Looking for Diamond Jim?

TheSunsets on the market

Since the 1960s, locals and visitors have cracked many a crab at the Pier Street Marina restaurant in Oxford, Maryland, while enjoying a spectacular sunset.

These days the restaurant is known as The Masthead and it, along with 62 boat slips and a gift shop, are on the market. Chesapeake Bay boat owners know it as the first place to fuel up and fill up entering the Tred Avon River. Pier Street LLC purchased the property in March 2004 for $2,850,000 and listed it for $4,900,000.

Offshore tournaments

While many Gulf Coast tournaments have been cancelled this year due to the oil spill, it looks like Ocean City, Maryland’s big-money tournaments will be able to continue as planned.
The 23rd Annual Ocean City Tuna Tournament is set for July 9-11, hosted by the Ocean City Fishing Center and Sunset Marina. Last year’s tournament paid out over $570,000. Tournament information and registration is available at ocfishing.com.
The 37th Annual White Marlin Open is set for August 2-6. Boats can depart from any inlet between Rudee Inlet, Virginia, and Barnegat Inlet, New Jersey, but fish must  be weighed at Harbour Island Marina in Ocean City. For tourney info visit whitemarlinopen.com.

Fishing Challenge under way

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources has released 200 tagged striped bass into the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries for this year’s Maryland Fishing Challenge.

One of these fish, Diamond Jim, is currently worth $10,000 and his value increases as summer progresses to $20,000 in July and $25,000 in August. Tagged fish known as imposters are worth $500 each for the duration of the contest, which ends on Labor Day.

Save the smokestack

For more than a century, the round, 130-foot brick smokestack in Reedville, Virginia, has been a dominant landmark and navigational aid on the Chesapeake. Old-time fishing boat captains used to line it up with other structures to revisit hot fishing spots.
Blaine Altaffer, a native of Reedville, and a group of residents are launching a campaign called “Save the Stack” to stabilize and preserve the structure, which was built circa 1900. The organizers hope to raise $350,000 this summer. Information on the campaign is available by visiting savethestack.org. about making tax-exempt