By The Saltwater Insider Crew
The canyon boats are washed down and the white marlin numbers are in the books. If you thought the season was over, you have not been paying attention to the calendar.
What happens between now and New Year’s is not a victory lap. There is a four-boat winner-take-all in Cabo with a full season riding on it, the richest marlin tournament on the planet, and a kingfish circuit in the Carolinas that pays out nearly half a million dollars while the northern fleet is shrink-wrapping. Here is where the last two weeks landed, and every event still worth watching before the year runs out.
The Sea Birds Punched Their Ticket
The Sport Fishing Championship wrapped its Atlantic Division regular season at Sunset Marina in Ocean City, and the New Jersey Sea Birds took the division title.
More important than the trophy: the Sea Birds and South Florida Sails both clinched berths in the Zane Grey Championship Playoffs, locking in their spots as they crossed the sea buoy on Friday morning.
The fishing itself did not go quietly. Lights Out Boston, the defending division champions, seized control of Day One behind Spencer Talbot’s 450-point blue marlin release, then stacked white marlin releases from Casey Carmichael, Matteo Scena and Ross Nasin to reach 750 points. South Carolina Outcast finished the day with 200. North Carolina Flare matched that number but sat behind Outcast on time — the kind of tiebreak that decides seasons. Rhode Island Breakers and East Coast Remix each posted 100.
Saturday morning opened with North Carolina Flare’s David Dressler, Trey Baranyai and Mark Dressler putting white marlin on the board.
Club owner Ethan Rigel credited the whole operation rather than the leaderboard: “Winning the 2026 SFC Atlantic Division Championship is a testament to the relentless grit, focus, and standard of excellence that defines the New Jersey Sea Birds.” Rigel singled out boat owner Ken Hager, whose Taylor Jean carried the club all season, and Captain Blaine Birch at the helm.
That is the Atlantic side settled. Two boats, one ticket each, and a flight to Baja.
Kona Waited Until the Last Possible Minute
Every veteran around Honokohau Harbor said the same thing all summer: the season was late, the fish were coming, give it time.
They were right, and the proof came at the buzzer.
The Big Island Marlin Tournament went to Kona Dream behind a 683-pound blue. Then It’s a Wrap closed the Hawaii Marlin Tournament Series with Chad Beaudry and Last Chance making the kind of push that ends up in bar arguments for a decade — three weighed blue marlin, two of them on the final day, 1,823 points and the win.
The fish of the year, though, belonged to James Bach and Pursuit: an 854-pound blue, the biggest of It’s a Wrap and the largest marlin weighed across the entire 2026 HMTS season. The finale produced 23 blue marlin and one ahi. The raw count was modest. The quality was not.
Swish Runs the Table on the North Drop
Down in the British Virgin Islands, the Scrub Island Billfish Series ran back-to-back legs across the end of August and into September, and Swish made it look methodical.
Swish won Leg One outright, then finished runner-up in Leg Two — 6,100 points and the 2026 series championship. Fresh Air took Leg Two. Big Ben finished second overall with 5,000 points, Sodium third with 4,500.
The fleet released 93 billfish, and 89 of those were blue marlin. That is not a typo, and it tells you exactly what the North Drop was doing. The series paid out more than $500,000 across the two legs, and it did it despite losing a fishing day to weather.
Tournament director Michelle Gaylord put it plainly: the series keeps growing without losing the intimate feel that separates it from the mega-events.
What’s Left: The Rest of 2026
Here is the board. Dates come from the tournaments themselves — confirm entry deadlines directly, because several of these fill.
September
The Ocean City fall run is still going. The Ocean City Fishing Center hosts an event September 12, Bahia Marina follows September 13, and the OC Marlin Club runs September 17-19.
Down south, Port Royal, South Carolina hosts an elite redfish tournament September 12 — 50 boats, $15,000 purse, built around South Carolina’s slot limit. Small field, serious anglers.
Broadly, September carries roughly 20 offshore tournaments worldwide, with sailfish, blue marlin and white marlin all in play.
October — The Big Month
Bisbee’s Los Cabos Offshore, October 12-17. The warm-up act, and a real tournament in its own right.
Zane Grey Championship Playoffs, October 17-18, Cabo San Lucas. Four angling clubs, two days, winner take all, out of Corazón Cabo Resort & Spa. Shotgun start at 7:00 a.m. both days, lines out at 5:30 p.m. The Atlantic sends the New Jersey Sea Birds and South Florida Sails. This is the closest thing offshore fishing has to a title game.
Bisbee’s Black & Blue, October 19-24, with three fishing days October 21-23. The Super Bowl of sportfishing, and the numbers back the nickname. Founded by Bob Bisbee in 1981 with six teams chasing a $10,000 purse, it now draws 150 to 200-plus teams. The 2024 edition paid $6,847,200. The 2025 edition paid $7,452,775. Weigh-ins happen at Puerto Paraíso Mall on the Cabo marina, and thousands line the waterfront to watch. Base entry is $5,000 per team; the jackpots are where it gets serious.
US Open King Mackerel, October 1-3, Southport, North Carolina. Dutchman Creek Park, and one of the largest and most prestigious kingfish tournaments on the East Coast. Hundreds of boats work the Cape Fear region.
Kingfish Cup Rumble, October 16-18, Little River, South Carolina. A qualifying leg of the Kingfish Cup, with a $10,000 first-place prize in the Small Boat Class.
Kingfish Cup Fall Brawl, October 30 – November 1. The final qualifier.
October carries around 18 offshore tournaments globally.
November and December
Kingfish Cup Championship, mid-November. The Cup is a limited-entry series — 100 teams, four qualifying events, and a Championship that pays out over $240,000 on its own. The series pays more than $450,000 annually.
Old Salt Fall King of the Beach, November 12-14, Florida. One of the largest and richest king mackerel tournaments in the country. Worth noting for the small-boat crowd: Old Salt runs a Single Engine Division specifically for single-outboard rigs, with a 200HP Suzuki repower package going to the winner. Most anglers run single engines. Most tournaments ignore that. This one does not.
November is actually the busiest month left on the global calendar with roughly 25 tournaments, shifting toward blue marlin, sailfish and black marlin. December carries another 13 as the Florida sailfish season starts building toward its winter peak.
What It Means
Two things stand out looking at the back half of this calendar.
The first is that the money has migrated. The Mid-Atlantic canyon season is the emotional heart of this sport for anyone running out of Ocean City or Cape May, but the biggest checks of the year get written in Baja in October.
The second is that the fall is where a smaller boat can actually compete. A single-engine center console is not fishing Bisbee’s. It can absolutely fish the King of the Beach or a Kingfish Cup leg, and it can win real money doing it. The kingfish circuits are the most accessible serious tournament fishing in America, and they run exactly when everything else is shutting down.
If you are hauling out this month, take a look south before you do.
See you on the water.