Article by Larry Budd
This Week Last Year
• The weather was hot and slowed down the offshore bite prompting most captains to stay in the slip and prep for the Ocean City Tuna Tournament. Tropical storm Elsa also blew out Friday turning the tournament into basically a 2 day event.
• The “Big Stick” took the top spot for Heaviest Stringer in the Ocean City Tournament with a total of 455 lbs. over 2 days in the Norfolk Canyon. The Single Largest Tuna was 233 lbs. caught by the “Hydroshpere” in the Washington Canyon.
• The “Cookie Monster” brought in a 225 lb. bigeye from the Baltimore Canyon.
• The “Under Taker” out of Indian River Marina saw two white marlin and two blue marlin releases on a single trip while trolling between the Washington and Norfolk Canyons.
After the busy holiday weekend, its still feels like the crowds are here. It makes sense given the time of year and is hopefully a good sign as the town depends on those tourist dollars. The crowds were certainly strong for the 35th Annual Ocean City Tuna Tournament last week. This event is another bell weather for the strength of the upcoming tournament season. We were wondering if the mediocre bite offshore, the economy, and of course fuel prices would dampen participation this year. It was quite the opposite with a record number of 109 boats registered and a record payout of over $1,100,000. A good sign indeed, and fortunately for everyone, the tunas showed up as well!
Tuna are still what most people are catching with a fairly regular yellowfin bite and a strong bigeye turnout over the weekend. Billfish are not abundant, however we are getting reports of less than a dozen blue marlin releases and a handful of whites. Most of the action remains in our southern canyons.
The offshore weather looks a little windy for mid week but the current forecast is looking good for the weekend. There’s a lot more detail so off we go!
Tournaments
As mention above, the 35th edition of the Ocean City Tuna Tournment was last Friday thru Sunday and was a record turnout and payout! The weather looked fair for Friday and most of Saturday so almost all of the fleet chose those 2 days to fish. 7 brave souls went out on Sunday.
Day 1 was active at the scales with over 40 of the 109 boats coming to the dock at the Ocean City Fishing Center, and dozens more choosing to weigh stringers only at Sunset Marina. That is an usually high percentage of boats. The number was high because the majority of fish coming in were yellowfins in the 45 lb. to 65 lb. range. Despite being able to weigh up to 5 fish per day, most boats were only bringing 1 to 3 fish in. We started to see a change in the mix around 6:30 PM when the PYY Fishing Team came in with a 100 lb. bigeye, easily sliding into 1st place at the time, but only held for about an hour when the “Reel Fun” threw a 176 lb. eyeball on the scale. We were learning that the big fish were in the Norfolk Canyon and it was taking longer for the boats to get back. They only got bigger as the night progressed with a 184 pounder from the “Hot Spot”, and the last fish weighed was a bigeye from the “Dirty Money’” tipping the scale at 193 lbs. We thought that last one had a strong chance to place in the top 3, but day 2 proved us wrong!
When the scales opened on day 2 there were 102 boats working the waters. Waiting for the scales to open was the “Zippy” and her Long Island, NY crew. They had been in the Washington Canyon and caught a 219 lb. eyeball. Once in the boat they headed straight for the scales. Read about the unique reel they used to boat this one in our tournament coverage section starting on page 66. Again we thought this was a contender, when will we learn. Eight over 200 lb. bigeyes were weighed that day with the leaderboard changing over 10 times. Charter boat “Talkin’ Trash” was next with a 256 pounder and the day ended with a cresendo when the boat “Reel Crazy” pulled up just at closing time with a tournament record fish bending the scales at 275 lbs. All of these except the one from the “Zippy” were from the Norfolk Canyon. With only 7 boats fishing on Sunday, there were no changes to the leaderboard, putting “Reel Crazy” in 1st Place for Largest Tuna and “Talkin’ Trash” holding onto 2nd Place.
Outside of the Largest Tuna competition, we saw boat strategies to place in the Heaviest String Division as well as for Heaviest Bluefin. 1st Place in the Heaviest Stringer Division went to “Talkin’ Trash” as they had brought in 2 bigeye’s and 3 healthy yellowfins for a total of 535 lbs. The “Sea Hag” took a different path to secure 2nd Place, focusing on catching a lot of yellowfin so as to choose the 5 fattest per day to build their stringers. The strategy worked with the crew, boating 8 on Friday and 10 on Saturday from the Norfolk Canyon and bulding a combined 2 day total of 508 lbs., only 27 lbs. off the lead.
The crew on the “Shorebilly” knew there was good money to be made in the Heaviest Bluefin Division and figured most would be swinging for the fences for bigeyes. Again, it worked for them. They stayed around the inshore lumps and set the spread way back to target these fish. They found a 70 pounder at Massey’s Canyon that was only one of the two brought to the scales securing 1st Place and over $55K in prize money!
Tuna
Most of the tuna action was from the Tuna Tournament, however some catches last Tuesday thru Thursday probably inspired more than a few boats to enter. Last Tuesday saw the “Restless Lady” return with 16 yellowfins and the “Covered Up” pulled a 209 lb. eyeball from the Rockpile. Wednesday saw some yellowfin catches from the “Marli” in the Washington Canyon and the “Big Stick” hauled in a 216 lb. bigeye from the Poor Man’s.
Billfish
Billfishing in general remains very slow this year. During the Tournament, the “Sea Hag” released a blue marlin in the Norfolk that Capt. Chris Kubik estimated at 400 lbs. and took 2.5 hours to land. The charter boat “All In” also released a blue in the same area and with very few white marlin releases being report.
Mahi & Wahoo
As the saying goes ‘Nothing to see here folks’. Some are getting small gaffer mahi while trolling for tuna, but not of sizable quantity or size. No qualifying dolphin or wahoo were brought in by boats in that calcutta. The “War Horse” did have a nice 55 lb. speedster, but did not enter the calcutta.
The Ocean City Marlin Club Kid’s Classic is this weekend and is always a good mix of bay, inshore and offshore fish. Check out the details in the Upcoming Tournaments section.
Until next week, I will see you at the scales! §
