Ocean City Tuna Tournament Returns for 39th Year with Million-Dollar Payouts

You've worked the offshore canyons, boated the fish of the trip, and iced it perfectly for the weigh-in. What you don't want is to lose it to a paperwork violation that a 10-minute permit check could have prevented. For the 111 boats already registered in the 39th Annual Ocean City Tuna Tournament, July 9-12, 2026, the difference between a five-figure payday and a disqualification often comes down to exactly that kind of pre-launch homework.

The tournament, hosted at the Ocean City Fishing Center and Sunset Marina on Maryland's Atlantic coast, has topped $1 million in total payouts in each of the last two years. The current entry count of 111 boats already puts the 2026 projected purse at $1,422,270, and the tournament doesn't start for another three months. In 2025, Fly N' Fish won the heaviest stringer division with 408 pounds, collecting $357,460, while Elizabeth Ann's 216.5-pound bluefin secured $184,910 for the heaviest single fish runner-up slot. Those numbers illustrate the stakes that have made the event one of the most competitive offshore tuna tournaments on the East Coast, drawing boats from ports throughout the Atlantic seaboard.

Before any team clears the inlet, the compliance checklist deserves serious attention. The tournament's rules page is direct: it is not the responsibility of tournament officials or directors to verify that required permits, licenses, or registrations have been obtained. That responsibility sits entirely with captains and crews.

On the federal side, every vessel targeting Atlantic bluefin tuna must carry a valid HMS Angling or HMS Charter/Headboat permit. Tournament boats also have the option of fishing under an Atlantic Tunas General category permit. What changed on December 22, 2025, is the reporting obligation attached to those permits. HMS permit holders in Maryland are now required to report electronically any recreationally landed bluefin tuna and dead discards within 24 hours of completing a fishing trip, using either the HMS Catch Reporting smartphone app or the HMS permits website. Skipping that report window is a federal compliance failure that can shadow an otherwise clean tournament result.

At the weigh-in, tournament rules set a 30-pound floor for tuna and a 20-pound minimum for wahoo and dolphin. Teams fishing the single largest tuna division are permitted to weigh one trophy fish per day, across all three fishing days. Prize money is divided across each day's weigh-in; if no qualifying fish is brought to the dock on a given day, that day's pot rolls forward and is split among the remaining days' purses.

Calcutta jackpots layer additional stakes onto every fish. The Level H Pro Tuna Jackpot, a winner-take-all pool requiring a $5,000 buy-in, has historically drawn roughly half the field and generated pots approaching $200,000. Teams that skip the Calcuttas can still cash boat payouts, but the largest single-boat paydays in the tournament's history have come from stacking both.

"That anticipation of seeing a big tuna come off the boat at the scales is always really exciting," tournament official Dortenzo told local media after one particularly heavy weigh-in. "That will get the crowd riled up pretty good."

With 111 entries already on the books and the field from prior years topping out at over 100 boats, the 39th edition is shaping up as another large draw. Registration is open now through the tournament website, where the entry form, full rules, and awards structure are posted. HMS reporting paperwork takes minutes to confirm well before July; on the dock in the heat of the tournament, it is the last thing any team wants to be scrambling for.