If you want to get good at something, talk to the experts" -- Lefty Kreh

Thanks for visiting 52 Week Season!

52 Week Season is a project to explore a hunting or fishing opportunity each week of the year in the mid-Atlantic. When I started, my intention was to interview various hunting and fishing guides on their approaches throughout the seasons, but I increasingly became more interested in the seasonal patterns of the species themselves and the yearly rituals we build around them. 

Some of these traditions are based on seasonal cues such as migrations or reproduction, while others are purely institutionalized by the DNR. 

For example, we don’t know exactly when the conditions will be perfect for the green drake hatch, whitetail rut, or canvasback migrations, but we have a pretty good idea from years of trial and error and perhaps some data (Memorial Day, mid-November, and “Canuary,” respectively). We itch for a warming trend for yellow perch in the spring and a northwest cold front for Canada geese at the fall but are at the mercy of mother nature. 

Yet we do know that the best opportunity for dove is high noon on September 1, that White Marlin Open is the first full week of August, and that schools are closed the Monday after Thanksgiving for whitetail opener in Pennsylvania. 

Many of these yearly traditions revolve around food -- springtime means shad plankings and fall means oyster roasts -- while others are strictly for sport. Some rituals aren’t based on science or calendar at all but just feel right. Mid-summer is the not the best time for largemouth bass, but there’s something about throwing poppers on a glassy lake before a July thunderstorm.

 Could you possibly hit each of these experiences in 52 weeks? Of course not. It’s absurd to you think you would have the time, but it’s also crazy to assume that a shark fisherman cares to throw flies at brook trout or that a duck hunter has any interest in coyotes. Plus, a jack of all trades is usually a master of none. 

But if you’re lucky, you can start to make connections. A hunter of diving ducks will know to return to the “hard bottom” during rockfish season, and a pheasant hunter can always use those tail feathers for a steelhead fly. And what is more satisfying than a cast-and-blast day targeting speckled trout and blue-wing teal in a September marsh? 

Some of the critters on this list are native and some are non-native, and many times it’s not clear. Largemouth bass are a familiar non-native species while snakehead are a non-native monster in many people’s eyes. Brown trout are non-native but long-established; sika deer are imported but at the same time unique to Maryland; and elk are native but reestablished. Tarpon and coyotes seem way out of place but are adapting to changing environments. 

So what is the "Mid-Atlantic"?  

One of my favorite descriptions is the boundaries of the Chesapeake Bay watershed featured in William Warner's Beautiful Swimmers: 

"The Bay’s entire watershed extends north through Pennsylvania to the Finger Lakes and Mohawk Valley country of New York, by virtue of the Susquehanna, the mother river that created the Bay. To the west it traces far back into the furrowed heartland of Appalachia, but one mountain ridge short of the Ohio-Mississippi drainage, by agency of the Potomac. To the east the flatland rivers of the Eastern Shore rise from gum and oak thickets almost within hearing distance of the pounding surf of the Atlantic barrier islands. To the south, Bay waters seep through wooded swamps to the North Carolina sounds, where palmettos, alligators and great stands of bald cypress first appear." 

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-- Patrick Ottenhoff, Washington, DC

 

Week 3. White Marlin Open: World's Largest Billfish Tournament

Week 3. White Marlin Open: World's Largest Billfish Tournament

Patrick Ottenhoff
Saltwater

As it does the first couple of weeks of every August, the epicenter of the saltwater sportfishing world descends this week on Ocean City, Maryland — or more accurately, 50 miles offshore — for the 43rd annual White Marlin Open. 

Thousands of anglers in 329 registered boats will compete for $4.4 million in cash prizes, including a grand prize for the largest white marlin and pay-outs for blue marlin, tuna, dolphin, wahoo, and shark. 

As the world’s largest billfish tournament, the White Marlin Open also draws thousands of spectators for the Hemingway-style weigh-ins each night and generates tens of millions of dollars for Ocean City’s top purveyors of diesel and dark-and-stormies. 

Anglers this year took advantage of the unseasonably calm weather on Monday to catch and release 497 whites and nine blues. One white also qualified as over 70 lbs and 67” to be boated -- a 76.5 pounder valued at $2.4 million.

Leading white caught on Monday, photo courtesy of White Marlin Open Facebook page. 

Leading white caught on Monday, photo courtesy of White Marlin Open Facebook page. 

I caught up with tournament spokeswoman Madelyne Rowan who was gracious enough to take a few moments away from the frenzy to give me a little background on the tournament and also did some research with the Ocean City White Marlin Club, which is celebrating its 79th anniversary. 

Maryland wasn’t always a top destination for marlin. It owes that distinction in part to the Hurricane of 1933 that cut the Ocean City Inlet that we know today and created a natural and deep-water harbor at the Delmarva’s easternmost point. 

As legend has it, Captain John Mickle ventured out of the new inlet in 1934 and caught the first-ever marlin recorded off the Maryland coast. 

The bite was on. A few years later, on July 29, 1939, a group of local captains boated 171 white marlin in one day at the famed Jackspot about 20 miles off the coast. 

Ocean City lore says that the same weekend, on July 30, 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt caught two white marlins aboard the USS Potomac.**

Fishing picked up, an Ocean City billed itself White Marlin Capital of the World. The Marlin Club records show that some of the best fishing ever was in the late 60s and early 70s within multiple years of thousands of white marlin caught, and three of the best four years on record between 1969-71. 

The success led Jim Motsko to launch the first White Marlin Open in 1974 with 54 boats and $20,000 in prize money. 

Over 40 years later, the tournament is an Atlantic sportfishing rite-of-summer. In 2015, the top prize of $1.1 million went to the Virginia Beach-based Backlash with a 94-pound white marlin, only five pounds short of a tournament record 99-pounder caught in 1980. 

The largest Maryland blue marlin on record was a 1,062 pound beast, also caught in the tournament, on August 7, 2009, at Baltimore Canyon. 

Looking over 78 years of Marlin Club records, the first white marlin caught each season on average is June 20, while the last caught on average is September 25, but seasons are getting longer and anglers have increasingly been catching whites into October.  

White marlin winter off the northern coast of South America and arrive in the mid Atlantic in late summer when ocean surface temps are above 70. By August, the NOAA buoys moored in 100 feet of water off the mid-Atlantic coast show sea temps in the mid- to high-70s. 

The White Marlin Open's Rowan says the peak white and blue run is August 15-September 15, depending on the weather. Tuna runs are more variable, she says, but that this time of year there a lot of big eyes. 

Of course, where to go is a multimillion-dollar trade secret, but Rowan notes some of the most popular spots are Washington and Norfolk Canyons, and of course records have been set at Jackspot, Baltimore Canyon (blue), and Poor Man’s Canyon (white). 

I'll check back in with Rowan after the tourney, but one things for sure: Wherever the winner is caught, they'll be back in Ocean City that night for the party and to confirm the town’s title as White Marlin Capital of the World. 

Historical Dates

  • June 20 - average date of first white marlin caught 
  • August 7 - record blue
  • August 29 - record white
  • September 25 - average date of last white marlin caught

Other Notes

**I tried to confirm this story, and Roosevelt’s official White House records show him leaving from the USS Potomac out Quantico on Friday, July 28, and with two days conspicuously empty except for “Cruising the USS Potomac.” Of course, one month later, Hilter invaded Poland, and Roosevelt was also known for conducting sensitive state business on the yacht. “Cruising the USS Potomac” could have been a truthful way to throw off a Washington press corps and curious diplomats. Either way, the fact that the White House officially recorded him fishing off Ocean City is a testament to fishery.

 
Week 4. Copper Fox Distillery: Applewood-Aged Virginia Whisky

Week 4. Copper Fox Distillery: Applewood-Aged Virginia Whisky
Week 2. Shawn Kimbro: Chesapeake Light Tackle

Week 2. Shawn Kimbro: Chesapeake Light Tackle