A heavy mist fell on Unalaska’s 4th of July festivities this weekend, but the weather was fine for fishing. As KUCB's Lauren Rosenthal reports, a group of anglers spent this holiday searching for a monster halibut -- and a big payoff.

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If you want to know what it feels like to pull in a prize-winning halibut, it goes something like this:

[sound of slapping fish and cheering: "Damn!"]

That’s the sound of the winning team in Unalaska’s halibut derby this weekend. We’ll get to the winners. But first, some background: Derbies are an old tradition in Unalaska. It goes back to the days when you could catch a record-breaking halibut right outside town.

But longtime resident Roger Bacon says it’s not the same now.

Bacon: "You have to go quite a ways to get the big ones anymore."

That’s the challenge that Bacon and three-dozen other fishermen signed up for this Independence Day. Working in teams, they had a day to catch the biggest halibut they could find.

The winner would get $1000, donated by a local company called Pacific Stevedoring.

Dat Dao works for them. Usually that means scanning and loading boxes of frozen fish. For the 4th of July, though, he was on derby duty.

Dao: "Just basically, weighing, scaling the halibut that comes in. That’s pretty much it."

It’s a nice change of pace, Dao says. But halfway through the day, he was feeling a little underwhelmed.

Dao: "I want to see like a 400-pounder or something, something huge. Something big, big, you know."

He was still holding out hope when Cameron Fayron, Steve Mitz, and Bill Ammons arrived at the harbor with two halibut.

Bill Ammons drags the team’s skiff parallel to the dock while Dao fires up his forklift. Ammons lifts up the first halibut and slips a metal hook through its gills. He gives Dao the signal to start hauling the fish out of the skiff:

[sound of beeping]

Ammons: "Up, up, up, up, up, up! Up slow."

But the fish has other ideas. It starts beating itself against the chain.

[sound of rapping]

Ammons: "Knock it off."

The forklift reels the halibut all the way up, and the scale clicks on.

Ammons: "How much?"

Nick Cron: "23."

Ammons: "How about now? How about now?"

Bill Ammons pulls down on the halibut’s tail as hard as he can. Nick Cron, the official scorekeeper, watches the numbers whiz up the scale:

Cron: "You got it up to 65!"

Ammons: "Oh, whatever dude. Let’s try the next one!"

It’s not much better -- 26 pounds. But as Cron dutifully writes the results down on his clipboard, it becomes clear that this 26-pound halibut is good enough to get third place.

Cron: "Several boats, rightfully so, haven’t even bothered to come check in with their fish, because they either (A) didn’t catch something or (B) it was less than 20 pounds."

With just minutes left in the derby, a small crowd gathers at the harbor. And the winning boat returns to pick up their $1000 check. It’s this group.

[sound of yelling and cheering]

That’s 13-year-old Justin Perry, with his big brother, Unalaska police officer Sean Perry, and their friends –- police sergeant Roger Bacon and his son, Dawson Bacon.

Justin Perry is the one who caught the prize-winning fish early in the day. At 164 pounds and six feet long, the halibut was bigger than him.

Perry: "Well, I was sitting on the cooler and then I felt a tap and I hooked it. It was really heavy. I started bringing it down."

Justin Perry was only visiting his big brother this weekend. When he goes home to North Pole, part of the halibut’s coming along.

Perry: "We’re splitting it up, and I get to take some to my parents. And I’m hopefully going to get the tail set up."

LR: "Like on display?"

Perry: "Yeah."

As for the cash prize, Justin Perry said he’d be sharing a chunk with his brother, Sean Perry. After all, it was his boat they took out on the water this 4th of July.