I spent several days fishing the derby recently, and people were buzzing about Evan Metropoulos, son of private-equity billionaire C. Dean Metropoulous, who made a fortune from food brands like BumbleBee Tuna and Chef Boyardee. Evan, who has been coming to the Vineyard his whole life, is an obsessed fisherman on a hunt for a monster fish. He wants a world-record striped bass, but he’d happily take a 1,000-pound mako, too.
This fall, he booked a charter captain to take him out during the derby: Lev Wlodyka, the six-time derby champion whose 57-pound leadbellied striper is the central story of The Big One. What had everybody talking was that he didn’t just hire Lev to fish once or twice, but every single day. At $500 a session, morning and afternoon, you could say that Evan is invested in this tournament. The pair have been fishing dawn to dark many days — “Lev is an insane man,” Evan says — and so far the mogul is second on the leaderboard with a 40-pound striped bass.
But Evan says he’s after more than a mere derby winner. “My goal is to drum up a fish that’s older than me, and I’m 27,” he said. To that end, he’s also been fishing regularly for several years with renowned Montauk charter captain Jimmy George.
Evan’s full-service approach to the venerated derby has raised some eyebrows. Some see this as overkill. Is it right for a guy to hire a tournament legend for five weeks to try to win it all? But at its heart the derby is a tourist draw that drums up much-needed fall business for Vineyard tackle shops, hotels, bars and, yes, fishing captains. Evan wouldn’t be the first guy to win the derby on a fish he caught during a charter.
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Me? I didn’t see any 40-pound fish during my trip. I did find a pod of nice stripers one night, and battling them for a couple hours counted as success enough for a laidback angler like myself.
I was coming at the derby fishing from a decidedly non-competitive frame of mind. The morning after I arrived, I had breakfast with a handful of recovering war veterans at the Beach Plum Inn in Menemsha. The inn’s owners, Bob and Sarah Nixon of Washington, D.C., and Chilmark, had invited the military men to the island for a few days of fishing, and Vineyarders of all stripes chipped in to help. The vets weren’t worried about winning. They were just happy to be fishing. (Check out the press here and here.)
I saw another side of derby insanity hanging around Larry’s Tackle Shop in Edgartown for several hours signing books. The guys at Larry’s see all kinds. First, a woman asked for a lure that wouldn’t catch a fish. She just wanted to attract hits, not actually catch one. Or something like that. Then a clutch of women in their 20s walked in and began perusing the selection of saltwater flies. They didn’t want to catch fish either. They wanted to cut off the barbs and sell the flashy flies as earrings at $50 a pair.
Finally, in walked a guy with a giant stuffed tiger strapped to his butt. A bright orange sticker on his forehead read “Damaged.” And he was.
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