Posted on December 14th, 2015
In the days leading up to the 3rd Annual Ocean City Marlin Club Rockfish Tournament the rockfish had not yet arrived off of Ocean City. The fact that boats had to make a significant run even the first few days of the tournament had most convinced that not entering the tournament was a good call. Only 14 boats entered the event. Well, I’d bet less than even money that if folks would have known the fish would show up the way they did, and that the weather was going to be what it was the past few days, that the boat count for the tournament could have easily eclipsed 50. Unfortunately, hind sight is always 20/20, but the 14 boats that fished the tournament were rewarded with some awesome rockfishing and some incredible weather.
Yesterday the big story for the tournament was the 50.4 pound rockfish that was caught by angler Andy Smelter. Andy, David Peterson, Timmy Mcguire and Captain Terry Layton fished Terry’s “Nontypical” and caught only one fish yesterday. That one fish just happened to be the largest of the tournament and one of the largest rock I’ve seen caught trolling out of Ocean City. The big rock was 49″ long, had a 29.5″ girth and weighed 50.4 pounds on the scale at Atlantic Tackle. The crew was fishing two miles off of the Antigua around 78th street Ocean City and hooked the fish on a tandem heavy 9″ shad with a purple head. Congratulations to Captain Terry, Andy and crew!!
The fish was bigger than a kid!
Congratulations to all of the winners! Big thanks to Amanda Shick for her hard work and updates this week!
Other fish caught yesterday.