Posted on September 1, 2019 MRMTC Offshore Open ends with a blast of bigeyes The 39th annual Manasquan River Marlin & Tuna Club Offshore Open ended yesterday with a blast of bigeyes that made it the most successful offshore tournament of the year in tuna results even though there was only a 48-boat field. Practically all the leaders from earlier in the week, when northeast winds kept most boats in port, were knocked off. Tashtego was the big winner with a 241-pound bigeye — followed by Hubris at 228.5 pounds and Unavailable with a 164.5-pound entry.  I’ll have more results in tomorrow’s blog. As noted here last night, the forecast for today was a modest 10-15-knot  east wind with 2-3-foot seas. It didn’t turn out like that at all! The flags were flying straight out as I fought a suddenly rough surf at Belmar and Spring Lake to no avail. Dave Lilly of Hazlet went out on his friend Tony’s 25-foot Parker that handled the Raritan Bay waves. However,  they got soaked in the process of getting to Ambrose Channel where they quickly limited with fluke to 5 pounds and ran  back before the wind turned into the tide. Lilly actually had a double limit as he was surprised by a weakfish of about 22 inches — which has a one-fish limit. Capt. Ron Santee reported the 20-knot wind and strong current resulted in a bummer on his Fishermen from Atlantic Highlands after having good fluking Saturday when Erin Minervini of Middletown boated a 29-inch, 8.15-pound fluke. The Golden Eagle from Belmar reported good bluefishing on jigs again, though the blues were somewhat smaller,  The Jamaica from Brielle had a good report from Saturday, though the blues weren’t as voracious on jigs as they had been. Ramon Arias of Philadelphia won the pool with a 7-pound chopper. There were also a few bonito and sea bass, while chub mackerel hit late in the trip as they stayed overtime to take advantage of that bite. The forecast for Labor Day is south at 10-15 knots with possible showers. Here is the photo, provided by Greg Tirpak, mentioned in last night’s blog of a possible pompano or permit from the Spring Lake surf on shrimp. What do you think?