The sea and coastline around the Island have been roughed up by hurricanes and tropical storms this September, beginning last weekend when Earl blew through and again midweek when more tropical disturbances cropped up. The weather has been unstable: thunderstorms crashed down on Edgartown on Wednesday while West Tisbury stayed dry and sunny.
But the forecast calls for weather patterns to settle down by Sunday, just in time for the opening of the sixty-fifth Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby.
They came for prizes and they came to support each other. The 65th annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby awards ceremony at Nectar’s on Sunday was a festival of storytelling, stories told by those who won and those who didn’t. And two anglers who were friends and relatives to many there walked away as the proudest owners, one of a truck, the other of a powerboat.
After days of bad weather, most of it wind, the fall derby busted open last weekend with great fishing from off Wasque to Devil’s Bridge in Aquinnah. This is the closing week of the 65th annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby. With more than 2,700 fishermen registered in the contest, a lot of fishermen were out on the water to make up for lost time. The contest ends at 10 p.m. tomorrow night.
Columbus Day weekend was the last chance most anglers would have to devote high energy to the sport.
The harsh autumn weather has had a big impact on participants in the 65th annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, leading president Ed Jerome to cast a most tempting lure for fishermen in the final week of the contest. “All of the fish on the board are beatable,” he said.
Sandy E. Fisher’s 15.88-pound bluefish may be a hard fish to beat, but Michael A. Paone’s 37.6-pound striped bass could be moved down a prize.
With two weeks left in the 65th annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, fishermen are fretting about the weather, which has been unkind to anglers. Wind — lots of it and from every direction — has been the story of September.
There are 2,400 fishermen registered in the derby. Ask any one of them how they are doing and they will likely talk about the wind — the bad wind from the east, the tough wind last week from the north, and tomorrow the forecast for high, gusty winds from the south.
Churning seas over the weekend produced three new derby-leading fish including a 46.15-pound striped bass.
The striper was reeled in from a boat by Richard A. Penney, of Carver, who weighed in Sunday at the Edgartown headquarters of the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby. Though the fishing competition continues for two more weeks, Penney’s fish would have won the category in either of the past two years.
During the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, everyone lining up in the mornings at the Island’s councils on aging has got to love a fisherman. Every weekday during the derby, the Island’s seniors receive free fresh striped bass and bluefish and only occasionally get fresh Atlantic bonito. The program is a derby win-win.
A battalion of volunteers extending across the Island administers the program.
Two fishermen participating in the 66th annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby had their leading fish pulled from the contest on Monday, for not registering for a state saltwater fishing license. While the derby officials are not disqualifying the fishermen or sharing their names, the organization hopes that anglers participating in the contest get the message. To fish in the derby, anglers must comply with state and federal fishing requirements.
The idea came from an eight-year-old Chilmark boy. Three years ago young Jack Nixon was reading journalist David Kinney’s book The Big One, the hot new fishing read of the summer that year about the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby. As Jack was reading, he gazed at a newspaper nearby and had a sudden thought: He wished that some of the men who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan could fish the derby.
In its first enforcement of a new state fishing regulation, the Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby Committee voted Monday to disqualify two division-leading fish from the tournament because the anglers that caught them did not have a state permit prior to weighing in their catch.
