Battle for the Buckle, Fish N Paddle Saltwater Slam & A $10,000 Flounder

By Scott Lenox

Posted on June 27th, 2026

I fished the Worcester County Chamber of Commerce Flounder Tournament today and had a great time. We did have some rain and thunderstorms roll through later in the afternoon, but otherwise it was a beautiful day on the water. I didn’t win any money, but I did catch 3 keeper flounder of 18″, 18.5″ and 20″ on the Deadly Tackle Live Bait Rig with some live spot from Sunset Provisions. I may not have won any money, but the team from Miller Time with Captain Brandon Miller at the helm had a great day winning first and second place and taking home several checks that totaled over $10,500!! Congratulations to all of the winners and to the Worcester County Chamber for putting on a successful event.

Today was also day 2 of the Battle for the Buckle Tournament and the bigeye tuna showed up in full force. Here is the leaderboard after two days of fishing.

Today was also Day 1 of the Fish N Paddle Saltwater Slam kayak tournament and there were some decent fish put up on the board. Here are the standings after day 1.

Away from the tournaments, Captain Chris Watkowski and mates Ben Harding and James Smack had a great day in the canyon with a 140 pound bigeye tuna and 2 yellowfins.

Anglers fishing on board Foolish Pleasures with Captain Dale Lisi had a great day with seven yellowfin tuna landing in the fish box.

Captain Nick Sampson of MobSquad Fishing had a short day today that produced some nice triggerfish, some flounder and some Spanish mackerel.

Captain Jason Mumford of Lucky Break Charters had a great morning in the back bay for his anglers putting them on three keeper flounder.

Captain Will Poole of Loxal Hooker Fishing Charters had a nice day over ocean structure today with flounder and sea bass.

Jordan Lukiewski and Nicholas LaPointe caught their limit of flounder at the Bass Grounds today on the 13′ Boston Whaler “Little Angry.”

Captain Chris Mizurak of the Angler reported a good flounder bite on today’s trip with some sea bass mixed in.

Anglers fishing with Captain Monty Hawkins had a great time today per usual

Sea Bass on a cloudy day – 6/27/26

Weatherman said Rain. Capital R rain – heavy rain.

But he also said no wind.

Was nothing to do but hope he was wrong – and right.

Bit of a southerly ground swell greeted us as we rounded the south shoal. Not enough to cause a change of plans; I’d bet somewhere there were anglers wishing for a calmer sea.

Young Mr Theo and his Dad Dylan did the deed on today’s block drop. And we are back to block too. Was all terracotta for awhile. Yesterday we had a mega load of off-inventory monster block come from York Building Products. I’m hoping to hit 50K blocks for almost 2 decades by Christmas. A great many of those have been donated by YBP..

Fishing was an on again/off again sort of affair today. When it was on though? Some pretty fish..

Sea bass at some stops, flounder at others – occasionally a giant sniff of skunk before moving on – it worked.

Was at 1 pm when I first saw rain on my radar. Didn’t appear headed our way but I was anticipating buckets on the run home that didn’t happen.

Matt was high hook on fluke today boxing out at 11:32 while catching loads of shorts too. Biggest flounder wins a t-shirt for now. That was won by young Mr Theo (with a bit of help from Dad, I’m sure.)

Matt won the sea bass pool, just barely nudging Theo out of his arcade money.

Sure was a bice day considering what the weatherman said was coming..

Piece below for those interested in fisheries issues..

Cheers,

Monty