The Orange Beach Sportfishing Club is gearing up for its annual Kenny Vines Memorial Tournament, one of the area’s most anticipated offshore fishing events of the fall. The event is hosted at Tacky Jack’s Downstairs in Orange Beach, and participants can register now on the club’s official website. The tournament is scheduled for Sept. 11-12, 2026, with activities beginning Friday, Sept. 11, and the club’s member-driven format has made the event a fixture of the Gulf Coast’s competitive fishing calendar, drawing boats from across the region to the deep water off Alabama’s coast.
A mandatory Captain’s Meeting will be held that evening from 4 to 7 p.m. at Tacky Jack’s Downstairs. The captain’s meeting serves several purposes at once: it is where entry lists are finalized, rules are reviewed and any changes to categories or boundaries are announced, and it doubles as the social kickoff of the weekend. Attendance is required for entering teams, which ensures that every crew competing on Saturday has heard the same briefing on species rules, weigh-in procedures and safety requirements before lines ever go in the water.
Entry fees are $350 per boat for teams registering before Sept. 9, 2026; after that date, the entry fee increases to $450 per boat. Each entry includes four anglers, and additional anglers may be added for $50 each. The early-registration structure rewards teams that commit early, and the per-angler add-on gives boats flexibility to fill their roster as the date approaches — an arrangement that suits the way offshore teams actually assemble, with captains often confirming crew schedules in the final days before the event.
How the competition works
Anglers will compete in several offshore species categories, including catch-and-release, swordfish, tuna, wahoo, dolphin and a junior anglers division. That spread reflects the variety of the Gulf fishery accessible from Orange Beach inlets in September: tuna and wahoo run the bluewater edges, dolphin move through in schools, and swordfishing — once a niche pursuit — has grown into a recognized night-fishing discipline that draws dedicated crews. The catch-and-release category rewards teams that document fish without landing them, a format the tournament movement has embraced for conservation reasons, while the junior anglers division keeps the next generation of Gulf fishermen on the roster.
Teams looking for an extra shot at prize money can also opt into additional cash award categories for $200 per boat, giving both seasoned crews and the tournament’s junior anglers more ways to compete. Optional entry categories are a fixture of Gulf Coast billfish and meat-fish tournaments alike, allowing boats to select their risk level and creating side-pot payouts that can exceed the base prizes. For a $200 add-on, a crew can turn a single standout fish or a strong release day into a much larger payday, which keeps competitive interest high through the final hours of fishing.
On Saturday, Sept. 12, scale hours at tournament headquarters will run from 5 to 8 p.m., with an awards party beginning at 8 p.m. The weigh-in at a Gulf Coast offshore tournament is as much spectator event as administrative step — fishing families, sponsors and the general public gather at the docks to watch the day’s catch come in, with tuna, wahoo and dolphin swung onto the scales as the stories of each day’s run make the rounds. The awards party that follows closes the tournament the way the captain’s meeting opened it: at Tacky Jack’s Downstairs, with the whole field in one room.
Tacky Jack’s has long served as a gathering point for Orange Beach’s fishing community, and its downstairs venue gives the club a headquarters with water access, dockage nearby and the kind of casual atmosphere a tournament crowd expects. Hosting the captain’s meeting, the scale house and the awards party under one roof simplifies logistics for teams and gives sponsors maximum visibility across both days of the event.
Remembering Kenny Vines
Memorial tournaments occupy a particular place in Gulf Coast fishing culture. They are named for anglers, captains and community figures who left their mark on the local fishery, and they carry those names forward each season while raising the competitive stakes for the clubs that host them. The Kenny Vines Memorial Tournament has grown into one of the Orange Beach Sportfishing Club’s signature events of the fall, drawing boats that fish the club’s other events all year and visiting crews who plan their September around it. For the club’s members, the weekend honors a name the community remembers; for the anglers, it offers a legitimate shot at prize money across one of the most diverse category lists on the local calendar.
Sponsors for the event include Latitude LTB Tournament Boats, Orange Beach Vessel Management, Pensacola Rubber & Gasket Co., and Tacky Jack’s. Sponsor support is what allows a club tournament to fund meaningful prize structures without pricing out weekend crews — entry fees cover operations, and sponsorships underwrite the extras that make an event memorable, from the awards party to the junior angler recognition. The sponsor list itself reads as a cross-section of the local marine economy: a tournament-boat builder, a vessel services firm, an industrial supply house and a waterfront restaurant that functions as a second home to the fishing community.
Anglers interested in registering can call (251) 223-6522 for full rules and entry information. The club’s website carries the registration portal and rule updates as the Sept. 9 early-entry deadline approaches, and teams are advised to complete their entry before the fee steps up to $450. With species categories spanning swordfish to dolphin, a junior division for the next generation and optional cash categories for boats that want another shot at the payout, the 2026 Kenny Vines Memorial Tournament shapes up as one of the fall’s fullest tests of an offshore crew — and a fitting tribute delivered the way the Gulf Coast honors its own, with lines in the water and the whole fleet at the scales.
September is a strategic month for offshore fishing on the Alabama Gulf Coast. The summer heat begins to ease, the calendar of major summer tournaments has wound down, and the bluewater species that define the fall run are moving through the edges of the continental shelf within range of Orange Beach boats. Water temperatures remain warm enough to hold dolphin and tuna, while the first fronts of autumn can push wahoo onto the ridges and steps that crews troll on the way to and from the deep. A two-day window in mid-September, fished hard by a full field, gives tournament anglers a genuine cross-section of what the Gulf offers in the shoulder season.
The Orange Beach Sportfishing Club’s year-round structure is what makes a two-day event run smoothly. Club tournaments rely on members who fill roles that professional events staff with paid crews — registration desks, scale operators, rules committees and the junior angler program. The club format also keeps entry fees reasonable relative to the big-money circulates further east and west, which is part of why the Memorial Tournament draws family boats alongside the serious tournament rigs. A $350 early entry with four anglers included is accessible by Gulf Coast offshore standards, and the optional categories let each boat scale its own commitment.
Planning the weekend
Teams coming from outside Orange Beach typically plan around the tide, the fuel dock and the Friday meeting. Boats that trail in from across the Gulf Coast use Friday’s captain’s meeting window to launch, fuel and stage, and Tacky Jack’s location near the city’s boating infrastructure keeps the logistics tight — a crew can attend the meeting at 4 p.m. and still have the evening to stage bait, ice down and review weather. Saturday’s fishing window and the 5 to 8 p.m. scale hours put the weigh-in in prime time, with the awards party rolling straight into the evening at headquarters.
Weather always writes the final chapter of any Gulf tournament, and September’s tropical season adds a variable that offshore crews watch as closely as the fishing forecast. Clubs build check-in requirements and communication protocols into their rules precisely for that reason, and the mandatory captain’s meeting is where those procedures are spelled out. Teams are advised to review the club’s rules on weather postponements before registering, since a single-day event compressed into safe-water windows can shift schedules quickly.
Registration is open now on the club’s official website, with the phone line — (251) 223-6522 — available for crews who need rule clarifications or help with entry details. Between the early-entry savings, the included four-angler roster and the optional cash categories, the economics favor teams that lock in their plans early. The 2026 edition of the Kenny Vines Memorial Tournament carries the event’s traditions forward on Sept. 11-12 at Tacky Jack’s Downstairs, where the Gulf Coast’s offshore community will gather once more to compete, to celebrate and to keep a remembered name at the front of the fleet.