How The Atlantic Division Stands Before The Walker’s Cay Open
A refresher course before the Atlantic Division returns to action for the first time since mid-April
SFC’s Atlantic Division Angling Clubs are back in action next week after a long hiatus. A real hot minute since we kicked off the 2025 season and this new era of offshore fishing, streaming live on SFC+ and ESPN+ all summer long.
The season standings can be found here, but enough time has passed that it felt necessary to reacquaint everyone with the Atlantic Division. Here’s a refresher course.
What’s different about the Atlantic and the Gulf Divisions?
A lot.
The inaugural Fort Lauderdale Billfish Open, presented by Yachts 360 took place April 17-19 at Pier Sixty-Six Resort & Marina. Given the location, the preferred billfish species to target was sailfish. While only worth 75 points in tournament scoring, the quantity of sailfish in South Florida far outweighs the 450 point total and timing needed to catch and release blue marlin, which are much harder to find. 84 sailfish were released over the course of the three-day tournament, with South Carolina Outcast Angling Club taking the win.
New Jersey Sea Birds Angling Club mounted a furious rally on Championship Saturday, the final day of the tournament where Captain Blaine Birch made a bold decision to head to the northern boundary of the fishing area, when the majority of the field chose to fish to the southern boundary. It was the right call, and the Sea Birds flew up the leaderboard with the majority of the action taking place in their area.
The Atlantic clubs started the season targeting sailfish, which requires different tackle, different types of bait, and an entirely different method of fishing than what has been seen over the past two stops in the Gulf: kite fishing instead of trolling.
With that first stop out of the way, Blue Marlin is the primary species to target once again, but their window is significantly shorter to find and catch them compared with the Gulf Division. In the Gulf, the clubs stay offshore from the shotgun start to the conclusion of the tournament, given just how long of a distance the boats need to cover to reach the fishing grounds.
Meanwhile, Atlantic Division clubs leave and come back to the host marina(s) each day. Timing is based on a “lines in” and “lines out” time for when boats can begin and end their fishing action each day.
Atlantic Standings with 1 of 6 tournaments complete:
- South Carolina Outcast Angling Club
- New Jersey Sea Birds Angling Club
- South Florida Sails Angling Club
- Lights Out New England Angling Club
- East Coast Remix Angling Club
- North Carolina Flare Angling Club
- New York Granders Angling Club
Next stop: Walker’s Cay Open, presented by Anetik, May 29-31.
Remaining stops
Huk Charleston Billfish Cup, June 5-7
Oak Bluffs Bluewater Classic, July 15-18
Huk Big Fish Classic (Ocean City, MD) July 25-27
The MidAtlantic (Cape May, NJ) Aug. 20-22
The Zane Grey Championship Playoff picture is going to develop very quickly, with back-to-back stops on the schedule. Immediately at the conclusion of the Walker’s Cay Open, it’s time to put the power down to make Charleston the following week.
We’ll know a lot about the division in a few short weeks. In the meantime, the title picture is still wide open.