Posted on August 10th, 2023
Hit the vid for our walkthrough of Atlantic Tackle in West Ocean City!
Day four of the 50th Anniversary of the White Marlin Open is in the books and not only have no billfish qualified, none have even been weighed. That’s right, zero billfish have been weighed and if that holds true through tomorrow night at 9:15 it will be the first time in the history of the White Marlin Open that no billfish were weighed. One other thing that would happen if there are no qualifying billfish is that money in added entry levels that totals over $7 Million dollars would “trickle down” to the tuna category. If no qualifying white or blue marlin is caught on day 5 most of the over $7 Million that is currently reserved for billfish could be paid out to bigeye tuna currently on the board. Either way, it’s going to be an exciting day of scales action with over 350 boats strategizing to get their piece of the $10.5 Million that is on the line…..literally!! Watch it all unfold live at www.whitemarlinopen.com. Here’s who’s leading what after four days of fishing.
Tuna
1st Place – Fishlik – 247.5 Lb Bigeye – $1.2 Million
2nd Place – Game Over – 221.5 Lb Bigeye – $160,000
3rd Place – RoShamBo – 215 Lb Bigeye – $260,000
Wahoo
1st Place – Shooting Star – 57 Lbs – $2,000
2nd Place – Captain Deadly – 55 Lbs – $32,000
3rd Place – Seafix – 40 Lbs – $32,000
Mahi
1st Place – Maverick – 31 Lbs – $32,000
2nd Place – Under Taker – 26 Lbs – $2,000
3rd Place – Hey Buddy – 21 Lbs – $32,000
The crew of Reel Chaos with Captain Anthony Matarese Jr. had a great day of fishing and then made their way to the scales at Harbour Island in a skiff after having engine trouble with the big boat. The fish didn’t do any damage on the leaderboard, but they did make for a great pic with the kids.
Away from the tournament, Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star had a short, but productive inshore flounder trip.
Already a bit more breeze than I’d expected at sunrise; just as glad I didn’t have to sweat it offshore. Fishing on a much shorter inshore flounder trip, I could see the water come alive as wind speed increased–then it would fall out again. Seemed like soon it would stick. Working for our flounder; at first we saw only short after short. Then I reminded Hurricane Murray, “If you’re unlucky at love, you’re lucky at fishing.” Soon he boated one, then a keeper double; and, at 10:15 (just like the other day) he boxed his limit.. That old expression has proven too true! While Hurricane Murray had our only limit, everyone had dinner – some several. Bob won today’s pool with a fine dandy. He’d told me this morning if he won his son in law was good for a 10X match to OCRF. Wow!! Well, I think he said that. Umm.. Maybe. (Ha! but he IS super generous to our effort!) In at 12:30 just before the downpours began. Works. The gals are reloading Reef T-Shirts at the WMO shirt tent at the Inlet. Reef building gets a handsome donation from the sale of alcohol at their venue also. Watch the boats come in and bottoms up! (see ocreefs.org for more info. We’re coming up on a super busy reef deployment season. Plenty in the pipeline! Have a few spots open most every fishing trip. See morningstarfishing.com under the Fish Report tab for reservation details. CheersMonty
Mates Jacob Holley and Zac Taylor came up from Orange Beach Alabama on their 70’ Viking QuickTime to fish the Mid-Atlantic tournament circuit and wanted to catch a flounder bad! After walking a few miles from Sunset to the bridge to fish with little success they jumped aboard a friends boat (Jim Turner) and less than a minute into their first drift with live spot Jacob hooked and landed this doormat 27.5” 7lb flounder!
Vaughn Hillegass was fishing the surf at Assteague Island with the Deadly Tackle Deadly Double when he landed a true Deadly Double of two flounder at the same time!
