OCMC’s 19th annual Kid’s Classic July 22-23

By Hunter Hine Staff Writer

(July 21, 2023) All anglers 19 years old and younger are welcome to fish one or both days of the 19th annual Kid’s Classic, held July 22-23 and hosted by the Ocean City Marlin Club.

“The nice thing about it is it’s a local tournament, [it] gets all the children out there fishing, and you’ll see a 6-year-old or a 5-year-old, young girl or boy coming down to the dock to weigh their five croaker in a bucket, [and] they’re all full of smiles,” said tournament chairman Dale Withers, who has been helping run the Kid’s Classic for about a decade. “It’s just a great family tournament. Everybody has a real good time.”

Registration is Friday from 6-8 p.m. at the OCMC clubhouse located on Golf Course Road in West Ocean City. The captains meeting is at 7:45 p.m. and can be attended in-person at the clubhouse, or online through a virtual meeting link on the OCMC Facebook page.

Attendees can also register online in advance.

The registration for boats is $200, but the head boat entry fee is $25 per angler, Withers said. The cost is $25 for each angler fishing from shore.

In 2022, 196 anglers registered for the Kid’s Classic, and 53 boats entered.

This year the tournament will again benefit the Wish-A-Fish foundation, an organization based in Maryland and Virginia that hosts fishing events for special needs children and their families, according to its website.

Last year the tournament raised $1,100 in donations for Wish-AFish.

Today, Wish-A-Fish will host what Wither’s described as a mini-pretournament on charter boats for affected children and their families, which will be followed by a dinner at the clubhouse on Saturday.

The OCMC pays for the charter boats in the Wish-A-Fish event, and put forward $3,890 last year to do so.

For the next two days, young an- glers can catch-and-weigh wahoo, tuna, mahi (dolphin), bonita, bluefish, rockfish, sea bass, tautog, spot, croaker, flounder and mackerel. There is even a category for “unusual” catches.

Participants – who can fish offshore, inshore and from land – will be awarded first, second and third place for the heaviest fish of each species.

For spot and croaker, each angler is allowed five fish in a bucket per day. OCMC asks that all anglers keep their catch alive for release.

Young anglers can also catch-andrelease billfish, such as white marlin, blue marlin, sailfish and swordfish, which are rated through a point system.

Blue marlin must be photographed and shown to weigh masters in order to receive their 150 blue-marlin points. If not, the fish will be counted with white-marlin points, which is 100.

Swordfish are also 150 points, and all other billfish are worth 100.

For both Saturday and Sunday, it’s lines in at 6:30 a.m. and lines out at 3 p.m., and the tournament boundaries are 100 nautical miles from the Ocean City sea buoy.

Withers said earlier this week that the weather looks like it will be great for the tournament.

“It’s usually in July, it’s going to be 90-something degrees and the heat index is way up there. Looks like Friday, we’re going to get some thunderstorms,” Withers said. “Humidity is supposed to go down for the weekend and I just looked at Berlin’s weather, it’s supposed to be a high of 84. The weather, if it holds, [then it] will be a good, comfortable tournament.”

Weigh-ins are 3-6:30 p.m. Saturday and 3-6 p.m. Sunday at Sunset Marina in West Ocean City. Boats must be in the marina cut by the final minutes on both days.

The carnival and awards banquet is 6:30-9 p.m. on Sunday, and will be located under the OCMC clubhouse. Attendees can expect bounce houses, a rock climbing wall, cotton candy machines and snow cones, Withers said.