Article by Larry Budd
This Week Last Year
• The “Gret’s Three J’s” won the Big Fish category of the Big Fish Classic with a 436 lb. blue marlin caught in the Baltimore Canyon on the last day of the event. The “Pumpin’ Hard” took top honor in the White Marlin Division with a 76 lb. white from the Wilmington Canyon winning the Big Fish for a second time.
• The marlin bite remained fickle, however another billfish jumped onto the scene with a dozen swordfish catches reported.
• The tuna action was all about bigeyes, with over 20 making their way to the Big Fish Classic scales. 11 of those were over 200 lbs. The Washington Canyon was the clear winner for finding big eyeballs.
The week that was offered posed several challenges for offshore anglers. Weather is always a prime consideration after the bite, and by weather we mean wind, waves and frequency! While there were some mild weather days, the week closed with the canyons awash in 6-8 foot seas with wave frequency as tight as 5 seconds. Friday and Saturday were so bad that the tournament directors of the Big Fish Classic extended the event by a day offering anglers an additional 32 hour fishing window from Sunday to Monday. This is only the second time in the tournaments 10 year history that accommodations were needed to be made due to weather. It certainly made the difference as 68 of the 69 boats registered chose that window! This is also why you do not see the winner of the Big Fish on our cover this week as we send the paper to the printers on Monday! This is not to say there weren’t some great catches this week, but they were sporadic.
Tuna
The main action in the canyon remains tuna, and tilefish when the tunas aren’t biting. The week started strong with many boats getting out. The Poor Man’s Canyon and just south of it proved to be the best place to raise yellowfin tunas. The “Pescatore” reported landing 2 yellowfins while trolling there with a brown cedar plug and green sidetracker being the baits that got hit. The “Boss Hogg” found 3 yellowfin, some mahi and a bunch of tilefish. The “Game On” made two trips to the Poor Man’s last week doing well with dolphin on weed lines, but struggling to keep the tuna they hooked. While they did get some yellowfins in the box, most got sharked. The “Ro Sham Bo” had the best catch from that canyon bringing in an impressive 8 yellowfins to the Ocean City Fishing Center. While 8 is impressive, it was not the biggest tuna catch report we got last week. The charter boat “MARLI” hit the docks at Sunset Marina with owner Mike Bostic, Sr. aboard. He and the others in the 6 man crew caught 10 yellowfins at the Rockpile using Sterling Tackle Bars & Chains. The “Restless Lady II” had an overnight trip returning to the Talbot Street Pier midday with a first rate catch of 9 yellowfin tuna, 6 dolphins and 35 tilefish. They found this bounty in the Washington Canyon.
Speaking of the Washington, that was the spot for bigeye tunas. The “Reel Blessed” found another bigeye this season from there, this one was a 180 pounder that hit on a Nomad DTX and it took the crew 2.5 hours to get that one in the box. It was tuna master Capt. Chris Little on the “Talkin’ Trash” that probably had the biggest catch last week. He too trolled in the Washington Canyon. The crew reported a very slow start with no action for the first 5 and a half hours! That doldrum was shattered when they had 4 yellowfins hit at the same time. Once those were on ice, they re-rigged and had another 8-10 hookups, but lost them all to sharks. After the yellowfin bonanza they had another 4 rods go down, this time with bigeyes. They even had a 5th one hit as they were fighting the first 4, so the mate got on the line. Luckily for the anglers that one broke off so the mate could help them! After about 40 minutes they got all 4 in the boat. Once back at the Ocean City Fishing Center, the 4 eyeballs weighed 379 lb. all together. The yellowfins were in the 40-45 pound range. The action cooled mid week with a few reports from the Poor Man’s trickling in. Nick Gunther shared that he went out looking for inshore tuna at the lumps southeast of the Jack Spot and found little sea life at all and water surface temps up to 82°. Friday and Saturday saw everybody safe in the harbor. Of the 68 boats that headed out Sunday for the Big Fish, only one came to the scales. The “Morning Glory” out of Virginia Beach put a single 55 lb. yellowfin on the scale and is currently #1 across the tuna boards! That will of course change when the rest of the boats return Monday, but they will retain an $8,000 prize from the Daily Calcutta.
Billfish
This is our first issue for August and that means it is marlin tournament season! This year the White Marlin Open is celebrating its 50th Anniversary! What an amazing accomplishment to grow from Jim Motsko’s original concept in Ocean City to being the world’s largest and richest billfish tournament in the world. Look for lots of extra activities and information about the tournament’s history. We are even told that some of Jim’s photos will be on display at the Marlin Fest being held in the Ocean City Inlet Parking lot.
The WMO is surrounded by a string of billfish events. Just prior is the Ocean City Marlin Clubs “Heels and Reels”, and new for this year the “Marlins for Mason” billfish release tournament. After the WMO we have the Poor Girl’s Open and the week long MidAtlantic so we expect a lot more action over the next 4 weeks! Check out more details in our Upcoming Tournaments section each week.
As for billfish for last week, the charter boat the “Wrecker” started off with two releases over two days in the Baltimore Canyon on the 100 fathom line. Mike FitzGerald on the “Sea Laser” shared that he wanted to get his 10 year old son Mikey out and on a marlin before he went back to school. He did that and more, releasing 3 marlins, 2 whites and a blue on a custom embossed VI Lure. They found these south of the Poor Man’s. We have not heard directly of any others, but like last week captains have shared reports heard on the VHF and at the docks of a few others. I was at the scales for the Big Fish Classic on Sunday and we heard reports of white and blue marlin releases as well as some swordfish captures. We will have details on that next week!
Everything Else!
It has been good to see dolphin back in the catch mix, though not nearly as strong as in years past. Again, it was earlier last week that saw the best action with most being caught by captains targeting tuna. For example the “Boss Hogg” caught 9 on its tuna trip to the Poor Man’s. Others did have luck finding a few further inshore with the 19 Fathom Lump being a hot spot. The “Fare Cut” caught their first mahi there and the ‘”J-Crew” had a mix of dolphin and lessor amberjack at an ocean structure.
That sums it up for this week
So until next time I will see you at the scales! §
Upcoming Tournaments
• The weekend of August 4-6 will host two concurrent tournaments. The first will be a new event, the Marlins for Mason, a billfish catch and release tournament to benefit the Dravet Syndrome Foundation. More at MarlinsForMason.com.
The other is the Marlin Club’s 15th Annual Ladies’ Tournament - Heels & Reels on August 4 & 5. This always fun filled event benefits the Marlin Club Crew of OC Scholarship fund. Weigh-ins will be at Atlantic Tackle from 5:30 - 7:30PM. More at
OCMarlinClub.com/Tournaments.
• The big show of the summer is even bigger this year as the White Marlin Open is celebrating its 50th year! Expect the largest and richest billfish tournament to offer lots of additional activities at Harbor Island and the Marlin Fest at the Ocean City Inlet. The Marlin Fest is a great place to watch the boats coming back into the OC Inlet, view the weigh station action on the jumbo-tron and check out all the vendors. Scales are Monday thru Friday from 4PM – 9:15PM and on-line via the MarlinCam at
WhiteMarlinOpen.com/MarlinCam.
