Weary Bendix cashes in at Salmon-A-Rama

BY PETER JACKEL, Journal Times, July 22, 2002

RACINE - About all Charles Bendix was aware of as time dwindled away was that it was Sunday morning. Oh yeah. And that the summer heat was absolutely insufferable.

As far as times, dates and other details, forget it. Just about everything that filtered through the 29-year-old Racine man's mind this last week was lost in a giant void as he focused on winning the 28th annual Salmon-A-Rama fishing contest.

Catching the 32.68-pound chinook salmon off Port Washington last Thursday morning that gave him the overall tournament lead wasn't enough. Bendix was going to maintain a full-court press on Lake Michigan until the contest officially ended at 11 a.m. Sunday and if that meant three hours of sleep a night, so be it.

"I was so tired, I would go home and eat dinner and then I would fall asleep before I would eat dinner,'' Bendix said. "That's how tired I was. But this is Salmon-A-Rama. If you want it to pay off, you've got to put in the time. You're not going to win with your lures out of the water.''

Bendix never did manage to top his Port Washington catch, but he didn't have to. Despite a last-minute scare from 1999 overall champion Henry Tilidetzke, who at 10:15 a.m. weighed in a 29.80-pound chinook his wife, Carmen, caught off Port Washington earlier Sunday, Bendix hung on to win the $10,000 grand prize.

Possibly because of his constant fatigue during the week of SAR, Bendix insists he never got caught up in the pressure of hanging on and winning the $10,000 prize. Even as the final 15 minutes of the contest wore down, Bendix spoke matter-of-factly on a bench a few feet from the weigh-in tent, oblivious to the last-second turmoil.

And then the clock struck 11 a.m. and Bendix emerged from his shell.

"Oh man, this is the best moment of my life, to be sure,'' said a relieved Bendix, a detailer for Buff 'N' Shine. "I've been waiting for this for a long time. I'm shocked. It'll take a minute to settle in. I'm definitely a lot relieved, that's for sure.''

As for his $10,000 prize, that was the same amount he paid last month for his 23-foot 1988 Chris Craft boat, which he renamed "Hook 'N' Lunkers." Since the boat is already paid for, what plans does he have for the money?

"I'll spend some and have a good time, but I'm probably going to save most of it for a down payment on a house,'' Bendix said.

As for West Bend's Tilidetzke, he came within just a few pounds of becoming SAR's first two-time overall champion. After helping his wife land the fish, Tilidetzke knew it fell short of taking the lead when he weighed it in at slightly more than 29 pounds.

"But scales can be off just a little bit, so I said, 'Let's get it on ice and get it down there,' " Tilidetzke said.

Less than three hours after he and his wife landed the fish, the official SAR scale confirmed what Tilidetzke already knew.

"It would have meant a lot to us just for the status of taking it two years, that I'm not a one-year wonder,'' Tilidetzke said. "I wish it would have been a few pounds heavier, but it's still a nice fish.''

Meanwhile, Ivan Stross, who appears to have mastered on-shore Lake Michigan fishing as comprehensively as the late Ted Williams mastered the art of hitting a baseball, was at it again. The 33-year-old Milwaukee man, a fixture on the SAR leaderboard since he began competing in the tournament as a teenager in the mid-1980s, held on to win his second on-shore championship with the 26.86-pound chinook he caught near Two Rivers last Wednesday afternoon. He also won the brown trout division with his 13.22-pound catch.

The updated scorecard on Stross now reads this way: In what he estimates to be 18 years of fishing in the SAR, he has placed first in the on-shore division twice and also has a second-, third- and fifth-place to his credit. He also has five on-shore division championships and one off-shore division title.

Just what is this man's secret?

"First of all, I have more experience than anybody's who's really fished this tournament onshore and, second, I do a lot of pre-scouting, going up and down the lake trying to find where I'm going to fish,'' said Stross, a machinist for Lucas-Milhaupt Manufacturing in Cudahy. "I know all the spots I want to fish and I just won't give up.

"Now, this year, I did something a little different. Normally, I'll stay in one spot and fish night and day, night and day. This year, I just figured out a pattern and sort of made sure I was fishing when I had to. And I didn't miss that pattern. The fishing got slow, but I always fished at that same time, even if I didn't catch anything.''

What's perhaps most remarkable about Stross' persistence is there was little payoff for him other than the gratification of finishing on top. The on-shore champion's prize is a Lund boat, EZ-Loader trailer and Yamaha outboard engine, which, given Stross' preference for on-shore fishing, is about as useful to him as an umbrella in the Sahara desert.

"This contest isn't about money to me, OK?'' he said. "This contest isn't about the prizes or the money. It's a tradition with me. I grew up doing this. This is a very meaningful contest to me. Whether I get anything out of it, it doesn't matter. I just want to win this contest.''

So what is he going to do with the second boat-motor-trailer package he's won from SAR in the last eight years? Good question.

"I don't know,'' he said. "I don't want it. I might sell it to my sister for not that much. This is the third contest I've won this year, so I'll have to consult a tax attorney or something.''

Other on-shore winners were Racine's Michael Prossik (4.06-pound coho salmon) and Union Grove's Joseph Day (14.96-pound rainbow trout). On-shore winners receive a 8-horsepower Yahama outboard motor, donated by Yamaha Marine.

Joining Bendix as off-shore division winners were Pewaukee's Ben Peterson (9.18-pound coho salmon), Milwaukee's Roger Hanson (20.4-pound rainbow trout), Wind Lake's Dean Pogorzelski (27.36-pound brown trout) and Kenosha's Jeff Zalewski (31.06-pound lake trout). Each receives a 15-horsepower Yahama outboard motor donated by Yamaha Marine.

The youth division winner was Sturtevant's Wesly Boettcher, who won a $1,000 savings bond (at maturity) for his 25.76-pound chinook.