Evening star., 1938-09-04
OCEAN CITY is LATEST ATLANTIC COAST GAMEFSH CENTER
Marlin Sport Has Turned Little Seaside
Resort Into Coming Minor Rival
of Miami for Anglers.

than four summers old Paul and
Jack Townsend have home in nearby
Delaware, and for years have been
blg-game fishermen. Paul, according
TO Kip harrington, a noted authority.
hits fish on the strike harder than
any man he knows.
Cruising around off Ocean City in
their boat, Paul and Jack Townsend
questioned the commercial fishermen
of the port as to whether they had
seen big fish failing" or showing their
dorsal fins. The fishermen told them
they had and that occasionally one
would strike trolled bluefish lure.
That was in 1884. The same year they
took their boat to the Jackpot and
landed the first white marlin caught
off Ocean City on rod and reel. It
didn't get much publicity then. But
next year and the next wear the sport
really opened up. 1t was better in
1887. and this year it has been best
OF all. But during the latter part of
the summer the marlin are scattered
and no longer concentrate on the
Jackspot or near Winter Quarter
Lightship. They may be off-shore IS
miles or more, away out in the heaving
Atlantic. or in the tide rips IS miles
off shore. It's blind trolling, more or
less, in contrast to the mid-July fish
ing on the Jackspot when a boat fire.
quently sighted 10 fish a day filming
or failing.
These Ocean City marlin, caught in
the colder waters Of the North, seem
to me to be little more rugged than
their Southern brethren. Probably
they are the same fish, migrating
North in the summer and going back
toward Bimini and Cuba during the
winter. Nor do they run as large at
Ocean City. The average fish prob
ably goes 6 feet 6 inches and weighs
so to IS pounds. But that's plenty
of action rolled into one marlin hide.
Any fish that leaves the water a dozen
times in a clean jump and fights for
half hour on medium-size tackle, is
a worthy opponent.
A MONG the amateur sportsmen
hunting fish out of Ocean City
nowadays George o. Sutton, WASH
ington lawyer, is pushing the Town.
send boys for the honor of being high
boat on marlin. Sutton owns the
cruiser Happy Days I'd, and has land
ed more than score of marlin on
his infrequent trips off shore He
may be the one to land the first big
blue marlin or the first blue-fin tuna,
for Sutton has been experimenting
recently with fishing far off the coast
He has gone as far as 90 miles off
shore, where water temperature
reached 81 degrees, which must be
pretty close to the Gulf Stream. Out
there he has seen the usual whales,
schools Of porpoise and countless
sharks, has had marlin cut off in
mid-fight by these scavengers of the
sea and now carries a rife to shoot
them down when they menace a
hooked game fish.
Remarkable as the development of
the sport fishing has been at Ocean
City in less than four years, it has
hardly been touched. The Townsend
brothers and Hatch ran into a school
Of tuna In the tide-rips not long ago,
boating of these boring warriors, up
to 81 pounds in weight. There must
have been some big ones in that
school," said Paul. "One of them
stripped the gears on big reel and
another broke 24-thread line. Maybe
those hsh went over 300 pounds. We
couldn't ten. for W didn't see them" I"