Born gives everyone a day head start, but still wins Fall Surf Fishing Classic
Last weekend Old Inlet Bait and Tackle sponsored its 17th edition of the Fall Surf Fishing Classic. The weather cooperated, and the 279 registered anglers caught quite a mixture of fish.
There were 22 flounder bigger than 16 inches and up to 6 pounds caught, and that is a bit unusual for the Delaware surf.
The most common catch was bluefish, closely followed by kingfish. While plenty of fish were caught, only 71 anglers were able to land scoring fish.
Each species has a minimum length, and many did not make the qualifying number.
The winner was a man not at all unfamiliar to Delaware surf fishing, having won or placed in previous events. Gary Born from New Jersey scored 132 points to take the first-place trophy and $800. This accomplishment is even more amazing since Gary was ill on Saturday and could not fish. He caught all of his fish on Sunday, giving everyone else a full-day lead.
Most of his scoring fish were kings, and he was able to catch them two at a time by waiting after he hooked one for the second fish to get on the line. The fact that he can cast a country mile also played into his success.
Shaun Smith from Millsboro came in second with 120 points while Gary Born’s fishing buddy Sam Catalano, also from New Jersey, placed third with 118 points. My next-door neighbor Darren Purcell was fourth with 103 points.
The top lady angler was Carre Twardus, who amassed 34 points. Donna Guttridge was second with 29 points, and Mary Varela came in third with 20 points. The top youngster was Jason Cain with 13 points.
The largest money prize went to Randy Orrison, who won the bluefish Calcutta worth $2,320.
He did it with a 17-inch bluefish. Figure how much per pound that bluefish was worth. The largest fish of the tournament was a 28-inch rockfish caught by Phillip Lowe and worth $1,000.
The next surf tournament will be the Cast for a Cure to benefit the American Cancer Society.
It will be held Saturday, Oct. 4, and is also sponsored in part by Old Inlet Bait and Tackle.
This is a team tournament with four-man/woman teams at $50 per person. For more information, contact Old Inlet Bait and Tackle at 302-227-7974.
Summer flounder scoping hearing set for Oct. 6
The National Marine Fisheries Service will hold a scoping hearing at 6 p.m., Monday, Oct. 6, to receive input on the Summer Flounder Management Plan. The meeting will be held in the auditorium of the Fish and Wildlife Building in Dover.
A scoping hearing is different from a public hearing on proposed regulations such as the one held earlier in September for striped bass. At this meeting, NMFS will be looking for ideas on how best to manage summer flounder. They will seek input from commercial and recreational fishermen.
One of the subjects on the agenda is the division of the resource between commercial and recreational fishermen.
When the summer flounder plan was written, the population had dropped to such a low level that recreational fishermen were catching very few while commercial fishermen were scooping flounder up by the boatload by dragging over the flounder’s winter grounds on the edge of the Continental Shelf. Since the commercials were catching more than the recreationals, the plan allocated 60 percent of the resource to them and 40 percent to the recreational community.
I am shocked that this subject has made it to the discussion stage since just the mention of a more even split between the two factions has never officially come to light before. Prior to the decline in the 1980s, recreational fishermen captured many more flounder than the commercials, but of course, this fact did not enter into consideration by those in charge of creating the management plan.
They used the most recent landing numbers that showed the commercials catching many more flounder than the recreationals.
Since then, the recreational catch has been limited by high size and low bag limits. The number of flounder we catch is an estimate derived by input from several sources. The commercial catch is controlled by a quota, so the exact number of flounder they land is known.
I do not suffer from delusions, so I don’t expect the 60/40 split to be changed. The commercial influence is much greater than anything the recreational community can ever hope to obtain.
In any event, I plant to attend the meeting, and I hope to see you there.
For more information, go to nmfs.gar.FlukeAmendment@ noaa.gov or www.mafmc.org/ actions/summer-flounderamendment.
No photo
You may notice there is no photo accompanying this column. With a steady diet of northeast wind, fishing has been very slow and therefore no photo.
Eric Burnley is a Delaware native who has fished and hunted the state from an early age. Since 1978 he has written countless articles about hunting and fishing in Delaware and elsewhere along the Atlantic Coast. Eric can be reached at Eburnle@aol.com.
