it all ended at the side of the boat with one, quick sweep of the net by Hopley.

"Mike is absolutely outstanding,'' said Sterner. Other anglers on the river gave him and Wambold an ovation, she added:

"They were giving thumbs up. They were cheering. Everything. That was a beautiful thing to see. Alaskans are so nice. This has just been a thrill for us.''

More so for Wambold now. On an earlier halibut charter, Sterner had landed the biggest fish on the boat -- a 58 pounder.

"I told her, 'I've got to get a bigger one than you,' '' Wambold said, though he didn't really expect the bigger one to come in the shape of a world-class salmon.

"This puts the icing on the cake,'' he said.

On Wednesday, the couple were planning to spend some more time on the Kenai Peninsula, then point that motorhome north for Denali National Park and Preserve before heading on to Fairbanks and eventually back on down the Alaska Highway through Canada to the rest of America.

"The long journey home,'' Wambold called it.

"It was a long drive,'' the lucky angler said, "but it was worth every mile. This has got everything beat.''

Unfortunately, king fishing -- aside for some feeders in saltwater -- is largely done for the year in Alaska, but the silver salmon action is just starting to pick up.

Those fish don't go as big as kings, but some push 20 pounds and pound for pound are rated the hardest fighting salmon in Alaska.

Find Craig Medred online at adn.com/contact/cmedred or call 257-4588.

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