Last September I went to New Jersey to fish the Ocean City Marlin and Tuna Club Tournament. The OCMTC Overnight Tournament is a calcutta style tourny and points are earned for Marlin (Blues and Whites), Swordfish, Tuna (Bluefin, Bigeye, and Yellowfin), Wahoo, and Dorado. The the wait period for the tourney is a week long and, based on the weather and current conditions, you pick the day and a half you would like to fish. You leave the harbor a 4AM one day and must weigh-in before 4PM the following day. While we waited for our weather window, my good friend Chris and I spent our time fishing the bay for black sea bass and flounder, and surfing the numerous beach breaks on the island. When our window of opportunity came we made the 100 mile run out to the canyons. The morning started of very good and then the day turned very bad. The weather was incredible. We got to the grounds in good time and set our spread. Ten minutes into the day we had a quadruple hookup, all 15-25 pound Yellowfin Tuna. We landed three of the four fish. Within half an hour we added two more to the fish hold. This is when things went down hill. Knowing 15-25lb tuna where not going to win the tournament, we left a good size school of small fish to go look for a school of 50-150 pound Bigeye reported to be 10 miles to the north. We found good signs of life but were unable to find the fish. We did not get another strike until late that afternoon. Around 3PM the wind came up, the sky got dark and the seas began building. The captain and first mate were weighing our options and debating if we should head in or stay the night when we got a blind strike by a 70-80 pound White Marlin. The fight did not last long. The fish threw the hook about 30 seconds into the fight. Shortly there after we decided the conditions were only going to get worse so we decided to head for home and it was a good thing we did. The 100 miles that we were able to cover in 4 hours that morning, took us almost 10 hours that night. It was a long day on the water.
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| Chris with a "HUGE" east coast Black Sea Bass | |
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| Matt fine tuning the spread |
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| Yellowfin Tuna |
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| the Calamity Jane - Ocean City, New Jersey |
