In 2005 my sister Molly, then 12 years old, caught an enormous striped bass. It was so big when she finally hauled it onto the boat she backed away from it in fear and almost fell head over heels off the side of the boat into the churning ocean. I remember her telling me she thought she had caught an alligator. It is a story that has been told over and over again since then: a 12-year-old girl catching a giant bass and winning the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby.

On Thursday the largest striped bass caught so far in this year’s 67th Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby was weighed in. Peter (Pete) J. Spengler, 75, of Cuttyhunk and Westport, Conn., caught his fish at 9:05 a.m. aboard Capt. Duane Lynch’s boat.

Over 2,600 pounds of fish have crossed the scales in the first five days of the 67th Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, and they’re coming from all sectors of Vineyard waters.

“It’s been stellar, absolutely stellar,” Amy Coffey, who has volunteered at the weigh-in station for over 20 years, said on Thursday afternoon. “We had all four species weighed in from both boat and shore [in the all-tackle divisions], which is unusual for the first week.” Ms. Coffey estimated that it has been five years since the phenomenon last occurred.

They came together at the end of the day Wednesday to catch fish. Backed by the glitter of fast-moving water, more than 20 anglers, most of them participants in the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, stood at the far end of the Menemsha jetty casting their lures in close quarters. The sun was brilliant above the horizon. The Menemsha buoy, a ringing bell, filled the air with sound.
Ian Thurber, 31, a landscaper from West Tisbury, arrived at 5 p.m. after a full day of work. “This is one of many of my favorite places,” he said. “When there are no fish, it is relaxing.

As if on cue for the sixty-seventh Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, the fish are running again.

There was a bluefish feeding frenzy at the Cape Pogue gut late one afternoon last week, one of those churning blitzes where you could throw out an old shoe and catch a fish. And out on Nantucket Sound, boats have been lined up like summer traffic at Five Corners as fishermen chase the silvery schools of bonito now flashing through the cooling saltwater. There are reports of stripers being caught on the north shore.

‘Tis derby season. In just two days the Vineyard community will undergo a large transformation as the 67th annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, the Island’s annual Olympics for fisherman, begins.

The end of the 56th annual Martha's Vineyard Striped Bass and
Bluefish Derby is a day away. Many of the Island's top fishermen
will fish right to the end, through tonight and into tomorrow. The derby
will end when the headquarters at the foot of Main street in Edgartown
close at 10 p.m. tomorrow.

An awards ceremony will take place Sunday at 1 p.m. at the Oak
Bluffs nightclub Atlantic Connection.

False albacore have yet to make a strong appearance in the first
week of the 56th annual Martha's Vineyard Striped Bass and
Bluefish Derby. So far only small, undersized false albacore have been
seen. The contest began on Wednesday morning with just two fishermen
weighing in their fish in the first half-hour of the contest.

The 56th annual Martha's Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish
Derby begins at 12:01 a.m. tomorrow, a minute past midnight. The first
groggy fishermen of the month-long contest will line up to weigh in
their catch when the derby headquarters opens at 8 a.m. in Edgartown.

Some of the winners in the 57th annual Martha's Vineyard
Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby aren't even fishing. Thanks to the
generosity of fishermen and derby organizers, senior citizens across the
Island are eating the freshest-caught fish every night.

Many excellent fish fillets are collected each day by contest
officials.