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Vol 49 | Num 16 | Aug 14, 2024

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Article by Capt. Mark Sampson

Fame and Fortune

Starting in 1981 and for the next 34-years I was a part of a team that ran the Annual Ocean City Shark tournament. It started out as a small club tournament where anglers competed for trophies and a little bit of fishing tackle and eventually grew to where we’d typically have about 80-some teams vying for almost as much money as the White House now hands out to the average illegal alien minus the smartphones, driver's licenses, and voter cards. And even though our tournament was peanuts compared to today’s standards, over the years we signed up enough competitors to learn a thing or two about what drives so many anglers to plunk down a sizable chunk of hard earned cash on a bet that they were going to land the biggest fish of the show.

Tournament fishing is all about sharing good times with family and friends, fun competition against other teams, the challenge of putting skills, experience, and resources together to execute a winning strategy, and just having a good-old time on the water. Yeah, yeah, yeah, all those are legitimate reasons why so many folks enjoy fishing in tournaments, but at least for some, all that feel-good nice stuff takes a back seat to their own quest for “fame” and “fortune”! Money for the “pocket” and fame for the “ego,” take those two components out of most fishing tournaments and instead of weighing fish and managing crowds the event directors will likely be left trying to figure out what to do with all the blank registration forms and unsold t-shirts!

We all know that when money is involved people can get a little goofy and in one tournament I learned how goofy that can be. It was the last day of the event and we were part way through the weigh-ins when a small boat pulled up to the scales with a big mako and blue shark aboard. When I saw the two sharks I asked the crew if they had caught both of the sharks themselves or if there was another boat involved in the catch. “No,” they said, “We caught both of these today and want to weigh them for the tournament.” At which I reminded them that state and federal regulations allow anglers to keep no more than one shark per boat per day, so they were in violation of the law and suggested that they just spin their boat around and leave with their catch before the crowd sees what they have and someone blows the whistle on them. They followed my advice and quietly motored out of the marina.

I thought the matter was over for us until I got a call from one of them an hour or so later. He was at a different weigh station and wanted to know the weight of the heaviest mako in the tournament so far. When I told him he said that they just weighed their mako and it was heavier than that.Then he asked, “What’s the fine for going over the daily limit on sharks”? I’m no mind reader but I immediately realized he was thinking. “If we can win more money with this fish than the fine that will be imposed on us for exceeding the limit, then it would be worth weighing the shark and paying the fine”. Instead of saying what I really wanted to say to the guy, I just told him that our tournament rules stated that anglers were required to follow all state and federal fishing regulations and left it at that.

Years earlier a team threatened us with a lawsuit for not paying them prize money for winning one of the divisions. It was back when all we gave out for prizes were trophies and tackle. The team in question was from Ohio and gladly accepted their trophy on stage at the awards banquet, shook hands, smiled for the cameras, waved to the crowd and all that. Three days later I got a call from someone claiming to be a lawyer who was also a member of their fishing team and saying that they were very dejected by the fact that they didn’t get any prize money. To which I reminded him that it was not a money tournament, we had never given out money, and nowhere in any of our advertising did it say anything about money. I also asked him why they didn’t say anything about this matter at the awards banquet. He then told me, “We were all in a state of shock at the time and didn’t know what to say”. So I asked him how much money he figured they should get. “Pay us one thousand dollars or I’ll file papers to bring you to court”. After calling him a “scum-sucking lawyer who is just trying to extort money from us”, I begged him to do me a favor, “Please PLEASE file the papers, I would love to go to court over this”! He hung up and I never heard from him or his team again.

An angler’s desire for a big paycheck is certainly understandable. Money - everyone wants it. But It wasn’t until we had a few tournaments under our belts that we also realized that stroking the fisherman's egos was just as important as handing over the bucks. Few anglers are content to catch a big fish and keep it a secret (unless maybe you’re one shark over the limit). Most fishermen crave recognition of their catch. And for many, the thrill of standing before a cheering crowd with cameras clicking and someone announcing your name over a PA system is like winning the Super Bowl.

At our tournament I was the guy with the microphone and definitely caught grief more than once for not giving credit where someone thought credit was due. The first time was by a fellow who was absolutely livid as he complained to me after our award presentation. According to him I gave too much recognition to the angler who caught the winning fish and not enough to himself who was a part of the crew and helped rig the baits and run the boat. The sad thing about his complaint was that the angler was his very own 12-years old son.

You would think I learned a lesson from that but a few years later a different “dad” chewed me out. That year the plaques we gave out had a glass plate that you could slip a photo behind. We just happened to have a photo of his son with his shark at the weigh-ins so we thought it would be a nice touch to put it on the plaque before presenting it to the team. But dad didn’t think so and gave me almost the exact same “team effort” ripping I’d heard for the other guy a few years before. I’m guessing they must have both graduated with honors from the same Egotistical Dad School. §

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