It came down to the last two nights, the way it always does at this tournament.
The 35th MidAtlantic is in the books. 208 boats. A final purse of $6,756,020. Twenty-five money winners. And a leaderboard that sat frozen for three days before the final 48 hours tore it apart.
Taylor Jean wins the week
The blue marlin category had belonged to Shark Byte and its 599-pounder since Tuesday night. Then Taylor Jean backed down to the scale with a 680-pound blue and took the category outright.
That fish was worth $1,477,980 — the single biggest check of the tournament, and the reason Taylor Jean walks away as the week’s top winner.
Shark Byte’s 599 had led for three straight days. It didn’t survive the end.
A dead heat at 80 pounds — and two very different checks
Howard Berger’s Boss Hogg put an 80-pound white marlin on the scale at Sunset Marina in Ocean City Tuesday night.
Sixty miles north at Canyon Club in Cape May, the Lizanne — captained by John Ball — weighed a white marlin that hit the exact same number.
Eighty pounds each. A dead tie for first place.
Across 208 boats, five fishing days and two weigh stations on opposite sides of Delaware Bay, the two heaviest white marlin of the entire tournament could not be separated by a single ounce.
They did not, however, get paid the same.
Lizanne’s check came to $615,112 — a tremendous week by any measure, and not what a share of first place in this category is capable of paying. The Lizanne crew wasn’t in every calcutta. Boss Hogg was.
If that sounds familiar, it should. In 2023 this same boat weighed a 76-pound white, finished second behind an 87-pounder aboard Common Sense, and walked with $1,406,938 while the bigger fish took $201,388. Common Sense hadn’t bought into everything. Boss Hogg had.
Three years later, same tournament, same lesson, from the other side of the scale. Tie the heaviest white marlin in a 208-boat field and the fish alone doesn’t determine the number on the check — the paper you bought in Sunday afternoon does.
Captain Dale Plummer’s ReelVille finished behind the pair at 78 pounds, Canyon Lady next at 75. Only four qualifying whites made the board all week.
Angler Paul Hannum wasn’t done either — he released a blue marlin aboard Boss Hogg on the final day.
The wahoo finally showed up
Three full days and not one qualifying wahoo. Then the category cracked open.
Will Cianciulli aboard Reel Blessed weighed a 58-pounder and took the category. Two more came to the scales behind him and neither qualified — a 19 on Skeets and a 16 on D.A. SEA, both under the 20-pound minimum. MJ’s got a 21 across on the final day.
Only four wahoo were caught all week. Cianciulli got the one that mattered.
Dolphin flipped on the last night
Today’s the Day’s 28-pounder had held the dolphin lead since Wednesday. Lonnie Price aboard LIT UP weighed a 32and took it away.
Tuna never moved. Talkin’ Trash held from Tuesday with the 182-pound yellowfin angler Dan Caiola weighed for Captain Chris Little — a five-day lead that nobody seriously threatened.
FINAL LEADERBOARD
| Category | Boat | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Heaviest White Marlin (tie) | Boss Hogg | 80 lbs |
| Heaviest White Marlin (tie) | Lizanne | 80 lbs |
| Heaviest Blue Marlin | Taylor Jean | 680 lbs |
| Heaviest Tuna | Talkin’ Trash | 182 lbs |
| Heaviest Dolphin | LIT UP | 32 lbs |
| Heaviest Wahoo | Reel Blessed | 58 lbs |
| Most Points Overall | Southern C’s | 1,650 pts |
| Most Points White Marlin | Craftsmanship | 1,125 pts |
| Most Points Blue Marlin | Southern C’s | 1,050 pts |
| Most Points Tuna | Alexa Ann | 133.5 |
| Billfish Points — Ocean City | Southern C’s | 1,650 pts |
| Billfish Points — Cape May | Craftsmanship | 1,125 pts |
Where the $6.75 million came from
This is the part outsiders never understand about the MidAtlantic. The entry fee is $3,500. The money is somewhere else entirely — in eleven optional calcuttas that crews buy into before the first line goes in.
| Calcutta | Entries | Pot |
|---|---|---|
| Caterpillar 35th Mega Marlin | 69 | $2,221,800 |
| In Deep Overall | 158 | $872,160 |
| Roff’s White Marlin Pro Jackpot | 133 | $611,800 |
| Christi Insurance On the Board Reward | 180 | $496,800 |
| Blue Marlin Pro Jackpot | 132 | $485,760 |
| Volvo Penta MidAtlantic Overall | 166 | $458,160 |
| Tuna, Dolphin and Wahoo | 179 | $411,700 |
| Ocean City Home Port Overall | 108 | $397,440 |
| Everglades Tuna Pro Jackpot | 102 | $375,360 |
| Cape May Home Port Overall | 68 | $250,240 |
| Jupiter 50′ and Under Overall | 46 | $84,640 |
| Billfish Points — Ocean City | 71 | $65,320 |
| Billfish Points — Cape May | 27 | $24,840 |
Look at the Mega Marlin line. Sixty-nine boats put up $2.22 million — a $35,000 buy-in that more than a third of the fleet declined. That single calcutta is most of the reason one blue marlin was worth nearly $1.5 million.
That is the MidAtlantic in one table. You don’t win here by catching the biggest fish. You win by catching a good fish while holding the right paper.
A release tournament wearing a weigh-in tournament’s clothes
For all the scale drama, the actual character of this event is what goes back in the water.
The final day alone produced 127 fish caught and 110 released — 95 of them white marlin. Boats like Reel Priority, MJ’s, Cabana and Mama Who put fish back all afternoon. Craftsmanship rode releases to 1,125 points and the Cape May billfish title without needing a single fish on the scale.
The scoring makes that possible on purpose: a released white is 75 points, a released blue is 150, and a 600-pound blue on the hook is also 150. The tournament pays you exactly the same to let it go.
There was even a roundscale spearfish — Tyler Compton aboard Today’s the Day — which is the kind of fish most crews go a career without seeing.
Two footnotes
The blue marlin catch record is still open business. The fleet caught 49 blues and released 46 on Day Two alone, against an all-time mark of 68 caught and 62 released for a full week. We’ll confirm where the final week total landed when the tournament publishes it.
And these figures come off the tournament’s live scoring board, which carries an unofficial tag until the final audit clears. If anything shifts in the official release, we’ll update.
Twenty-five boats got paid. One 680-pound blue marlin changed a family’s year on the second-to-last night of the week.
See you on the water.
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