OCEAN CITY- The Ocean City Marlin Club’s 43rd annual Small Boat Tournament gets underway on Saturday with the first of two planned fishing days.
With several major offshore tournaments looming later this summer, some of the smaller boats in the resort’s sportfishing fleet will get their chance in the spotlight this weekend with the Ocean City Marlin Club’s 43rd annual Small Boat Tournament. The club’s annual Small Boat Tournament provided an opportunity for smaller boats to compete before the bigger events such as the Ocean City Tuna Tournament and the White Marlin Open, for example, later in the summer.
Participating boats must decide to fish one of two fishing days, Saturday or Sunday. Weigh-ins will be held at Sunset Marina each of the two days from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. As its name implies, the tournament is open to all boats with a length of 34-feet or under. The event is divided into two divisions: the offshore division and the inshore division. Inshore, participating crews will target flounder, seabass, tog, bluefish and rockfish. The offshore division targets tuna, dolphin, and billfish, the latter of which will be released and recorded in a points division. Boats can enter both the inshore and offshore categories, fishing inshore one day and offshore the other.
The tournament gets underway on Friday with an in-person registration and captain’s meeting at 7:45 p.m., or a virtual captain’s meeting on the club’s website or Facebook page. After the two fishing days are complete and the scores tallied, the event will culminate with an Eastern Shore-style crab feast and awards ceremony under the clubhouse on Sunday evening.
