Lights Out Boston Retains Atlantic Division Lead After Walker’s Cay Open
Lights Out Boston escapes Walker’s Cay with a fourth-place finish and its division lead intact.
The 2026 SFC Walker’s Cay Open promised to be a proving ground for the Atlantic Division, and it proved a tough tournament for many teams. Lights Out Boston AC managed to hang onto its Division lead with a fourth-place finish worth another 2,600 points in the league standings. This tournament is an early season away game that tests every team’s grit, and this year further burnished that reputation.
With under 10 minutes fishing time remaining on the last day of the tournament, Lights Out Boston AC released a blue marlin, worth 450 points and caught by angler Spencer Talbot, tying East Coast Remix AC with 900 points. East Coast Remix had caught the second of its two blue marlin a mere fifteen minutes earlier, which gave Remix the edge over Lights Out in the head-to-head and solo possession of third place according to league rules.
Every team in the division is trying to get into a rhythm after Key West. Walker’s Cay, in time-honored fashion, held teams accountable for their decisions right from the get-go. Lights Out Boston had made the crossing to the Bahamas a week ahead of the tournament and started out doing some pre-fishing in the Bahamas to dial in their program. The team looked at its Salty Offshore app to determine the movement of currents and the edges of sea-surface temperature.
Angler Alex Plick, Ray Rosher, and Capt. Rob Carmichael look at Salty Offshore for guidance.
Coming into the Walker’s Cay Open, Lights Out Boston knew it faced the pressure of defending its place atop the Atlantic standings. Every team in the division was targeting them—but that’s right where Lights Out Boston wants to be.
Day One at Walker’s Cay presented challenges for a few clubs, including Lights Out Boston. League newcomer the South Florida Sails AC, led by Capt. Mike King on Quick Sweep, a 60-foot Spencer, exploded out of the gate with two releases each of blue marlin and sailfish on the first day.
Meanwhile, perennial Lights Out rival the New Jersey Sea Birds, on Viking 62 Taylor Jean, managed to release a blue marlin just before noon, the fourth fish of the morning. That catch nailed down a slam, including a sailfish, a white marlin, and blue marlin all in one day, and secured the Sea Birds an extra 200 points. This is the first recorded slam of the season, and it can be like a wild card, worth the equivalent of a pair of white marlin releases.
Lights Out Boston tried to get something cooking at Walker’s Cay.
“When you’re early in the tournament, you’re always looking for better water, you’re looking for more fish,” said Capt. Rob Carmichael of Lights Out Boston. “We knew some places might be productive. It’s a big ocean, we’ve got a 50-mile boundary. Today was going to be calmer than it was supposed to be, so we figured today was a day to make a run and see if we could figure out some water.”
On that first day, Lights Out Boston returned to the dock empty-handed. The live leaderboard was frustrating for any Boston sports fan watching the streaming program on SFC+ or the SFC Youtube channel throughout the day. By lines out Friday afternoon, three of the seven competing SFC clubs were returning to the dock without a release.
“Walker’s has done this to us before,” Carmichael said on the dock that evening. “It did it last year…I think we fished six days and got two fish. We got the right two fish on the right day last year, so hopefully luck will be on our side and we can pull something together here.”
Ray Rosher lent his experienced hand on Day Two with a blue marlin catch to lead off the day.
On Day Two of the tournament, Lights Out started the action just after 9 a.m. as veteran angler Ray Rosher put Lights Out Boston on the scoreboard with a hard-fought blue marlin release. The fight lasted more than half an hour, with underwater GoPro confirmation video, and a nervous cockpit until the official release call came through.
“Just barely saw a little spike of a fin, I wasn’t sure it was a blue but it kind of look like it…” said angler Ray Rosher. “Thankfully it was.”
Underwater video confirmation confirmed the Lights Out Boston catch on a rough Day Two.
On Championship Sunday, North Carolina Flare surged late with a blue marlin that temporarily threatened to shake up the Atlantic standings, while the South Florida Sails continued their runaway performance at the top of the tournament leaderboard. The East Coast Remix and Lights Out Boston hooked up in the waning hours of the fishing day.
Lights Out angler Spencer Talbot notched a blue marlin release with just ten minutes remaining in the tournament action. The 450 points were just what the team needed, and not just for morale. When all was said and done, Lights Out Boston had done just enough to grab fourth place, and retain its grip on first place in the Atlantic Division standings.
Walker’s Cay, the second stop on Sport Fishing Championship Atlantic Division calendar, delivered exactly what everyone expected: a variety of billfish with solid chances at game-changing blue marlin mixed in, some challenges locating the fish, and a shifting leaderboard. But while South Florida Sails may have stolen the headlines with a dominant tournament victory, the bigger story inside the Atlantic Division race might have been the resilience of Lights Out Boston.
This is championship fishing.