08/24/2022 | Michael Jordan’s Catch 23 Jumps into 1st Place in the MidAtlantic Tournament

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKFbkwZThZE

Check out our tour of Atlantic Tackle in West Ocean City!

I just got back from the secret bunker somewhere between Cape May, NJ and Ocean City, MD where I was super busy this evening hosting the live broadcast of the MidAtlantic Tournament. Over 140 boats fished today and there was a lot of excitement as lots of fish were weighed including some very big blue marlin. We had wahoo, dolphin, tuna, blue marlin and white marlin hit the scales, and even though the GOAT Michael Jordan wasn’t present, his crew was and weighed the first place white marlin on board his Catch 23. Here’s who’s leading after three days of fishing. Thanks to Sunset Marina and the MidAtlantic for the pics!

White Marlin

1st Place Catch 23 73 Lbs

2nd Place Max Bet 65 Lbs

Blue Marlin

1st Place Kilo Charlie 607 Lbs

2nd Place No Quarter 539 Lbs

3rd Place Random Chaos 490 Lbs

Tuna

1st Place The Right Place 193 Lbs

2nd Place The Right Place 152 Lbs

3rd Place Random Chaos 80 Lbs

Dolphin

1st Place Lovin’ Life 39 Lbs

2nd Place Under Taker 24 lbs

3rd Place Under Taker 21 Lbs

Wahoo

1st Place Caitlin. 43 Lbs

2nd Place Caitlin 28 lbs

3rd Place It Just Takes Time 23 Lbs

Outside of the tournament Blake Gunther and his crew are doing some red drum fishing on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and are into the fish. This jumbo was caught and released just a short time ago.

Captain Marc Spagnola of Dusk to Dawn Bowfishing had two good trips recently that produces rays during the day and snakeheads and gar at night.

Back bay flounder fishing has improved and these anglers got to take advantage of it on the Tortuga out of Bahia Marina.

Captain Chris Mizurak of the Angler reported a slow start today, but it picked up nicely by the end of the day with plenty of nice fish.

Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star had a great mixed bag of fish today that included flounder, sea bass, tautog and mahi.

Got a text about 9 last night that our latest major reef donation, a 50 foot tug, was 8.5 miles offshore & would be moored until daylight by the towing co – then Tow Boat Rob would take over.

My crew and I had spent the better part of two days getting the mooring markers in position. Even gave up on a 150lb Navy anchor in exchange for a hundred pound Danforth. It’s plenty hard enough to work with these big anchors made fast to one inch nylon; to have a big anchor fail twice makes it a yard ornament. Maybe I’ll put it in our annual Benelli & Park Place Jewler’s Reef Raffle as a weekly prize.

She hit bottom about ten after 8 on 8/24/22; our new 55’ tug we sank as reef substrate, that is. We were building at Capt. Bob Gowar’s Memorial Reef. It’s in fairly shallow water – great for fishing but also newer scuba divers. The mooring needed to be perfect so that scuba divers can go from a block & cement pipe pile, to this new tug, then to a small barge we sank a few years ago.

Just to the north is Michael McGowen’s Memorial Reef. It’s comprised of a section of the old trawler New Hope and many of our reef pyramids.

Maryland doesn’t have a marine reef building program. What the Ocean City Reef Foundation can gather in donations goes back into reef building. Charts our donors receive today are packed with reefs built by previous donations—even to before the State dropped the program in 1997. The reef I would most like to build would cost millions (but we could get a dern fine start for a couple hundred $K..) Bundles of cement pipe cabled together and overlain with large cobble and armor stone. The habitat complexity would be beyond anything ever built before. Built along several stretches of hard sea floor in the 4sq mile Bass Grounds Reef Site, it would restore reef lost in the late 1960s & 70s to the commercial surf clam fishery. (Those fellows are incredibly tightly controlled nowadays and fish shoal tops almost exclusively. No more damage can occur where it’s all been lost. We’re putting it back as best we’re able..)

We’ll soon have our annual raffle up. For over a decade Benelli has contributed a fine sporting shotgun each year and have again. This year Park Place Jewlers have also contributed a nice men’s watch and a gold Hawaiian style jeweled gold hook necklace – these grand prizes will anchor the raffle for a Jan 1st, 2023 drawing. However, it’s not simply a one day event! There are many weekly prizes. St. Croix rods donated a nice stick, AllTackle too. Lenny Rudow at Fish Talk just sent a fine collection of gear and autographed books; long time friend of Reef Building, Acie, contributed a super-cooler, my boat is contributing 5 sweet sticks & two top of the line conventional reels; Nick Denny some Great Wall pics and a a special “water’s view” photo shoot of your boat.. Gerald from over in Salisbury donated a custom made rod and shimano reel too along with some earrings he secured in Afghanistan — There’s more, plenty more! Watch for the raffle to begin soon..

Cheers