Posted on August 16th, 2015
It was another flat calm, beautiful day today off the beach today, but unlike most flat calm days a lot of the fleet was sitting at the dock. August is a busy tournament season in Ocean City, and today was a short break for boats that just finished the Poor Girls Open less than a week after fishing their final day of the White Marlin Open. Tomorrow brings another awesome event in the MidAtlantic Tournament based in Cape May, New Jersey with a weigh port at Ocean City’s Sunset Marina.
I got a great report from Captain Joe Drosey on board Rhonda’s Osprey about their trip yesterday that I wanted to share because of the awesome photos. On the final day of the Poor Girls Open Captain Joe put his lady anglers on two white marlin releases and an estimated 350 pound blue marlin release. Though Rhonda’s Osprey didn’t do any damage in the Poor Girls, they did get some awesome shots of their blue one.
Inshore, Captain John Prather on Ocean City Guide Service took advantage of the flat calm seas today and laid the smack down on the flounder again. Captain John put his crews on 18 total flounder today on an inshore wreck using strip baits and Gulp.
I got a great report from my buddy Richard Benn about an overnighter on his Wound Up. Richard and crew had an overnighter Friday into Saturday and started by catching three whites on Friday. They bailed some dolphin first thing Saturday and then went to the troll. First bite was an estimated 300# blue marlin, about 15 minutes later they caught a white marlin, and then 10 minutes after that they caught and released a sailfish. That’s a GRAND SLAM!! The sailfish was the first ever for Bill Florance. They caught the all of the fish in the slam in the first hour of trolling then caught one more white marlin and were on the way home by 11am.
Here is some information regarding this week’s MidAtlantic Tournament courtesy of Jeff Merrill of South Jersey Tournaments.
Tournament Week is here and it looks to be another special event as crews are making final preparations for the 24th Annual MidAtlantic tournament. Registration is brisk at the tournament’s signature home port, Canyon Club Resort Marina in Cape May, and the event’s only satellite port, Sunset Marina in Ocean City, Maryland. As registration for the event was taking place crews kept busy rigging baits and making final checks of tackle and other gear. The offshore weather forecast extending from Hudson Canyon to Baltimore Canyon also bodes well for participants as calm seas and light winds are predicted for the week. Numerous tournament-participating boats from both venues spent the days leading up to the event pre-fishing and the number of white marlin, blue marlin and tuna caught was quite impressive. Several big eye tuna of well over 200 pounds were brought to the docks and many billfish release flags were flying as well.
Fishing gets underway tomorrow and crews will pick three of the next five days to fish the distant canyons and will be searching for white marlin, blue marlin, tuna, wahoo and dolphin. Boats may depart their respective inlet at 3:30 a.m. and Lines In is set for 8 a.m. Lines Out is 3:30 p.m. and all fish to be weighed must be at the scale of either Canyon Club or Sunset Marina by 9 p.m. on the day caught. Boats will select three days of the five available during tournament week to fish within 125 miles of the Cape May Sea Buoy. Any white marlin must weight 65-pounds to qualify for cash prizes and blue marlin must weigh at least 400 pounds. There is also a 50- pound minimum for tuna though dolphin and wahoo have no minimum weight to win cash
The tournament entry fee is $2500 and covers a crew of six for all tournament dockside functions including dinners, drinks and entertainment during the event. Prize money for the event is derived strictly from calcutta proceeds and numerous levels are available. Last year’s purse was a tournament record, topping $2.4 million and was shared among 21 different winners with no less than seven receiving payouts of six figures and ten winners receiving $40,000 or more! It is anticipated this year’s purse will be even bigger with even larger payouts!
Hooked on OC will be at Sunset Marina every day this week covering the MidAtlantic Tournament so stop by and say hi! Good luck to everyone that is fishing!
