Final registration for Heels & Reels Thursday

By Hunter Hine Staff Writer

(July 28, 2023) The Ocean City Marlin Club is hosting the 15th annual Heels & Reels, a ladies-only fishing tournament, Aug. 4-5.

“It is the largest of the tournaments that the Ocean City Marlin Club puts on. Every year, it’s the most boats, it’s the most anglers,” said Ryan Freese, president of the OCMC, who has been co-chairman of the tournament for four years.

Final registration for the tournament is Thursday, Aug. 3 from 6-8 p.m. at the OCMC clubhouse on Golf Course Road in West Ocean City.

Lady anglers can also register online in advance or over the phone by calling 410-213-1613. Those interested in competing don’t have to be a member of the club to participate.

The cost is $300 to enter a boat of six anglers, and $45 for each additional angler or awards banquet guest.

The in-person captains meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. at the clubhouse. It can also be attended virtually through a meeting link on the OCMC Facebook page.

Ladies can fish one of the two tournament days, and its lines in at 8 a.m. and lines out at 3 p.m. for both days.

“Young females and women of all ages, they are the only anglers. The mates may help them. The rod can be transferred from the mate to the lady angler, but the ladies are allowed to help each other,” Freese said “It is a, so to speak, a boat tournament, not an individual lady angler tournament.”

The first entry level calcutta division is billfish release.

Level A costs $200 to enter and divides the award money between first, second and third place winners by 50, 30 and 20 percent, respectively.

It costs $300 to enter level B, which also pays out a 50, 30 and 20 percent split among the top three placements.

Level C costs $500 and is winnertake-all.

Boats using 360-degree sonar to fish will receive less points in the catch-andrelease billfish division than boats that fish without sonar. Weighmasters will use call-ins and photos of billfish to award points, and ties will be decided by whichever team releases its billfish first.

For white marlin, sailfish and spearfish, sonar-using boats will earn 100 points, while non-sonar boats will earn 150. For blue marlin and swordfish, sonar boats get 150 points and non-sonar boats get 225.

Blue marlin require video or photographic proof of the catch, or else the boat will receive white marlin points.

The tournament also includes a meat fish division, for which eligible species include yellowfin, longfin and bigeye tuna, along with dolphin fish

(mahi). Bluefin are not an eligible species.

Entry level A for meat fish costs $200, and level B costs $300. Both pay out in a 50, 30 and 20 percent split for the top three placements registered in each level.

Earnings will be split evenly between winners in the tuna and dolphin fish categories in both level A and level B.

Like the billfish division, level C for meat fish costs $500 and is winnertake-all.

New this year to Heels & Reels is the stringer division, which allows boats to weigh three tuna.

Again, level A costs $200 and level B costs $300, and both award a 50, 30 and 20 percent split among the top three heaviest stringers.

Level C for stringers is the same price and payout as the former two divisions.

Teams are allowed to enter a fish for single-heaviest as well as add that same fish to their entry for heaviest stringer, but bigeye cannot be included.

“[The stringer category] allows some of the smaller boats that fish inshore, and don’t have the opportunity to fish offshore for the bigeyes in the canyons, it gives them an opportunity to be in the hunt for calcutta,” Freese said.

Freese described the fishing this year as “hit-or-miss,” with tuna fishing beginning to slow down after a hot season for bigeyes, and marlin are now begin- ning to show up.

Boats must fish within 100 miles of the Ocean City sea buoy, and weigh-ins are 5:30-7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Atlantic Tackle. Boats must be in the marina cut by the final minutes for their catch to count.

The awards banquet will take place at the clubhouse from 6:30-9 p.m. Saturday night, which includes a dinner.

Last year 67 boats fished in the Heels & Reels tournament, and the total payout set a new tournament record at $112,860.

For more information, visit https://ocmarlinclub.com/tournaments.

Heels & Reels benefits the Franky Pettolina Scholarship Fund, Freese said, which was named after a longtime OCMC president and chairman of this tournament who died in 2021.

Donations will also be accepted for Marlins for Mason Catching a Cure for Dravet. Registration for the inaugural Marlins for Mason tournament, a competition that benefits the Dravet Syndrome Foundation, will take place Aug. 3 at the Ocean City Marlin Club.

Mason Prather, a 5-year-old member of the local fishing community, lives with Dravet Syndrome, a rare and lifelong form of epilepsy that results in frequent and severe seizures, developmental delays, movement problems and a list of other health issues.