Itโs the 51st year of the White Marlin Open here in Ocean City, Maryland and the excitement always makes the city rumble. This yearโs week long tournament had a different kind of start with the threat of a tropical storm looming down in the Atlantic neat Florida. Fishermen and tournament staff monitored the storm for days before making the announcement that they would be extending the five day tournament to six days with anglers having to battle fierce offshore winds and gnarley swells. The 318 boats that entered would have the option to fish three of the six days now. Decisions were hard and remain challenging as the week has just started and the storm has now become Tropical Storm Debby and is heading right up the coast bringing torrential rain and wind.
Waiting Out the Weather
Of 318 boats that registered today, day 1, 200 boats decided to brave the wind. Sunny skies here on shore with light winds at the inlet didnโt seem to be a problem, but offshore conditions are historically much worse.
Opening Scales with Scott Lenox
Scales opened at 4pm with Scott Lenox of You Tube show, Hooked on OC, opened the live broadcast at 3:15 for sponsorship acknowledgements and time to pump up the crowd before boats arrived.
Itโs Time for Tuna
Around 5:30pm we finally saw some boats arriving through the inlet- with no flags to show for the day. As 6pm came, boats paraded through the inlet with a few flags flying. People cheered on land as they passed and waved. Finally at 6:30pm Following Seas brought in the first fish of the tournament a tuna weighing in at 56.2 pounds. Just after that The Right Place came in yielding a 166.5 pound tuna. JuJu from St.Petersberg, Florida got to the scales around 7 and weighed in a 79.5 pound tuna taking themselves to 2nd place. In the meantime MJโs waited patiently outside of the marina with a few big eye tuna on board! The MJโs came in taking over 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th place tunas. The captain confirmed they had all 4 big eye tuna on at the same time! The MJโs also had a blue marlin release. At 7:45pm only one more boat had reported a boat coming to the scales. With only an hour and a half left until closing of the scales, it seemed like a waiting game at this point. CTRL-ALT-DEL came in hard at the end with two tuna at 178.5 and 153 pounds at 8:20 giving spectators something to see before the scales close for the evening. By the time 9:15 came on the first day of the tournament, CTRL-ALT-DEL had a tuna worth $1.9 million, The Right Place had a tuna worth $4.2 million, and MJโs had a tuna worth $346,000.
View the Current Tournament Standings and Payouts
Overall a slow day of fishing which was mirrored at the scales. Hereโs to hoping that day 2 brings in that first marlin to the scales!
