At the 79th annual iteration of the derby, which runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 19, false albacore will be eligible for daily awards and daily prize money is going up.
There is a seasonal change on the water this week. Atlantic bonito are showing up in greater numbers just south of the Island and false albacore are only a few weeks away. There are also more stories of tuna.
Steve Morris of Dick’s Bait and Tackle Shop had an early birthday present on Monday. Mr. Morris turns 50 years-old next Thursday and to celebrate he went offshore fishing with Greg Lee. They went on Mr. Lee’s boat, Sea Ox II, and caught long-fin albacore and one 40-pound wahoo.
In these waters there is not a more celebrated fish than the coastal
striped bass. Beginning Sunday, anglers in the Martha's Vineyard
Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby will begin their pursuit of bass,
bluefish, Atlantic bonito and false albacore. They will fish along the
Island's shoreline and in a variety of boats offshore.
The most stressed-out fish of the sea, the false albacore, made an appearance a week ago. They scared the bonito away and now it seems as though both are absentee.
False albacore and bonito are among the fastest swimming fish of these waters from late August to October. They are a finicky warmer weather fish. It is hard to write a sentence about one without mentioning the other in the same paragraph.
But the prevailing northeast winds of the last few days have cut down on a lot of the boat fishing.
The largest false albacore caught from the shore was landed last Saturday. Keith A. McArt of Somerville, a well-respected derby fisherman, caught a 16.55-pound false albacore while fishing off Lobsterville Beach. Quite a few fishermen saw him land the fish.
The 64th annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby is now entering its third week with still two weeks to go.
Don’t let Mother Nature fool you. She can take a joke.
She was, perhaps, the original jokester, fooling us with species such as “false albacore” and “false foxglove,” and fooling us at this time of the year with crazy and variable weather. From snowstorms to sunny skies, anything is possible in April.
Local fishermen landed more than 100,000 pounds of fluke this summer at Menemsha. The landings by 10 small draggers and about five handline fishermen represents one-seventh of all the landings made in the state. The state quota for fluke was 702,614 pounds.
The report on local landings came out of a state fisheries public hearing held in Tisbury on Monday afternoon.