Article by Dale Timmons
Spent the week at the scales of the White Marlin Open, and needless to say, it was an exciting tournament, with some very impressive fish, including the first “grander” blue marlin I have ever seen in over 30 years of being a dock rat. When the big blue hit the black and purple JW Candy artificial lure, it almost dumped the reel on the first run. After angler Robert Farris and the crew of the “No Problem” landed the fish several hours later (it took seven men to get it in the boat), they realized that it had a j-hook and about 10 feet of heavy leader wrapped around its bill. The hook was not even stuck into the fish. It looked like a “stiff rig” that was taped up with electrical tape, and it might have come from another artificial lure that the big blue had broken off in another encounter. That happening wasn’t too long ago, either, because the hook and tape had no marine growth, and the hook still had most of its original finish.
The big blue was an amazing 189 inches long in total length, which is 15 3/4 feet. Its lower jaw to fork of tail length was 146.5 inches, and the girth was 76 inches. Amazingly, if you use the “formula” for estimating the weight of a fish (length in inches times the girth squared, divided by 800), you get an estimated weight of 1,057.7 pounds, which is only 4.3 pounds off the actual weight). Several people have asked me how old the fish would be, and I tried to find some data on the internet, but I couldn’t find any definitive age to weight ratios, probably because they simply don’t have enough data. At the weigh station, Dr. Anne Barse and I both guessed at anywhere from 15 to 20-25 years, but it was only a guess. Virtually all of the big blue marlin are females (some sources say any blue over 300 pounds), but I guess fish are like people—some are larger than others at any given age. The only way to tell for sure would be to cut the otoliths (ear bones) out of the head of the marlin and examine them, and I don’t think this was done in this case…
The winning white marlin in this year’s Open was another impressive fish. At 93.5 pounds, it is second only to the 99-pounder caught on the “Top Hat” in 1980. Right after they hooked the white, the “Orion” had transmission troubles, which meant in this case that they lost reverse gear. Since most fish are fought from a fighting chair in the cockpit of the boat, it is crucial that the captain can keep the stern pointed at the fish, and this usually involves a lot of reverse. In this case, they could only go forward in circles, and at one point angler Sean Healey had to walk up to the bow of the boat while holding the rod and fighting the fish. This white was an incredibly “fat fish” that carried its weight all the way back to the tail, and that is key to whether or not a marlin puts you in the money. In this case, the estimate formula from the 74.5-inch LJF and the 30-inch girth only comes out to 83.8 pounds, but that formula can’t take into account the “fat tail”…Rose Stivers the fish cleaner checked the stomach for me, and the only thing inside was one small bigeye scad.
To further put this year’s Open into perspective, this year’s second place white, an 85-pounder caught by Drew Goodwin on the “Longfin”, would have won every White Marlin Open since 1981, when Ron Evans caught a 90-pounder…Goodwin’s fish, by the way, hit a ballyhoo, came tight, then was gone, only to come back and eat a green and yellow (with pink highlights) chugger lure…it was a good year for plastics…
Quite a few of the “white marlin” weighed this year were actually roundscale spearfish, which some anglers call “hatchet marlin”, and they are considered whites for tournament purposes. The first place fish actually was a white, but both the second and third place fish in the category were spearfish…looking back over the years, when we didn’t realize we were looking at two different fish, I wonder how many were actually whites and how many were roundscales…the easiest way to tell the difference is to look at the anal orifice (to put it politely)…on a white marlin it is only an inch or two forward of the anal fin, but on a spearfish it is about five inches away from the fin…
By the way, even though it may have seemed like a lot of white marlin were brought to the scales, they only weighed 20, while 347 were released, which is still a release ratio of 94.55 per cent…79.4 per cent of the blue marlin caught were released…one sailfish was released and two longbill spearfish(another species entirely) were released…
Some guys get tired at the end of a day of fishing, and maybe quit a little early, but another case of “it ain’t over till it’s over” might make you fish every day until the end. Fishing time ends at 3:30 p.m. during the White Marlin Open, and the crew of the “Foolish Pleasures” hooked up with their third place bigeye tuna, worth a cool $27,474, at 3:23…
It’s a tough world out there…one of the blue marlin weighed during the Open had a very large circle hook, perhaps from a long line rig, embedded (almost buried) in the side of the hard part of one of its gill plates. It was trailing 10-12 feet of heavy leader material, but the fish seemed healthy (even though it was dead) and obviously was feeding with no problem…
You never know what you might run into out there…I heard a rumor that the “Fish Bonz” had a flying fish collide with its windshield on the run out early in the tournament…wonder if they rigged it up and put it in the spread…?
I don’t ever remember anyone boating two blue marlin in one day during the Open, but the crew on the “Olivia Grace” did just that on Thursday. Seems that they caught one blue early, put it in the boat and decided to troll for home…the second blue hit and took several hours to get to the boat…the first fish didn’t qualify (500 pounds or more), but the second fish, a 530.5 pounder, took second place and a respectable $125,055.00…
On the last day of the Open, I looked over to see a gentleman standing by himself, leaning against a piling and just watching. It only took a minute to realize that it was Pete Boinis. Pete, a world renowned angler himself, used to own all of what is Harbour Island when it was the Ship Café. He actually had the current weigh station built many years ago, and he was instrumental in helping get the White Marlin Open started. Nice to see you, Pete…you should come up from the south more often…
Finally, on Friday, I noticed Marty Gary, assistant director of DNR Fisheries, all dressed up, as well as a friend of mine, photographer Rich Lippenholtz, who travels with Governor O’Malley, so I knew something was up. Sure enough, after a while the governor made a low key appearance at the weigh station. He didn’t speak, and didn’t even want his presence announced, but he posed for photos with a lot of folks, and we even weighed his little boy, just for fun…I think he went 50.5 pounds…
Contact Dale Timmons at [email protected] or call 410-629-1191.