The 57th annual Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby began Wednesday
without a hitch. Brendan Langley, the weigh master, was dressed for the
ordeal of weighing in each of the four species of fish: striped bass,
bluefish, false albacore and bonito. When the weigh-in headquarters
opened at 8 a.m. fishermen were already standing outside. In 15 minutes
all four species of fish had made an appearance on the scale.
The 57th annual Martha's Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish
Derby starts tomorrow morning. For some of the Island's anglers,
it can't start fast enough. Fishermen started talking about this
year's derby months ago. They talked about the derby when the
first striped bass arrived in Vineyard waters in April.
When the Martha's Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby
begins this Sunday, there will be more prizes than ever before in the
event's 58-year history. This year's contest is offering
$300,000 in prizes over the course of the tournament, which runs three
days longer than last year.
The start of the 59th annual Martha's Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby may be only two days away, but the planning and preparation go back a year. This Sunday at 12:01 a.m. the first wave of avid anglers will head for their boats and the shore in pursuit of fish. It is the start of the annual pilgrimage to the water. No matter what their vocation, as many as 3,000 fishermen will share a common avocation, competing for daily, weekly and grand overall prizes for the biggest striped bass, bluefish, false albacore and bonito.
The mood was jovial at derby headquarters in Edgartown Sunday morning. More than a dozen committee members of the Martha's Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby came together to prepare for the fall contest that begins next week.
A few carried cups of coffee. Derby committee member Don Eber of Chilmark stepped into the old fish shack carrying a Makita power drill. For the next few minutes, Mr. Eber put screws into wood to hold two vertical two-by-fours.
In the end, it was a 12.48-pound false albacore hooked in the
shallows off Memorial Wharf in Edgartown, and a 10.13-pound bonito
snagged in 60-foot seas off Noman's Land that proved to be the
grandest catches of all as the 59th Annual Martha's Vineyard
Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby came to a close on Sunday.
With two days to go before the close of the 59th Martha's
Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, tournament officials are
already calling this year's event one of the most successful in
the history of the competition.
Sixty-year-old Kenny Metell of Edgartown has never caught a winning fish in all his years as a participant in the Martha's Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, but on Sunday he hit the ground running. Mr. Metell weighed in the first fish of the derby.
With six days left to catch the winning fish, a new name was
scrawled in chalk atop the leaderboard, capturing the hearts and minds
of all in the waning moments of the 60th annual Martha's Vineyard
Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby.
When Thomas Ronan started fishing the Martha's Vineyard
Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby in the late 1980s, he never thought much
about catching anything other than striped bass.
