Article by Capt. Franky Pettolina
Those of you that know me know that I am a large mammal. Large mammals are not built for heat, and we have been experiencing more than our fair share of heat lately, that is for sure. As I type this, I am sitting at my desk, coming back down to a civilized temperature after having just spent about two hours in line, under a hot afternoon sun, getting dive bombed by black flies and bitten by skeeters and noseeums. But I am happy. I have a big smile on my face and I am in a great mood. A little girl I helped raise has grown up into an incredible woman and tonight I got to see just how grown up she has become.
What the heck does this have to do with fishing you ask? Franky, you don’t have any daughters, you might say. Or, Franky the only thing you ever raised was a pint glass over at the Ocean City Marlin Club. Technically you are correct. But there was this one little, poor girl….
Around 24 years ago, a guy by the name of Steve Harman was running my dad’s boat and I was working as his mate. He and my Dad were good buddies. Fishing buddies, drinking buddies, just good buddies. Of course, when you spend a bunch of time fishing with someone they become your buddy, so Steve and I were close as well. Not quite father/son close, but not too far from it. Anyway, Steve came down to the boat one day with a legal pad and said, “Junior” (that’s what he called me, even though I am technically a “third”), he said, “Junior, we have some work to do.” Over the next several hours we hashed out the framework for what would eventually become the “Capt. Steve Harman’s Poor Girls Open.”
It all started with the simple idea of having an affordable ladies fishing tournament. There was already a successful ladies tournament in town called the “Harbour Island Ladies Invitational”, but Steve wanted to make something just a little bit different. The invitational tournament was geared towards a high-end crowd and was becoming difficult for the local bartenders and waitresses to afford. Also, the awards banquet was set up to be a fancy affair, where you would almost need to spend as much time getting ready as you did fishing. Steve envisioned something different.
Sometime during those couple of hours when we were writing the rules, the phrase “Come as you are, come as you fished” was born. That was the motto of the Poor Girls in the early years. Get off the boat and wander on over to the awards and grab a burger and a beer. And hopefully a trophy or a check! The entry fee and the added entry levels, or calcuttas, were kept affordable. There were a couple of billfish levels, and a tuna and dolphin category that were split 50/50. That was it. Lady anglers were given 110 points for blue marlin, and 100 points for white marlin or sailfish. Keep it simple and have some fun.
That first year it was definitely kept simple, as in 11 boats simple. Not quite what we were hoping for, but we went out and the girls had fun. The top Billfish Release Category was hardly a shootout, with the top boats all catching 1 or maybe 2 white marlin each. The top tuna and dolphin were each under 10 pounds. But the girls had fun! And we laid the foundation for the years to come.
The tournament slowly grew over the next few years. More boats entered and more fish were caught. Multiple marlin per boat became the norm. Gaffer dolphins and sometimes 100-plus pound tunas hit the scales. The winners got bigger checks and the girls all had more fun.
The other thing we decided in the beginning was to have the tournament benefit a charity. For the first few years, several different causes were highlighted, until finally the Poor Girls settled on benefiting breast cancer research and the American Cancer Society. One of the best parts about the tournament was that the donation checks grew bigger, just like the tournament payout checks.
Capt. Steve passed away unexpectedly in the winter of 2004. His wife Pam, his daughters Joslyn and Taylor, and his family and friends kept the tournament going in his memory and it continued to grow. His brother Shawn runs the tournament now along with Steve’s daughter, Joslyn.
Tonight was the sign up for the 23rd Annual Poor Girls Open. Even though Steve is no longer with us, I felt him there tonight. I remembered that day with the legal pad. I remembered Steve’s wife, Pam and the other girls from behind the bar at Fish Tales giving us suggestions for the awards party. I remembered Steve leading the way down the back channel to the Kelley Draw Bridge the first morning of the inaugural tournament. As I remembered these things, I looked around to see Shawn running the captains meeting and Joslyn sitting behind the registration booth. I could feel Steve everywhere.
So yes, I am sitting here sweaty but smiling. When I signed up tonight, my boat number was 125 and there was still quite a line behind me waiting to sign up. The parking lot at Bahia Marina was filled with excited lady anglers, many with custom T-shirts made especially for their tournament team. There were vendors selling clothing and jewelry. There were volunteers selling raffle tickets to raise money for breast cancer research. It was like a carnival wrapped around a party with a fishing tournament curled up in the middle. Capt. Steve Harman’s vision has turned into one of, if not the largest Ladies Tournaments in the world. Our little, poor girl has indeed grown up.
Capt. Franky Pettolina is Co-Captain of the charter boat, “Last Call” and President of the Ocean City Marlin Club.