For more than forty years, the Beach Haven Marlin and Tuna Club has lived up to its name. Every summer its members head offshore to troll the endless waves for the thrill of a strike. They know that no one stays calm when a tuna hits and the reel sings! The line streaks out - someone yells FISH. And the chase is on. Carrying on a sportfishing tradition more than a century and a half old, the Club honors that special relationship that great fish have with those who seek them.

The Beach Haven Marlin and Tuna Club began with a group of dedicated big-game fishermen the year after Captain Watson Pharo brought his party into the Beach Haven Yacht Club with a blue marlin - the first ever taken by a Beach Haven captain in New Jersey. This catch capped a season of tuna and marlin fishing that was extraordinary by anyone's standards. The papers up and down the mid-Atlantic seaboard loved it! Beach Haven's claim to be "The Deep Sea Fishing Capital of the East" seemed safe once again, even as hundred-pound plus tuna were being caught regularly off the new port of Brielle.

Beach Haven's sportfishing reputation had begun in the mid-19th century. Capt. Sam Shourds earned fame in The American Angler's Book (1864), when he impressed Philadelphian Thad. Norris with his ability to find weakfish and striped bass by the hundreds. He was one of many mainland captains who had fished the bay from boyhood, and were ready to take visitors out on their boats. A steady trickle of fishermen arrived on LongBeach Island in the decades that followed the Civil War, all looking for knowledgeable local guides.