Article by Larry Jock
Last week, fishing in Ocean City was dominated by The MidAtlantic tournament. This was the 24th year for the tournament with almost half of it including boats fishing out of Sunset Marina. It turned out to be a good move by tournament organizers with 80 of the 139 boats fishing out of Ocean City this year. It wasn’t such good a move for boats fishing out of Cape May, NJ since Ocean City boats won 85% of the $2.800,000 prize money. This is on top of the great performance last year when Ocean City boats won 8 of the 11 weight categories and the bulk of the money.
With 62 boats fishing out of Ocean City on Monday, the first day of the tournament, you had a feeling it was going to be an exciting day, and it was. The first boat to arrive at the scale was the “Espadon” with a 356 lb. blue marlin that just missed the qualifying weight of 400 lbs. but had the crowd buzzing nonetheless. Shortly behind the “Espadon” was the “Lady Luck” with a 65 lb. white marlin caught in the Baltimore Canyon on their lucky black-and-white Moldcraft plug. This fish hit the 65 lb. minimum weight and actually lead the tournament for quite a while. After a few dolphin hit the scales, the “Ringleader” showed up with a 543 lb. blue marlin that was caught in 1,000 fathoms outside the Washington Canyon. It was quite a day for anglers on the “Ringleader” because only 5 minutes after boating the 543 pounder, they released a blue marlin estimated at 300 lbs., a white marlin and a spearfish. This was going to be a tough fish to beat, but since it was only the first day of the tournament, there was plenty of time for boats to target big blue marlin.
The last 2 boats to arrive at the scale on Day 1 were the “No Problem” with Bob Farris’ 54 lb. wahoo that took the lead in the Wahoo Division followed by the “Canyon Runner” with a 199 lb. bigeye that took the lead by only 1 lb. over a bigeye caught in Cape May, NJ.
Only 37 boats fished on the second day of the tournament, but the weigh-ins started with a bang when the “Fish On” arrived at the scale with a 437 lb. blue marlin caught on a Pakula lure by Justin Tonks in the Poor Man’s Canyon. The blue marlin took over 2nd place in the tournament. The “Plane Simple” arrived a short time later with a 214 lb. bigeye tuna caught by Jim Jensen in the Lindenkohl Canyon. Surprisingly, we didn’t see many bigeyes weighed in the tournament and Jim’s catch ended up winning the Heaviest Tuna Division.
Day 3 saw 52 Ocean City boats bust the Inlet and the first to arrive at Sunset Marina was the “Makara” with a 118-inch, 566 lb. blue marlin caught while trolling at the south tip of the Norfolk Canyon. Angler/mate, Chip Matthews hooked the fish at 9:30 in the morning and fought it for 60 minutes before getting it in the boat. The big blue marlin ended the tournament in 1st place in the Heaviest Blue Marlin Division. The rest of Day 3 was dominated by white marlin, caught on the east or west walls of the Baltimore Canyon that hit the minimum length for the tournament, but did not hit the required 65 lb. minimum weight.
At the scales on Wednesday, there was much discussion about whether to hit the seas on Thursday or Friday, with most deciding to fish on the final day, leaving only 27 boats to fish out of Ocean City on Thursday resulting in a very slow day at the scales. The only qualifying fish weighed was the “Bar South” with a 38 lb. dolphin caught by Paul Spencer that ended the tournament in 1st place in the Dolphin Division.
The final day of The MidAtlantic is historically a very exciting day with big changes to the leaderboard and this year was no exception. The first boat to arrive at Sunset Marina was the “Texas Tea” with the eventual winning white marlin. The 77 pounder was caught in 70 fathoms just north of the Poor Man’s Canyon by 16 year old, Vincent Savino while trolling a Joe Yee lure. Right on the heels of the “Texas Tea” white marlin, J.J. Haugland on the “Lights Out” threw a 72 lb. white marlin on the scale that ended up in 2nd place, the same finish the “Lights Out” team had in this years White Marlin Open. The 74.25-inch fish was caught on a ballyhoo between the Poor Man’s and Washington Canyons (887 line). Although they didn’t have a fish that broke into the leaderboard, the “Intents” had a notable day with releases of 2 white marlin, 2 blue marlin and a sailfish in addition to the 45 lb. wahoo they threw on the scale. Finally, the “Goin’ In Deep” had the crowd on it’s feet when they pulled up to the dock with 6 bigeye tuna, ranging from 110 lbs. to 141 lbs. Capt. Walter Harmstead had his crew in 666 fathoms in the Poor Man’s Canyon when they hooked 4 of the eyeballs at 11:30 AM and the other 2 at 3:00 PM. They also released 2 white marlin during their trip.
Finally, big congratulations to Capt. Andy Helms, mates Sean Dooley and Ben Horning and anglers John Gudelsky and Ed Hoy on the local boat, “Reel Joy” for taking top honors for Most Overall Points (1,125) and Most Points White Marlin in the tournament by releasing 13 whites and 2 longbill spearfish during their 3 days of fishing.
Overall, this years MidAtlantic tournament was another success, with an increase in boats and prize money and a lot of smiling faces at the scales. Hat’s off to Rick Weber and his crew from South Jersey Marina and Brian Tinker and Buddy Trala’s top notch teams at Sunset Marina and Sunset Grille.
Marlin
In The MidAtlantic tournament this year, 486 white marlin were hooked, down from 619 last year. Blue marlin hook-ups actually saw an increase with 38 hooked this year compared to 30 last year. Most of the white marlin action last week took place on west wall of the Baltimore Canyon with some boats migrating south and inshore later in the week.
Tuna
Yellowfins continue to be scarce. Those few that have been caught have been very small, in the 25 lb. range, and most have come from the Washington Canyon. There has also been a bite down in the Norfolk Canyon, but little fish have dominated the action.
Bigeye tuna continue to snap in the Washington Canyon but we also saw the winning bigeyes come from the Lindenkohl last week. Bigeyes have also been caught in the Baltimore Canyon and down in the Norfolk Canyon as well.
Dolphin
Right now, dolphin are dominating the offshore scene with scattered fish caught along weedlines and floating debris. Most of the bites are from small, bailer dolphin but larger fish over 20 lbs. are becoming more common.
Wahoo
Wahoo are scattered in the Washington and Baltimore Canyons, but most of the action we saw last week came from boats trolling plugs in 50 to 70 fathoms in the Poor Man’s. Speedsters were also hooked near the Hot Dog.
Flounder
Flounder fishing in the bay right now is horrible. Anglers are catching a lot of short fish, but if you want to bring one home, pickings are slim. That doesn’t mean that keeper size fish are there to be caught, it just means that you are going to really need to put your time in to catch one. Luckily, the bite on ocean structure continues to shine with quality fish being caught on natural coral bottom dominating the action last week. Dropping bucktails or top-and-bottom rigs sweetened with strips of flounder belly, mahi belly, bluefish or sea robins will do the trick. The top inshore spots right now are the African Queen, Bass?Grounds, Old Grounds and Winter Quarter Shoal. The tough part is determining if the flounder are sitting right on the wreck or just off to the side.
Croaker
We are finally seeing good numbers of croaker in the bay behind Ocean City. The best locations to look for hardheads is at the mouth of the Commercial Harbor and in the West Channel along Martha’s Landing. Any cut bait will work or you can use artificials such as Gulp! or clam flavored Fishbites. This is a great fishery for kids since the action can be fast and furious.
Cobia
It isn’t very often we see cobia caught in the bay, but this week we actually saw two. First, an angler aboard the headboat, “Flounder Pounder” boated a small cobia in the Inlet and then on Friday, Dan Imhoff boated a 73 pounder while flounder fishing at the South Jetty. Dan caught the whopper on a 5-inch Gulp! artificial bait and just missed beating the current MD state record cobia that weighed 79 lbs.
Upcoming Tournament
Unbelievable as it may seem, we don’t have a tournament this weekend! The next one on the schedule is the Ocean City Marlin Club Labor Day White Marlin Tournament on September 4th, 5th and 6th.
See you at the scales.
