The sun had just climbed above Squibnocket ridge when Lieut. Nathan Rimpf and Senior Airman Emanuel Thompson spotted their first catch of the day.

“Birds,” Mr. Rimpf and Mr. Thompson said simultaneously with the quiet confidence of pros. With a slight nod of the head, the two surmised that a large school of fish weren’t too far away.

The top striped bass keep getting bigger and with two weeks to go in the 68th annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby so does the field. More than 2,600 fishermen are registered in the contest and more and more keep showing up.

“I’d be really pleased if we got over 3,000,” said derby chairman John Custer.

The contest ends on Saturday, Oct. 19.

Overall nearly 12,000 pounds of fish have been weighed in as of Thursday morning. Striped bass total 5,300.26 pounds and bluefish total 4,288.88 pounds.

When he was a young boy, Peter Herrmann loved to fish off the Steamship wharf in Oak Bluffs. Before the first boat, and after the ferry stopped running for the winter, Mr. Herrmann and his friends would climb over the fence, fishing rods in hand.

At Coop’s Bait and Tackle, about a week before the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby began, owner Cooper Gilkes was telling stories

The soldiers and their families will compete in the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby this week.

The New England Fishery Management Council voted Thursday to limit the number of river herring and shad incidently caught by trawlers in federal waters. The cap is the latest in a series of state and federal measures underway to protect the species of fish, whose populations are at historic lows.