Posted on August 20th, 2018
I just returned from the scales for day 1 of the 2018 MidAtlantic and it was a busy one. Fishing was really good offshore today with some awesome releases and fish landing in almost every tournament category. There were two qualifying white marlin that ended up in a tie and there were dolphin that made weight, but the BIG story of the day was the bigeye tuna. Several boats came back to the dock with bigeye tuna on board and a couple of boats had multiple fish. Our good friend and Fish in OC inshore charter partner Captain Jeff Coats of Pitboss Fishing was fishing with Captain Curtis Campbell on board the Reel Estate today and they weighed three nice bigeyes and currently sit in first place in the tuna category. Here is the leaderboard after the first day of fishing.
Wahoo
No Qualifier
Blue Marlin
No Qualifier
Dolphin
2nd Place Game Changer 17 Lbs
1st Place Ringleader 18 Lbs
Tuna
3rd Place MR Ducks 85 Lbs
2nd Place First Light 102 Lbs
1st Place Reel Estate 111 Lbs
White Marlin
1st Place Tie Special Situation / 3’s Enough 73 Lbs
Outside of the tournament there was some good fishing inshore as well. Captain Drew Zerbe of the Tortuga sent this photo of Dana De Falco, Westchester, NY with a 21 1/2″, 3 lb. 4 oz flounder. (New 2nd Place Derby fish.) and Rick Boyle, Vienna, VA with an 18″, 2 lb. 1 oz flattie. The fish were caught on minnow and squid combos in Sinepuxent Bay with mates Matt Harris and Max Thumma.
Bear down at the Oceanic Pier sent this photo of Nick Denny who went to the pier and bought some sand fleas and then returned a while later with a nice triggerfish and a nice sheepshead.
Angler Derek Crossley caught and released this 32″ cobia near bird island today while fishing on the Late Bite.
Scott Frysinger caught this 20.5″ flounder on a live mullet in the OC inlet along with several throwbacks, some bluefish and a big 13″ croaker.
Captain Marc Spagnola of Dusk to Dawn Bowfishing had yet another good day of shooting when he put this guy on some nice southern rays.
Emily and Joshua Blume have reached and exceeded their goal of 1,000 balloons out of the water and they still have a ton of time to go. They’ve got to get back to school in a few weeks, but they’ve reached 1,070 balloons so far and they keep on coming in.
