At 12:01 a.m., the first minute of Sunday morning, the lines will zip off reels and lures will plop softly in the water. The 71st Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby begins.

Derby president Ed Jerome thought he had seen just about everything. Until Sunday’s award ceremony, when Miles Whyte of Edgartown took the microphone and proposed to his girlfriend.

The 70th annual Martha’s Vineyard Bass and Bluefish Derby is in the books. A chilly but enthusiastic crowd gathered at derby headquarters Saturday night for the final weigh-in of the tournament. The awards ceremony is Sunday.

The Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, which is heading into its final stretch, is a multi-generational affair, with parents and kids casting lines together and some of the youngest anglers catching big fish.

The Island fishing scene is still buzzing as the 2015 Martha's Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby heads into the final week. As veteran anglers know, the grand leader board can change up until the final bell.

All along Lobsterville Beach one morning this week, about a dozen anglers stood in waders, casting into the surf. On any given day during the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, Lobsterville and neighboring Menemsha are hotspots for surfcasters and fly fishermen of all ages.

The weekend weather demonstrated a tried and true maxim for competitors in the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby: east is least, west is best. Plenty of fish were weighed in Saturday, but there was a drop off Sunday and Monday.

Early Sunday morning, Hannah Gibb was the first to arrive at the Oak Bluffs ferry gate, ready to cast off the Steamship Authority wharf as part of the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby’s annual kids’ day, which kicked off at 6 a.m.

This years kids’ derby is Sunday, Sept. 20, from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Just a short window of time, before the ferries roll in and take over.

At the stroke of 12:01 a.m. Sunday, no one turned into a pumpkin, but a whole lot of people turned into obsessive, superstitious and sometimes secretive competitors in the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby.