THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 1, 1994 TAG: 9408010157
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB HUTCHINSON, OUTDOORS EDITOR
LENGTH: Short : 33 lines
Billfish staged a spectacular display off Hatteras on Saturday, highlighting recent fishing action along the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina.
Bill Webb of Suffolk, skipper of the private boat Assurance, sailing from the Hatteras Marlin Club, caught and released four blue marlin, including three released by his sons, Jack and Joel.
But the most remarkable catch was reported by a group with skipper Buddy Hooper on the charter boat Hatteras Fever II, sailing from Hatteras Harbor Marina. The anglers released three blue marlin, four white marlin and two sailfish.
It's known a a ``grand slam'' when a boat releases a blue, a white and a sailfish in the same day. The Hatteras Fever II came within a sailfish of a triple grand slam, something believed never to have happened on the East Coast.
Elsewhere, Donald Champion of Chesterfield, Va., took the flounder lead in the annual Virginia Salt Water Fishing Tournament with a 9-pound, 14-ounce fish caught wire-line trolling at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. And Ron Borlie of Baltimore gained the contest's shark lead by boating a 274-pound sandbar shark off Wachapreague on the Eastern Shore. by CNB