The forecast was for Friday's high westerly winds to continue through the weekend. Fortunately, yesterday was far better than expected. The winds were lighter, more west southwest.

Still the boat fishermen had to look for places to stay out of the rising seas. That meant they fished close to the shore, near Menemsha, the North Shore, East Chop, East Beach.

Ed Jerome was the weigh master yesterday morning and a frustrated angler. A charter boat captain, he pays a lot of attention to the forecasts: “It has been hard fishing,” he said.

There were no shore bonito weighed in yesterday and no one was surprised.

For those who go down to the weigh station at the foot of Main street in Edgartown, take note: on the grand overall board and there are two significant holes in the results. There are no shore bonito for the flyrod division and none for the junior division.
In fact only two shore bonito have been weighed in during the whole derby so far. Atlantic bonito are just not getting close to shore. They are a boat fish this year.

A lot of fish were weighed in Saturday night and all the bases but bonito shore were covered. But the fish weren’t particularly big.

Ron McKee weighed in a 26.10 pound shore striped bass and got a hat-trick for striped bass. Hat-trick fishermen are a rarity in modern derbies.

Leo B. Lecuyer caught a second place for his 28.74 pound striped bass from the shore.

Saturday's biggest striped bass belonged to Tom R. Barlosky, who caught a 29.80 pounder. It was, of course, 17.03 pounds short of beating the grand overall boat striper caught by Lev Wlodyka, caught last week.

Bluefish continue to dominate as most popular fish at the derby. Shortly before the weigh-in station closed on Saturday morning, Peter Medeiros of Riverside RI weighed in a 11.21 bluefish he had caught from a boat. He had gone fishing with two brothers and a friend. Mr. Medeiros is a derby enthusiast and for his troubles, he earned a second place in the daily.

The crew at the weigh station want to put the word out to the community that no fillets are being given to the general public. All the fish that are donated are going to the the derby’s senior fillet program.

They tell us people from the street are coming in and asking for free fish, which to them is pretty rude.

Also, be aware that fishermen are not permitted to use scup as bait in the contest. The recreational scup fishery was closed on September 26, closed for the season. So anglers should not possess scup so obviously should not use it for bait.