Sports
A new leader was weighed in at weigh station this morning. Morgan T. Taylor of West Tisbury, an avid angler, came in with a 11.68 pound bluefish at 8:09 a.m.
Mr. Taylor’s fish outweighed the previous shore leader, a fish caught by Matthew P. Wilkins and weighed in on Monday. Mr. Wilkins’ fish was 11.34 pounds.
The derby central headquarters opens at 8 a.m., so when Mr. Morgan walked in this morning with his big blue, he had everyone’s attention.
There was an early morning theft today at derby headquarters: A gull swept down while fillet master Hank Unczur wasn’t looking and stole one of his four bluefish fillets.
It’s only day three of the derby, but the herring gulls have taken up residence at the Edgartown Yacht Club and the newly-built Boathouse restaurant during derby weigh-in. Prematurely ready, the gulls are well-versed as they are in the affairs of the derby. They, too, know when it is derby time.
The fish arrived slowly at the weigh station on the opening day of the 63rd annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby. And when they did begin to show up, they were carried by top derby anglers.
William Pate, 34, of West Tisbury walked into the weigh station at 8:02 a.m. carrying a 7.54-pound bluefish that he had caught at 2 a.m. in the morning. Asked where he caught the fish, his answer was quick. “State forest,” he said.
On the eve of the start of the 63rd annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby a cadre of friends gathered to celebrate a derby birthday. Don Mohr, 85, of West Tisbury, was honored by his friends and wife at a party at his home on Otis Bassett Road.
Their fish lines not yet in the water, derby anglers gathered for sandwiches and beverages and to share stories with Mr. Mohr, who was chairman of the derby from 1989 to 1991 and derby committee member from 1984 to 1991.
Just as high school athletics season kicks off comes the potentially good news that the Eastern Athletic Conference — a sports league made up of predominantly parochial schools from the south shore — has invited the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School to join its ranks.
Several Vineyard sports teams have been without a conference since the principals of the South Coast Conference unexpectedly voted in December of 2006 not to allow the regional high school to remain in the league.
The striped bass is fun to catch and good to eat. It’s also enigmatic, historically prone to wild fluctuations in numbers and to inexplicable disappearances from area waters. And with the annual Island fishing derby opening Sunday, the old question is being asked again: where are all the fish?
Cooper Gilkes 3rd, an Island fisherman for more than 50 years and the owner of Coop’s Bait and Tackle in Edgartown, is concerned, for catch numbers seem to be in sharp decline.