Beach teams fishing for gold

A pair of Virginia Beach teams fishing in the 48th annual White Marlin Open out of Ocean City, Md., are trolling the water of the mid-Atlantic and they nothing shy of nervous.

Both are sitting on pots of gold during this, the final day, of the biggest and richest billfish tournament in the world.

Mike Atkinson caught an 82.5-pound white marlin on the event’s first day Monday and it’s been leading the top division all week long.

If nobody tops that fish today, the team on Fender Bender will pocket $4.9 million out of the $9.2 million total purse.

Meanwhile, in the blue marlin division, the team on Mama C is sitting on $800,000 for a 559.5-pounder caught by Chris Perry.

“It was a long fight,” Fender Bender owner Bobby Whelan said of Atkinson’s catch. “Collin (Oxnard, the captain) did a great job with it the entire time. And Mike’s a good angler.”

On Thursday, as he walked along the marina boardwalk during one of his team’s two lay days, Whelan put his team’s mood in proper perspective.

“We’re all just nervous wrecks today.”

On today’s final day of angling, 400 teams in the 444 boat field are working the offshore blue water – attempting to take over the lead.

So it’s a safe bet the Fender Bender crew is more nervous than ever.