Page 20 - wmo-51st-magazine

2023 REVIEW

“We stuck to the plan all week.”

Steve Pilipaukis, Reel Tight
Tommy Gessler Jr (top left photo) and Dad pose with his winning fish caught aboard the
Gessler Boys Toy in the 1993 WMO. Tommy was the captain of the Boys Toy in 2023 when
‘93 The dolphin division was won by the Ronci-
his nephew Matt Gessler (bottom left photo) caught the third place wahoo.
to out of Ocean City, MD. The 50.5-pounder
won $32,065 for angler Andrew Spangen-
berger from New Freedom, PA. The Aquila
from Beach Haven, NJ weighed a 32-pound
dolphin caught by Timothy Goodman from
Palm Beach, FL taking second place and first
are a separate tournament within the WMO. Boats must be less than 40’ place in the Small Boat dolphin division to
overall to compete as a small boat.
win $82,520. In third with a 31-pound dol-
phin was OC’s Maverick winning $30,065
Mentlik describes how the boat size helped to dictate their strategy. “We for Will McAteer from Kent Island, MD.
Photograph by: Dale Timmons we decided to stick with what we know and that is tuna fishing. It was In the prestigious billfish release division,
fish a 32’ Luhrs. We don’t have all the technology of the bigger boats so

pretty exciting because we did exactly what we set out to do—win the
top anglers were Brian Demile of the Trash
Small Boat tuna division!”
Man with 770 points followed by, Bernard
The crew of the Fishlik each knew their roles, an important aspect of
Dave McKendrick fishing on the Taylor
tournament fishing. “Mark, Jeff, Rick and I often fish together”, said Ment- Linney off the High Yield with 700 points.
Jean took third with 665 points. The top fe-
lik. “Rick is a tree guy and I am a logger so the crew decided we would be male angler was Holly McAlhany on Sweet
the anglers to fight anything big. Rick wasn’t feeling well and went below Spot with 560 points, second place female
so it was up to me to fight when it hit. It took about 1 hour 45 minutes
Gessler to bring it in. We didn’t get a good look at it when we were fighting it but angler was Kelly Weber on Max Bet with
‘23 420 points and third place female angler was
once we got it to the boat, it rolled to its side and we could tell it was a Jaclyn Tenuto on Sequel with 350 points.
nice fish. We were super excited to see how big it was!”

Top boats in the release division included
Rounding out the tuna division, the Game Over out of Ocean City, Fin Planner with 1190 pts. good for first
MD took third and earned John Zimmerman from Boynton Beach, FL place and $58,740. Max Bet finished sec-
$169,929. Finishing fourth with a 215 lb. tuna was Rusty Shriver of Leon- ond with 1120 pts. and won a Daily Release
ardtown, MD caught on the Ro Sham Bo out of Ocean City. Until Fri- good for $60,965 and Trash Man was third
day afternoon, Shriver’s tuna was worth over $7 Million. Although it was with 1015 pts. and won a Daily for a total of
bumped out of most calcuttas by the big blue marlin, Shriver and the crew $44,945.
of the Ro Sham Bo had the only qualifying fish in the special 50th-Anni-
versary winner-take-all level and still netted a cool $1.7 million.
It should be noted that the 400 registered
boats for the 50 White Marlin Open were
th
All spots in the wahoo division were covered with Shooting Star out probably the most conservation-minded
of Indian River, DE taking first place and $4,700 with a 57-pounder caught group that has ever fished the Open – or
by John Harris from Boyertown, PA. Captain Deadly from Long Island any other billfish tournament held in recent
NY took second and $31,065 for angler Chad Jackson from Ft. Myers, FL. memory. Of the 605 billfish caught during
The third-place wahoo was caught by Matthew Gessler from Chads Ford, the five-day event, 602 were released, a
PA of the Boy’s Toy with Capt. Tommy Gessler, Jr. out of Indian River DE. 99.5% release rate. With over $7 million
His 46-pounder took $29,065. It should be noted that the Gessler family of the total $10.5 million purse reserved
has been fishing the Open for decades. A Gessler father, sons, daughter for billfish, it was remarkable that not one
and now nephew have all won money in the Open. In the 1993 Open, boat brought a billfish to the scale before the
then-15-year-old Tommy Gessler Jr. (and uncle to Matthew) won the top closing day on Friday.
marlin, $109,000 and a Rolex watch that came as a special prize that year.

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