Leased Up leads Virginia Beach tuna tournament with 222.8 pounds
Leased Up put up 222.8 pounds to win the Virginia Beach Tuna Tournament, while Roanoke’s 147.8-pound yellowfin stringer exposed where the bite was strongest.
Leased Up ran away with the heaviest aggregate tuna title at the 2026 Virginia Beach Tuna Tournament, landing 222.8 pounds and leaving Roanoke 75.0 pounds back at 147.8. Freestyle finished next in the aggregate tuna standings with 110.7 pounds, a spread that showed this was not a one-fish scoreboard but a tournament built on multiple quality bites.
Roanoke’s 147.8-pound total also carried the Yellowfin Stringer category, a cleaner read on the fishery than a single heavyweight bite. The leaderboard pointed to a yellowfin-heavy Virginia Beach bite in late June, with consistency beating flash and crews that stacked several respectable fish finishing ahead of boats looking for one giant score. Leased Up still owned the all-around picture, but the yellowfin result made plain where the class of fish was during the tournament window.
The event itself stretched from June 24 through June 27 and drew 115 entries and 26 boats, with an official prize pool of $351,950. Registration and the captain’s meeting were set for Wednesday, June 24 at Southside Marina, including a 7:30 p.m. captain’s meeting, with fishing on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and daily weigh-ins at Long Bay Pointe Marina. The schedule also built in catered dinners, live entertainment and a Saturday awards banquet at 9 p.m. at Southside Marina at Rudee Inlet, 416 Southside Road, turning the weigh-in into a full summer gathering as much as a hard-fought offshore contest.
The side categories reinforced how mixed the offshore spread was. Smoke Show won largest dolphin at 24.4 pounds, and C-Note took largest wahoo at 48.3 pounds, while Top Lady Kenzie Dunn checked in at 27.90 pounds on the leaderboard. The tournament, founded in 2005, has become a signature stop for sport fishermen in Virginia and surrounding states, and the numbers from 2026 fit that role: a strong fleet, a healthy purse, and enough yellowfin to reward crews that stayed disciplined on the water.
The 2025 tournament had already set a high bar with a $329,200 purse and 115 entries, and Ryan Self’s Attitude Adjustment II finished second in both heaviest aggregate tuna and yellowfin stringer. Put together, the last two years show Virginia Beach has become a late-June test piece for Mid-Atlantic crews, and the 222.8-pound mark from Leased Up sets the standard for the next offshore run back into that same water.
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