Article by Larry Jock
The MidAtlantic tournament was held last week and our 93 Ocean City boats made us proud again! Throughout the week, Ocean City boats really dominated the leaderboard, but New Jersey boats made a move on the final day and took some spots in the end. Some first place finishes for Ocean City boats were:
“Billfisher” - Most Points Billfish & Most Points White Marlin & Most Points Tuna
“Shelly II” - Most Points Blue Marlin
“DA Sea” - Heaviest Tuna
“First Light” - Heaviest Dolphin
“The Zipper” - Heaviest Wahoo
Also, in the Heaviest White Marlin Division, the “Special Situation”, captained by Tucker Colquhoun, was tied for the top spot with a 73 pounder right up until the final day when the Jersey boat, “Got Game” threw a 78 pounder on the scale.
Several records were broken this year including the $3,368,490 total payout, the number of blue marlin caught (55) and the number of white marlin released (765). In this years tournament, 1.73 billfish were caught per boat/per day, second only to the 1.78 billfish caught per boat/dayin 2016.
Outside of the good marlin bite, the surprise of the tournament was the reemergence of bigeye tuna. The top spots in the Tuna Division were all won with catches of bigeyes. Anglers on the “Billfisher” caught a pair of eyeballs on the second day of the event and followed that up with 6 on the final day. The 6 bigeyes were hooked in 1,000 fathoms in the Baltimore Canyon and weighed between 61 and 81 lbs. The largest bigeye caught throughout the week came in on Tuesday when Pat McAteer on the “DA?Sea” boated a 116 pounder in 700 fathoms in the Baltimore Canyon.
There were plenty of dolphin weighed during the 5 days of fishing, but none were heavier than the 43 pounder caught on Tuesday by Steve Magdeburger on the “First Light”. Steve captured the winner in 1,000 fathoms in the Poor Man’s.
The other winning fish that was caught in the Poor Man’s Canyon was the 71 lb. wahoo hooked on Tuesday by Nick Miller on “The Zipper”.
Overall, it was a successful tournament with 157 boats competing for the record purse.
Outside of the tournament, this is the time of year when we start seeing the billfishing boats hitting the seas every chance they can. Flags have been seen flying from boats returning from the Baltimore and Poor Man’s Canyons in addition to the Wilmington.
We have also seen a few wahoo caught recently, including a 72 pounder boated on Sunday by anglers who were shark fishing at the Jackspot.
Elsewhere, flounder fishing on ocean structure continues to impress with good catches coming in from the Old Grounds, Russell’s Reef, the Great Eastern Reef and south towards Winter Quarter Shoal. Anglers had good success with Spro bucktails tipped with strips of belly meat, squid or Gulp Swimming Mullets. Although we still haven’t seen one over the magical 10 lb. mark, anglers are finding many in the 5 to 7 lb. range.
Speaking of ocean structure, congratulations to Capt. Monty Hawkins and the Ocean City Reef Foundation. They just dropped cement block #22,000 on one of their reef sites. This is absolutely amazing and a tribute to Capt. Monty and all the volunteers.
Anglers trolling at the Jackspot are having good luck catching mackerel, mahi, false albacore tuna, bonitos and bluefish. An angler on the charter boat, “Over-Board” even boated a barracuda last week. There was also a barracuda caught on the headboat, “Morning Star” last week, the first in Capt. Monty’s 38 years of running a headboat.
We did see an interesting catch come in from around “A” Buoy when the Wolf family boated a 252 lb. thresher shark.
Closer to the beach, we didn’t see any cobia come in over the last week, which is surprising, but I don’t think we have seen the last one caught this season.
Boats that have been hitting Fenwick and Isle of Wight Shoals are still finding snapper bluefish and mackerel attacking their trolled Clark spoons.
In the bay, it has been a good season for flounder fishing and last week continued the trend with fish coming in from the East Channel, the West Channel and the Fishbowl. We even saw a couple of keepers caught in the bay behind Assateague Island. The throwback ratio is running extremely high with some boats reporting double-digit throwbacks before they caught a single keeper. When it comes to flounder bait, white Gulp Swimming Mullets are still the top producer, but if you can cast net live bunker or mullet they tend to be baits that produce the larger fish.
Around the South Jetty, anglers are quietly catching sheepshead on sand fleas and even finding a few short stripers interested in their bucktails. Stripers in the 16 to 23-inch range were also caught last week around the Rt. 50 Bridge.
Upcoming Tournament
This weekend is the Ocean City Marlin Club Labor Day White Marlin Tournament. Anglers can fish 2 of 3 days from August 31st to September 2nd. Registration is on Thursday, August 30th with weigh-ins at Sunset Marina from 5:30 to 7:30.
For you flounder fishermen out there, on September 15th & 16th a new flounder tournament will be held with weigh-ins at Atlantic Tackle. The Chesapeake Bay Sportfishing Association is putting on the tournament and the cost is only $100 per boat, with up to 6 anglers. For more information, go to www.cbsfa.club.
Until next week, I’ll see you at the scales! .
