Ocean City, Maryland

 The White Marlin capital of the World.

NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH THE BEACH boardwalk town of the same name in New Jersey, Ocean City, Maryland is a quintessential eastern shore community and iconic summer destination on the Delmarva Peninsula. Widely recognized for steamed blue crabs doused in Old Bay and vinegar-drenched french fries served on the sun-bleached boardwalk, this classic Americana beach town offers more than meets the eye and provides die-hard anglers with some of the most impressive blue water sport fishing found anywhere on the Eastern Seaboard.

When one thinks of the world’s top angling retreats, many of the heralded hot-spots that come to mind are well off the beaten path and require at minimum a full day of travel to reach. Although you might spend a few hours in traffic on Highway 50 trying to reach the coast, Maryland likely isn’t the top destination on your bucket list. However, there’s an amazing fishery offshore that rivals the most exotic locales where pointy-nosed pelagics attract anglers from far and wide.

For much of the year Ocean City is relatively quiet, home to roughly 10,000 permanent residents. Though, traffic swells and the population rises to nearly 300,000 vacationers as the annual tourist invasion comes to town when winter fades to spring and the summer season sets in. Roughly 200 miles from New York and 100 miles from both Philadelphia and Baltimore, it’s no surprise Ocean City is one of the largest vacation destinations on the entire East Coast.

Walking the promenade is popular with out-of-towners, but Ocean City proudly carries the nickname as "The White Marlin Capital of the World" made famous by one of the world’s largest and richest billfish tournaments—The White Marlin Open.