Article by Larry Budd
This Week Last Year
• The 12th Annual OCMC Ladies Tournament “Heels & Reels” saw 57 boats compete for $79,240 in prize money. The “Billfisher” took 1st Place in the Billfish Release Divsion and the top tuna was from “Liquid RX” at 63.4 lbs. The Dolphin Division ended in a tie with both “Reel Joy” and the “Brenda Lou” dropping 36 lb. mahis on the dock.
• Yellowfin tuna fishing was strong, especially while chunking at the Hot Dog and Hambone. Double digit and limit catches were common.
• Tropical storm Isais flew through the region resulting in the White Marlin Open extending the fishing days to an unprecedented 7. Still, a record 433 boats participated for a record purse of $6.8 million.
The highly anticipated White Marlin Open is finally upon us. As I write this on Monday almost all of the record 444 boats are out looking to set the bar early in this 5 day event! With a purse of over $9,000,000 there is a lot at stake. The billfish were snapping over the weekend and some 100 lb. tunas showed up, however, weather is potentially a factor for Wednesday and Thursday. This should make for a lot of excitement at Harbor Island scales and the Marlinfest event at 3rd Street.
Last weekend saw the 13th Annual Ocean City Marlin Club Ladies Tournament “Heels & Reels” with scales held at Atlantic Tackle in Ocean City. A record 64 boats entered creating a record purse of over $100,000. The two day event was held last Friday and Saturday. With the weather on Day 1 looking questionable, only 8 boats tried their luck. The Baltimore Canyon was the place to be with 4 of the 8 boats reporting white and blue marlin releases and the “Bent Tent” releasing a spearfish! All were in deep water east of the Baltimore Canyon or a little north of it. The “Reel Chaos” with 4 white marlin releases ended the day in the top spot.
That put the remainder of the boats offshore on Day2! Three were waiting for the scales to open and we continued to have a steady stream of boats coming in, sometimes with a line of 6 boats deep. 18 in all came through in the 2 hour window with mainly a mix of yellowfin tuna and a few mahi with some single white marlin or blue marlin releases. The action was concentrated from between the Wilmington and Baltimore Canyons to the Baltimore proper with longfins being caught further south towards the Poor Man’s Canyon. Billfish were reported from all of these locations with several captains commenting on releasing some nice size fish. Some standouts from Day 2 were the “Knot Again” who also released 4 white marlin that slid them into 1st Place in the Release Division due to earlier catch times, and the “Playmate” and “Business” weighing two identical 17.6 lb. mahi just minutes apart to tie for top honors in the Dolphin Division. The big commotion however had to be in the Tuna Division. It was really anybody’s game until late in the day when the “Southern C’s” arrived sliding a bigeye onto the dock. It was their only fish, but at 107.6 lbs. it rocketed into the top spot. 30 minutes later the “Point Runner” arrived with 2 bigeye of their own. There was tension as the weighmaster hoisted the larger of the two, could it set a new number 1? The weight was called at 107.4 lbs., just a few ounces short! Their second bigeye also passed the 100 pound mark pushing all of the yellowfins out of the top three with “Point Runner” ending in both 2nd and 3rd Place for the tournament with “Southern C’s” holding top honors.
Outside of the tournament, we saw most captain’s last week working mostly the same areas from the mid to lower Wilmington through the Baltimore to the Poor Man’s Canyons. Wednesday and Thursday last week saw a nice mix of multiple releases for white marlin and singles for blue marlins. The white marlin are reported to be hitting ballyhoo while the blues hit a mix of lures and skirted ballys. The tuna action was in the same area and were mainly yellowfin with a few nice sized longfins mixed in. A real highlight came from the “Nina’s Revenge” when Capt. Rob Rondini brought a 257 lb. bigeye to the scales at the Ocean City Fishing Center last Wednesday. Not only did it take over 5 hours to boat this behemoth, the trip and fight itself was a story. They started fishing with most of the fleet deep in the Washington Canyon. They were marking fish but could not get any bites. After their shotgun line got run over by another boat, Capt. Rob had enough and headed out and away from the crowd. They connected with the tuna around 1PM in 1500 feet of water and over the fight the moved eastward into 3500 feet. Even though they had the leader in hand 13 times they could not get the fish to turn and at one point the line got fouled in the running gear and the mate had to jump overboard to clear it. Eventually getting it up one more time the captain put the boat in a centerline spin for 30 minutes to follow the fish before finally getting a gaff in it! It is our new Heaviest Bigeye for the season.
You will also see more wahoo in this week’s paper which is nice as they were very elusive last year. Some real big ones have shown up including a 92 pounder Capt. Johnny Oughton found on the “That’s Right” last Sunday. These big ones seem to favor the Hot Dog and 19 Fathom Lumps.
Lastly, the mahi remain peanut to gaffer size and most recent reports were from the Wilmington. The largest we have seen in recent weeks are in the teens up to 20 lbs.
Upcoming Tournaments
• The big show of the 48th Annual White Marlin Open is here! Scales will be at Harbor Island from 4-9:15PM as usual, however we recommend checking out the Marlinfest, a new free outdoor viewing experience at the 3rd Street Bayside Ballpark that will coincide with the annual fishing tournament. The event will feature a festival-like atmosphere as well as real-time, unobstructed views of the live stream of the tournament weigh-ins via large LED screens as well as views of the boats returning in the harbor.
• The 28th Annual Steve Harman Poor Girl’s Open is back after a pandemic hiatus last year. This is a ladies only billfish release event benefiting breast cancer research. Held at the Bahia Marina on August 12th - 14th, the event is always fun filled with a vendor village, colorful outfits from the anglers and great food at Fish Tales.
• The 30th Annual Mid-Atlantic Tournament will be held from August 16th - 20th with weigh-ins from 5 - 9PM at both the Canyon Club Marina in Cape May and at Sunset Marina in Ocean City. This is another tournament with a multi-million dollar purse sure to bring big fish to the docks!
• Follow our Tournament Schedule in the paper and on-line to keep up to date!
Until next week, I will see you at the scales! §
