Article by Capt. Franky Pettolina
I was down at Ocean City Fishing Center tonight getting some stuff ready for a charter tomorrow. I am excited to go out fishing since the tunas have been snapping and it has been quite an interesting mix of tunas, to say the least. Little bluefins. Big bluefins. Giant bluefins. Little yellowfins. Decent yellowfins. Adolescent bigeyes. Average bigeyes. A couple of lunker bigeyes. Like I said, a decent tuna bite.
But that is not what I am going to write about this week. There will be plenty of tuna pictures in this issue for y’all to check out. Hopefully, there will even be one of my guys holding their catch. So I don’t think I need to talk about the tuna fishing. There are much more important things going on in the fishing world right now. And this week I am going to talk about two of them.
First of all, WHERE THE HECK IS WHITEY????? I am typing this on Wednesday June 14, 2017 and the #FirstWhiteMarlinOC has not been caught yet. As a side note, to my techno dummy friend and fellow Coastal Fisherman columnist, Lance Smith, this means nothing more than “First White Marlin of the Season in Ocean City, Maryland.” I am not quite sure what a # (hashtag) means and I am not sure when a # (tic tac toe board) lost its identity. But hey! I am hip to the new lingo, unlike Lance. So I will refer to the prestigious First White Marlin of the Season as #FirstWhiteMarlinOC. I think this helps it stay at the top of the Google searches and keeps it in the news feed on people’s social media.
Maybe….Shhhhhh… I am going to let you in on a little secret. I don’t know any more about this stuff than Lance!
Anyway, Whitey has eluded all of our fishing efforts at this point. I wouldn’t be surprised if the fish is in fact caught before this issue goes to press, but I also won’t be shocked if it isn’t. The best conditions are still a little too far away in my opinion, but dumb luck definitely plays into this sport. And the last time I checked, Whitey doesn’t have a calendar, nor does he have a sea surface temperature chart at his disposal. Also, I am pretty darn sure he doesn’t know there is a $15,000-plus bounty on his pointy little head. I know I will have a white marlin style bait ready to throw at one when I start fishing tomorrow morning. Just in case I happen to get lucky…. I already have the dumb part covered.
The second important fishing nugget of the week also has to do with white marlin. One white marlin in particular. Probably the most famous white marlin in the world right now. That would be the fish formerly known as the winner of last year’s White Marlin Open. For those of you that are not aware, please read the papers and buy a computer and learn to use the internet! Just kidding. In case any of you, my loyal readers, are unaware, the largest and only qualifying white marlin caught during last year’s Open has been under scrutiny since the end of the tournament. I don’t quite know the whole story, but the Cliff’s Notes version goes something like this. The time of the catch was under dispute because the time originally entered on the catch report was crossed out and changed. Also, there were some issues with the crewmember responses during the polygraph testing that was administered. All anglers winning more than $50,000 are subject to those tests per the rules of the tournament. This ultimately led to the tournament officials putting the outcome of the event in the hands of the courts. This afternoon, the Judge rendered his decision. The white marlin that won the tournament has been disqualified. Now the Judge must decide how the prize money, 2.8 million smackeroos to be exact, will be divided among the other winning fish in the tournament. Easy enough right? WRONG!
There was no second place white marlin. The only qualifying blue marlin was not in all of the added-entry levels. The winning tuna was. Even some of the mahi are eligible for some additional loot. This makes for a pretty large school of fish circling this proverbial chum pot. I suspect the Judge is going to need a crash course in tournament procedures and a very large abacus. It will be pretty interesting to see how this shakes out.
There is one thing in this whole White Marlin Open mess that I would like to make clear. The Motsko Family (who own and run the Tournament) did not benefit from this unfortunate situation. There was no magic bank account that the disputed 2.8 million was earning outrageous interest in. If anything, they had to pay a bunch of money out in legal fees. More importantly than that, I am sure Jim and Chuck Motsko, and the rest of the family members who devote so much of their life to this tournament, all lost sleep and had to deal with incredible amounts of damage control throughout the past nine or so months.
The White Marlin Open is a very important part of our little beach town and the Motsko family has worked very hard to make it the Largest Billfish Tournament in the World. Next time you see any of the Motsko clan, thank them for all they have done. I am glad this whole debacle is mostly behind us.
So yeah, I am going chasing tunas tomorrow. But there is no doubt that I live in the White Marlin Capital of the World. And hopefully I stumble across one tomorrow! #FirstWhiteMarlinOC
Capt. Franky Pettolina is Co-Captain of the charter boat, “Last Call” and President of the Ocean City Marlin Club.
