Another White Marlin, Wahoo and Mahi Lead to More Leaderboard Shake Up On Day 5 of the White Marlin Open

By Scott Lenox

Posted on August 7th, 2026

Scales have officially closed for day 5 of the 53rd Annual White Marlin Open and it was another day of major leaderboard changes. In my live interview with Captain Chris Watkowski of Spring Mix II today we talked about a white marlin that had been boated and was on the way to the scales, and we saw that fish and more on day 5. With just one more day to fish, there are around 62 boats with a chance to unseat the leaders that are currently looking at some very good payouts. Here’s who’s leading after 5 days of fishing. Many thanks again to the White Marlin Open for the pics! Payouts are estimated www.whitemarlinopen.com

WHITE MARLIN

1st Place Mister Pete 80 Lbs $3,500,000

2nd Place Reel Hunter 71.5 Lbs $355,000

3rd Place Bull Pen 70 Lbs $1,816,000

BLUE MARLIN

Max Bet 607.5 Lbs $1,260,923.00

TUNA

1st Gray Fox 179 Lbs $1,038,000

2nd Speculator 146.5 Lbs $163,716

3rd Sea Legs 110.5 Lbs $143,470

WAHOO

Gray Fox, 69.5 Lbs $76,768

2nd Place Bar South 64 Lbs. $49,400

DOLPHIN

1st Today’s The Day 45 Lbs $34,828

2nd Place Meraki 40.5 Lbs $26,159

3rd Place Bill Collector 37 Lbs $25,159

Captain Dave Caffrey of On the Run Charters had two good trips today that ended with a bluefin tuna and some flounder for one group and a nice pile of keeper flounder for another.

Captain Jason Mumford of Lucky Break Charters had an awesome day of inlet and ocean fishing for his groups. Anglers enjoyed good fishing for sheepshead, tautog, croaker and big spot.

pam Rahnama used a pink Deadly Double with a pink Gulp to land this nice 21″ keeper flounder in the West channel.

Captain Chris Mizurak of the Angler reported fishing has been a little sporadic this week, but they are still catching plenty of sea bass, flounder and triggerfish.

Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star saw good fishing on today’s trip with flounder and sea bass action.

Not too breezy, not too still; was a fine looking forecast.

Paddled on off to ‘Gratitude Reef’ where John & son Brian made today’s reef block deployment. Now just 424 blocks and 13 pyramids (where others number in the thousands) Gratitude Reef’s been holding a spawning population of sea bass for over two years. We added block to it today; will again and again in the future.

About time the blocks went over the weatherman said, “10 knots? Psych!”

It blew almost 20 all day.

Not 10.

Thankfully, as the breeze varied between 210 and 240 degrees, it didn’t build a set.

Makes a beautiful vista – whitecaps as far as you can see.

Not a mahi trip this day; a return to sea bass and flounder was advertised

..and delivered, I’d say.

Bob was in double digits at 10:45. There were a half dozen keeper fluke aboard by then as well.

At 11:35 Craig limited on flounder; 12:35 Bob limited on cbass; come 12:40 Kelvin limited on fluke too..

Bob won the cbass pool – Jonas won the shirt for biggest flounder.

Nice day if a bit windier than hoped.