BIG Swordfish & Sea Bass and Day 1 at the Ocean City Inshore Classic

By Scott Lenox

Posted on October 10th, 2026

We just got home from a steady day of scales action at Atlantic Tackle for day 1 of the Ocean City Inshore Classic and we’ve got some good fish on the leaderboard and we’ve got some open spaces. Anglers are out there fishing right now and can until 3 PM tomorrow afternoon when we find out who wins what. Good luck if you’re out there right now. We will see you tomorrow starting at 3 PM! THANK YOU to all of our sponsors!!

Here’s who’s in the lead after the first day of fishing.

The crew of the private boat Instigator out of Sunset Marina had a banner day of sword fishing with 6 legal fish ending up on the cleaning table. Thanks to Dave Messick from Unscene Productions for the pic!

The wind had Captain Tony Battista and his crew aboard Saltwater Adventures heading for home early, but the bite was good for sea bass and some triggerfish before it started blowing.

Anglers fishing on board the Angler with Captain Chris Mizurak had some good sea bass fishing today and one keeper flounder one the fish pool.

Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star had some big sea bass on today’s trip

Sea Bass 10/10/26

Shew! Yet another Facebook sunrise – this time, ‘red sky in the morning, sailor take warning’ was accurate – to a point. Had the “calm before the storm” yesterday; tiny bit of sea in light easterlies this morning; puffed up 17 E by 1:30; and tomorrow she’s gonna rip.

ROV pilot for last night’s reef work, Jason hoped aboard this morning for a different sort of reef work – fishing.

A block drop too, of course.

John & Michael deployed today’s unit in similar fashion as so much other work in the last decade – sent by the stern rail amid larger pieces (here pipe units) meant to stitch a reef together.

From there?

East, of course. Sent lots of that 7 bucks a gallon stuff sent through my fuel lines and out the exhaust.

Ouch.

Wind and current difficult to cipher; we’d lay one way then another. Finally dialed it in so a slow swing could be made. Worked but wasn’t seeing what I wanted by way of cbass.

Further east.

Oyyyy..

Some real pretty fish

..that all but quit biting near soon as they started. Twenty two inches in the boat but didn’t play the pool. John took it with a 20 incher.

Was hoping sea bass would put a heavy feed on before this once-named blow came up from Pensacola. If so, wasn’t evident where I was.

Still, by grinding away at it and coming in late I at least got Ted in double digits..

Back at it Tuesday.

Cheers,

Monty