OCEAN CITY, Md. -- Only 17 boats went fishing on Friday morning, and the tournaments president told us some of the boats ended up turning back around. It ended up being a much busier day on land than out at sea.
We caught up with Matt Baumgartner on the docks at Sunset Marina as he was spraying down his cooler, helping his crew clean up after a long week.
Baumgartner and his team are done, and the bad weather actually caused them to cut their trip short.
"They're calling for eight foot seas tomorrow, so we're calling it quits unfortunately," said Baumgartner. "But our safety and health takes priority over trying to catch a big fish."
The team is bummed they won't make it out for a third and final trip, but they weren't willing to take a chance on a 32 foot boat.
"Could we do it, sure, do we want to do it, not really," said Baumgartner. '
While the forecast called for Friday and Saturday to be the worst days to be out on the water, the entire week was pretty rough.
"The thing that is frustrating, [with] weather, you can't get to where you want to go, right," said Ryan Freese. "So sometimes you just have to run short, can't get way off shore and fish the conditions."
Anglers had to work around the weather this tournament. There's a reason almost every single boat slip at Sunset Marina was filled on Friday: competitors realized the middle of the week was the sweet spot.
"Just knowing that overall, you're seeing more wind later in the week, we were like 'we're not going to try that'," said Nathan Lang. "We'll get our three days in when we can and we just worked it out where we did Tuesday to Thursday."
Monday was the calm before the storm. Friday was the day to avoid it.
Note: The tournament has been extended by one day. Saturday, August 10th will be the last day anglers are allowed to fish for the White Marlin Open.