POINT PLEASANT BEACH — The Point Pleasant Elks Fluke Tournament was run on Saturday, calling on hundreds of anglers to try their rods and reels at nabbing the heaviest fluke they could find in the Jersey Shore’s waters.
While this is the second annual tournament memorializing John Veprek, it is the 29th annual fluke (summer flounder) fishing tournament held by the Point Pleasant Elks, based out of Lodge 1698. Tournament Co-Chair Brian Coyle told The Ocean Star about Veprek’s legacy in the wake of his 2022 death.
“This was our 29th year, and it was named again this year after John Veprek, who was a member of (the Point Pleasant Elks) that passed away suddenly about a year-and-a-half ago. He’d been running the tournament for decades,” Coyle said. “He was an avid fisherman, a member of the Elks, a past state president of the Elks…He was a true Elk. He really thought a lot about the work we do and how we conduct ourselves as Elks.”
Coyle thanked his co-chair, Terry Feldman, as well as the Elks tournament committee, for their help in ensuring the contest went smoothly and for helping to raise money for Elks charities on Saturday and throughout the year. He also thanked the Coast Guard for its presence at the tournament.
“Myself and Terry Feldman are the co-chairs of the tournament,” he said, “and we have a committee behind us that puts in hundreds of hours to organize this event. There’s a lot that goes into it — a lot of moving parts.”
This year, those moving parts included 141 boats carrying more than 600 anglers, who competed for a pool of prizes totaling more than $30,000. One boat, Not on Call, held several anglers who spoke to The Ocean Star on the dock about their catch.
“Fishing was very good in the morning and died off during the middle of the day,” said angler Aidan Connolly, holding his entry. “The wind picked up later on…We ventured on out to Shrewsbury Rocks. You can’t go anywhere else in the world and catch fluke slabs like this, man. It’s a big…boy.”
“Ain’t nothing like fluke fishing on the Jersey Shore,” said Not on Call’s Todd Colabella.
In addition to intrepid anglers hitting the docks for their weigh-ins, representatives of the New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife Alaina Perdon and Tyler Setnicky — both of whom are private anglers in their own right — were on the scene gathering length and weight data about each fish.
“We try to cooperate with the anglers to gather as much data as we can,” said Perdon.
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