$1 Million Changes Hands Over One Pound

By Scott Lenox

$1 Million Changes Hands Over One Pound

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I just got back from an exciting night of scales action at Harbour Island for day 3 of the 49th Annual White Marlin Open where we did see a couple of white marlin and some more, even bigger, bigeye.  Two boats brought white marlin to the scales at 14th Street tonight, but neither of them hit both tournament requirements.  The first boat didn’t make the 70″ tournament minimum for length so it wasn’t even removed from the boat and moved to the scale.  The second, caught aboard the Fender Bender, did make the 70″ minimum length, but missed the mark on the 70 pound tournament weight minimum at just 65 pounds.  It was a couple of nice tries and it was nice to see some billfish, but the categories remain open after three days of fishing.

The story of the night was once again the bigeye tuna.  We saw several more bigeye tuna tonight with a couple over 20o pounds.  Captain Ronnie Fields and the crew of the Big Stick hit the dock just before 7 PM and weighed a beautiful 246.5 pound bigeye and jumped into first place in the category.  They held $1.1 Million for just about an hour until the crew of the Southern C’s hit the scale and weighed a bigeye just one pound heavier at 247.5.  That one pound was worth about $1.1 Million in prize money that Southern C’s swiped from the pockets of the Big Stick crew.  When it comes to tournament fishing things can change in the blink of an eye which is one of the things that makes it so exciting for spectators……and anglers that end up on the heavier side of the scale.  Here’s who’s leading what after three days of fishing.

Dolphin

3rd Place     C- Student     26.5 Pounds

2nd Place     JEB     28 Pounds

1st Place     10-4 Joker      29 Pounds

Wahoo

2nd Place      Irish Twin     51.5 Pounds

1st Place     Jenny Poo     71 Pounds

Tuna

3rd Place     MJ’s     230.5 Pounds  Bigeye

2nd Place     Big Stick     246.5 Pounds    Bigeye

1st Place     Southern C’s     247.5 Pounds    Bigeye

Captain Chris Mizurak of the Angler had a nice day out on the ocean today with some good fishing for sea bass that included some quality fish.

Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star found sea bass, flounder and mahi on today’s trip.  And he got some sick dolphin shots!

Not much sea leftover from not much wind yesterday. Paddled on off to Dr. Berger’s Reef where Sea Bass Bob made our standard 20 block deposit & a few pieces of terracotta pipe before easing off further. 

Water cooled slightly and turned greener in yesterday’s wind. Clarity was diminished. Mahi and fluke don’t care for that – sea bass either in the most extreme black water conditions, but none of that today. The sea bass bite was high summer fussy, thats for sure. Still, given our long hours of effort on todays 11 hour trip, we even had 2 fellows limit out.

Mahi were scarce and not especially cooperative. Did put some over the rail and glad of it. Released a couple too.

Fluke were a one man show. Whit had three – all three! 

Rich from middletown New York beat Sea Bass Bob to first limit by a hair. They both won a pool too – Bob, biggest sea bass; & Rich the mahi/fluke category. 

One thing’s a certainty – we had one of the best bottlenose shows ever: riding the bow with twos & threes jumping clean out of the water, it was a sight. Will post video elsewhere.. 

Cheers 

Monty

Rich Daiker was joined by Stacey Schindler today and put her on three keeper flounder and a 30″ rockfish at the route 50 bridge.

Morgan Mericle, Will and Taylor hit the Blackwater yesterday and caught some jumbo, dinosaur snakeheads including a big 17 pounder.

Captain Marc Spagnola of Dusk to Dawn Bowfishing had some great shooting on his most recent trips with folks hitting their mark on some big rays.

New Back Deck Fishing Report is up on our YouTube Channel!

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