InTheBite

Captain of the Year and Champion’s Cup Updates

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Photo courtesy Brian Leiser

September 21, 2021—It’s a Wrap! The sanctioned Hawaii tournaments have wrapped up with Capt. Shane O’Brien on Strong Persuader winning the most points with five tags at the It’s a Wrap Tournament. Capt. Tracy Epstein and the Last Chance team brought in a 565-pound blue winning them biggest marlin. This means O’Brien and the Wild Hooker team have won the Hawaii Champion’s Cup for Most Points and Largest Blue Marlin.

The previous weekend was a win with the MBGFC Invitational Labor Day Tournament when team Breathe Easy’s Craig Smith reeled in the largest blue marlin weighing in at 584.2 pounds. This earns the team points within the Champion’s Cup Overall Blue Division and Gulf Division Largest Blue further cementing their spot in first for the Gulf.

Our Captain of the Year also wrapped up in three categories: East Coast, Gulf and International. Capt. Patrick Ivie on the Breathe Easy took first in the FURUNO Gulf Division with 1500 pts. Over in the Release Ruler Hawaii Division, Capt. Shane O’Brien on Wild Hooker blew the other competition out of the water with 3500 points. Finally, for the AIRMAR East Coast Division, Capt. Miles Herring on Glazed won the first place spot with 1000 points. Congratulations to all three captains and their teams. Stay tuned later in the year when we announce the International and Florida COTY winners.

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Gray FishTag Research to Hold First-Ever Southeast Suzuki Invitational Swordfish Tagging Expedition

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Gray FishTag Research, a not for profit, all species, international tagging program, will be holding the first-ever Southeast Suzuki Invitational Swordfish Tagging Expedition—SwordQuest. Mike Lund and Mike Lardani, owners of Outboard Specialties in Pompano Beach will be sponsoring the program in an effort to continue swordfish research work in Southeast Florida.

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North Carolina Gears up for 2021 Hatteras Village Offshore Open

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1998 – Instigator (861 lb)

If you’re looking for world-class blue marlin fishing along the East Coast, you need to be in Hatteras, North Carolina May 11 – 15, 2021 for the Hatteras Village Offshore, an InTheBite Captain of the Year sanctioned event.  Hatteras Village offers a laidback atmosphere for the opening tournament in the NC Billfish Series, where year after year quality blue marlin are brought to the dock.  In addition to the great fishing, we have amazing food lined up for you three out of the five nights, leaving you a couple of free evenings to enjoy all that Hatteras has to offer.

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Uno Mas Takes First at Leg 2 of Signature Triple Crown

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uno mas team at los suenos

With 33 sails and three marlin equaling a total of 4800 points, team Uno Mas was the winner of Leg 2 of the 2021 Signature Triple Crown. For the Champion’s Cup, that gives them 500 points for first place within the International Division.

First Place: Uno Mas

Second Place: Smooth Move

Third Place: Max Bet

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Champion’s Cup Q&A with Lo Que Sea Owner Tony Huerta

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The 2021 InTheBite Champion’s Cup is underway and so we sat down with one of the participants to get a better idea of who’s fishing. Tony Huerta, owner of the 58′ Paul Mann Lo Que Sea answers nine of our serious, and not-so-serious questions. Register your boat now for a chance to win it all in the first-ever Champion’s Cup: https://www.reeltimeapps.com/live/tou…

2021 InTheBite Champion’s Cup: What to Know

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champions cup

Since 2003, InTheBite’s Captain of the Year Cup has celebrated the most successful tournament captains. It is still the world’s only quantifiable metric that ranks captains across five separate and geographically diverse tournament divisions – Florida, Hawaii, International, Gulf of Mexico and East Coast.

New for 2021, we are introducing an optional paid entry winner-takes-all prize format awarding teams with the most division points, heaviest marlin, and most sailfish releases. Registered teams can compete in as many InTheBite sanctioned tournaments or divisions as they choose. Each division will be scored independently.

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White Marlin Open to Host 47th Annual Offshore Fishing Tournament this August

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marlin jumping out of the ocean

OCEAN CITY, MARYLAND – May 27, 2020 — The White Marlin Open, an offshore billfish tournament held in Ocean City, today announces plans for its upcoming 47th annual tournament to be held August 3 through August 7. The tournament will follow local and state guidelines for crowd size, which have yet to be determined.

Awarding more than $77 million in prizes to date, The White Marlin Open expects to give out more than $6.5 million to this year’s tournament winners, topping not only the record $6.1 million payout from 2019 but also almost every other professional sports payout in the world. Prizes are awarded for catches of white marlin, blue marlin, tuna, wahoo, dolphin, and shark, as well as most release points by boat and daily catches of wahoo, tuna wand dolphin.

“We are excited to announce that the White Marlin Open will go on this year. A record boat turnout is expected, as people are ready for sports to return and anglers are anxious to get back out on the water, especially as fuel prices are drastically lower than last year,” said Jim Motsko, Founder of the White Marlin Open tournament.

“The main impact we’ll see due to state and local guidelines for social distancing is around spectators viewing the weigh-ins, however nothing about the fishing experience will be altered,” added Tournament Directors. “Our goal is to share the tournament experience as best we can–especially the weigh-ins–in the safest manner possible so that families can continue to enjoy Tournament Week here in Ocean City.”

The 2020 White Marlin Open will feature a new category, Level Pay Day:

  • The total purse will be divided by five days. Each day’s purse will be split evenly among those winning first, second or third place white marlin, blue marlin and tuna that day. If there are no winners for a particular day, the un-won prize money will be split evenly among the purses of the other days.

Boats can save $350 on the basic entry fee by registering before June 1. Participating boats can depart from anywhere within the 100 nautical mile limit fishing boundary. As a result, boats do not have to leave from the Ocean City Inlet to participate and can depart from as north as Barnegat, NJ and Cape May Inlet, all the way south to Rudee Inlet in Virginia Beach at the Virginia Beach Fishing Center. Additionally, smaller boats may compete against the whole fleet or enter categories limited to boats under 40 feet.

The White Marlin Open 2020 tournament is presented by Pure Lure. Sponsors include Rick Bogert Marine Art, Park Place Jewelers, Pelagic, Maryland Live Casino, Bank of Ocean City, Okiaya Chesapeake Urology, Boston Scientific, Under Armour, HUK, Yacht World, South Jersey Yacht Sales, Miller Lite, Mid Shore Electronics, Clarion, Viking, Ocean Ready, Garmin, Sunset Marina, Jarrett Bay, Chesapeake Whalertowne,

Travelers Insurance, Christi Insurance, WB Diesel/Johnson & Towers, Big Game Fishing Journal, Fish Unlimited, Bevanda, Bayliss Boatworks, Spencer Yacht Brokerage/Spencer Yacht Sales, Fin & Field, Atlantic Tackle, Phillips Seafood Restaurants, Phillips Beach Plaza Hotel, Harborside Bar & Grill, Baitmasters of South Florida Cummins Power Systems, Seacrets, and Bad Monkey.

About White Marlin Open

The White Marlin Open is a 47-year-old offshore fishing tournament held annually in Ocean City, Maryland. The tournament awards prize money for catches of white marlin, blue marlin, tuna, wahoo, dolphin, and shark. Long known as “World’s Largest Billfishing Tournament,” the White Marlin Open (WMO) has awarded over $77 million dollars since 1974 to the lucky winners among more than 105,000 anglers aboard over 14,000 registered boats.  Along the way, the WMO became the largest billfish tournament and holds the world record for prize money payouts for any type of fishing tournament. To learn more, please visit https://whitemarlinopen.com.

Do you have any comments or questions for us? We’d love to hear from you.