Posted on August 3rd, 2020
Check out the Daily Catch at Sunset Marina with Shelby Zimmer above.
Day one of the 47th Annual White Marlin Open is in the books and it was a surprisingly busy day of fishing and scales action. 42 boats of the 443 registered decided to fish and by all accounts the ocean was rough to start the day. Reports were that it had calmed down a little by the time lines were out this afternoon….but that is not going to last long. Isaias is once again a hurricane as I write this with winds in excess of 75 MPH and gusts to 85 MPH. Isaias is forecast to be a tropical storm again by the time it arrives over Ocean City overnight Monday into Tuesday and we could see significant impacts. The offshore forecast for Tuesday is for winds of 35-45 knots with gusts to over 50 knots so I don’t expect anyone to be fishing tomorrow, but the forecast also calls for Isaias to make a quick exit and be upwards of Canada by Wednesday. The rest of the week looks very fishable and with two extra days it looks to be a fish 3 of 6 day White Marlin Open this year.
If there are no boats fishing Tuesday we are still going to put on a short live stream in the afternoon from 4 – 7 PM. We’ll show some archival footage of the White Marlin Open and some of our Hooked on OC videos. We may even have WMO organizers and sponsors in for short interviews AND we are going to be giving away some of the coveted 2020 White Marlin Open tournament buckets with all of the goodies. Look for updates on fishing tomorrow and on our livestream situation tomorrow afternoon. Check out all of the action this week at www.whitemarlinopen.com
Today’s scales saw one white marlin that did not qualify, but we did see several tunas that hit the dock that did qualify. The top three tuna are looking at a lot of money right now and though things might change, these are some good sized tuna that we just may see on the leaderboard at the end of the week.
3rd Place Wrecker 57 pounds $300,000
2nd Place Swords Fish 92 pounds $250,000
1st Place Restless Lady II 114.5 pounds $900,000
Away from the tournament, Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star enjoyed stellar sea bass fishing today with a boat limit of big knot heads today.
Bagged up a full boat limit of sea bass today in great sea conditions.
Sheesh.. Dogone weatherman now! Been fibbing all week. Yesterday he said light southerlies until afternoon — had to pull the plug on the day 5 miles out with 21 knots and increasing before 8am. Wasn’t going to stick around to see if it came 30 early too.
Then today.. A tropical depression 100 miles off Florida(!), & I couldn’t scratch up more than a handful of clients. Hurricane? Winds were 16 knots heading off, then calmed to 12 knots on anchor. Really nice.. We dropped blocks & the sea bass bite was on! At days end Gary had won the mini-pool, my mates could have kept two more apiece but assured me they had enough to clean. Everyone else, myself as well, limited. My crew & I didn’t use any bait – all jigging for us. Nice to have some fillets stocked next couple days. . .
Saw a CG Buoy Tender as we came in this afternoon. Any of y’all have a contact at the CG yard in Baltimore? We used to get buoy weights from em – huge concrete blocks – that no longer met specs. Used em for reef. Make great reef too!
Used to get ex-CG vessels too. They also make great reef! In fact, we have one on the bottom at Great Eastern Reef just about exactly like this one – the ex-Buoy Tender Red Beech is now called the A.T. Hall Reef.
Have some fantastic news in the reef building dept coming. Will post in next couple days.
Ready for a blow now. Boat’s made fast w/double lines, colors are lowered; nets, gaffs, buckets, baskets, spare coolers: everything/anything that might take a hike in high wind gusts is either lashed or stowed.
Looks to be a fine evening for an adult beverage and an unplugged alarm clock.
Will return to fishing Thursday 8/6..
Bet they’re chewing too.
Regards,
Monty
Peter Renzi of the Fish Frenzi fished Little Gull shoal today and had some luck catching three keeper flounder of 17″, 19″ and 20″.
