Article by Capt. Lance Smith
Well, it is White Marlin Open week again and with any luck my crew and I are on the leaderboard somewhere. Even if we aren't, and don't end up winning anything at all, this is still my favorite week of the year. Three days of offshore fishing while competing against the best captains, mates and anglers in the world with a chance to win a load of cash! What's not to like? There is absolutely nothing in the world like pulling up to the dock at Harbour Island with a "money fish" onboard and hearing that huge crowd just explode when the scale settles on your fish's weight. Just being a spectator at the afternoon weigh-ins can be a thrill for visitors.
With millions of dollars in prize money, this is one of the biggest billfish tournaments in the world and attracts fisherman from around the globe. Not only are there prizes for white marlin, but also for blue marlin, tuna, wahoo, dolphin (mahi-mahi) and sharks! My crew and I have been blessed to catch a fish worth money three times in the past. Our first experience was with an 80 pound wahoo that was good enough for first place in the tournament and was caught by my mother. It was one of the greatest days of my life. The second fish was an 85 pound white marlin that came in second place. That fish was the largest caught in the tournament in the preceding 20 years (except for the 95 pounder that took first place!). Our marlin was hooked on the last day of the tournament with ten minutes left to go before it was all over. Talk about a clutch catch! Our last trip to the scales was with a 120 pound mako shark that ate a trolling lure meant for blue marlin. We were sure that this fish would end up in first place, but we were beaten by a scalloped hammerhead that became the new state record. It just goes to show that you never really know what is going to happen in the crazy world of offshore tournament fishing.
Whenever I mention the White Marlin Open (WMO), the first question I get asked is, "How much does it cost to enter?" The answer is “it all depends”. All boats must pay the basic entry fee, which is $1,200 this year. This entitles you to a share of the $50,000 guaranteed prize money. Most boats however, choose to pony up more cash and enter the "calcuttas."
Calcuttas are simply extra money that you can pay towards the added entry levels and a percentage of the total gets split between the other boats that have also entered that specific calcutta. For instance, if you only pay the basic entry fee and catch the first place white marlin, you may win around $25,000. However, if the crew that catches the second place white marlin is in the expensive white marlin calcuttas, they stand a chance at winning well over a million dollars, even though their fish was smaller! We actually won less money for our second place white marlin than the fellows with the third place one because they were in more added entry levels than us. To enter all of the calcuttas this year will cost a crew more than $25,000! I don't know about you, but that is a very significant chunk of my annual salary!
Since this is in essence a "how to" column, let us talk about how you can go about catching some marlin. If you aren't in the tournament, the sight of all those huge fish hanging at the scales may just convince you that you need to get out there and try this for yourself. Actually, marlin fishing is just beginning to heat up off of Ocean City and the best to come is still about a month away. This gives you plenty of time to prepare your own boat or book a trip on one of the many charter boats advertising here in the Coastal Fisherman. While white marlin may not possess the sheer power, endurance and tastiness compared to most tuna species, their acrobat leaps into mid-air summersaults when caught on light tackle more than make up for it.
The most important factor in catching any marlin is to first find where they are. While white marlin can be caught from 20-100 miles or more offshore, most captains will start their search somewhere around the 100 fathom line where the continental shelf drops off sharply in areas known as "canyons." Starting to the south and moving northward, the most frequently fished canyons are the Norfolk, the Washington, Poor Man's, Baltimore and the Wilmington Canyons. Which canyon to choose depends mostly on recent fishing activity, but temperature and current charts produced by satellites play a huge role in finding the blue Gulf Stream waters that marlin prefer. One of my favorite areas to fish, although it is a massive pain in the rear because of the constant bait checking, is where there are scattered clumps of sargassum algae. These floating yellow "weeds" provide refuge for hundreds, if not thousands of small baitfish and larger flying fish that pelagic fish like to feed upon. Your mate may give you or your charter captain a nasty look for all the work he has to do shagging weeds off of the trolled baits, but fishing in this mess can pay off immensely.
Once a temperature break/color change in the surface water is located, or schools of bait are marked on the depth sounder, it is time to get busy. The first thing most skilled crews will do is to deploy one or two dredges off the stern corners of the boat. These dredges are essentially large wire rigs resembling an umbrella frame with multiple rubber baitfish/squid, or natural ballyhoo/mullet trailing behind them with no hooks. Rigged with up to 40 or more baits per dredge, these "teasers" do exactly that, they tease the fish to the boat. While trolling and constantly moving forward at a rate of around 6 knots, these teaser dredges resemble large schools of baitfish from below and are used to attract marlin to the rigged baited hooks behind them. Most dredges are run between 10 and 30-feet behind the boat and about 10 feet or so below the surface so that the captain, who with his height advantage on the bridge, can clearly see a fish following them.
The most widely used bait for white marlin is the ballyhoo, and the fresher they are the better. Many crews spend thousands of dollars for bait just for these 3 days of fishing. These ballyhoo are typically rigged "naked," which means that they have no artificial lure or skirt draping over them, just a hook and perhaps a small oval egg sinker. Tournament rules dictate the mandatory use of circle hooks when using bait in the tournament and there are as many ways to rig a circle-hooked ballyhoo as there are mates that rig them. Most captains tend to change out their usual 50 and 80 pound trolling gear for 30 pound outfits to match the smallest ballyhoo and lightest leaders they can get away with. While most tuna lures/baits are rigged on 100-200 pound monofilament leaders, white marlin crews tend to use 80 pound or less fluorocarbon leader for its clarity and abrasion resistance. Because circle hooks typically hook a fish right in the corner of the mouth in the jaw hinge, they allow for lighter leaders and more humane releases of smaller fish. I can remember 20 years ago when all we used was single-strand wire leader and we caught loads of white marlin. In fact, this past weekend we caught a white on a horse ballyhoo behind a heavy trolling lure trolled at high speed for wahoo. I noted to my father how invisible those wire leaders were from above while being trolled behind the boat. Something I will remember if the fish get picky this week.
Most marlin that are successfully hooked are spotted by the captain before the fish ever attacks the bait. In fact, the key to being a good marlin angler is getting to the rod before the fish does. Trust me when I say that there is nothing in the world like viewing a white marlin coming into a spread of trolling lures with all of his colors lit up. The neon blues and purples on these fish are amazing! When a fish does show, the captain will yell down which bait the fish is behind so that the mate or anglers can get to it. Then the tricky part comes. White marlin do not have that long bill on their upper jaw for no reason. Their feeding technique involves using that weapon to stun or disorientate their prey. If a white attacks your trolled ballyhoo and there is no one there to react, the fish will most often just turn around and swim away. If you are lucky, he may try one of the other baits trolling along. The idea is to have the rod in hand when the fish strikes and drop the reel into freespool allowing the bait to drift back away from the boat. This simulates what the marlin expects, a stunned baitfish that he has isolated from the rest that he can now easily swallow. If a ballyhoo gets whacked and keeps moving forward, the marlin will know that something isn't quite right.
A good billfishing mate can hook 1 out of every 4 marlin that commits to eating a trolled bait. Most professional mates around the Atlantic will tell you that the white marlin is the trickiest of all fish to successfully bait, hook and land.
White marlin are not the only game in town this week though. Most crews will also include a large natural spanish mackerel or a jumbo plastic trolling lure to their spread to entice blue marlin which, in recent years, have weighed over 1,000 pounds in the WMO! Some crews will fish solely for large, bigeye tuna that can be worth several hundred thousand dollars. Every year epic tales of multiple hour battles are told when one of these submarines is hooked on a light outfit meant for white marlin. Dolphin, wahoo and sharks are also always a possibility for a crew to win some cash when they are incidentally hooked.
One of the greatest things about white marlin is that they can be successfully wound in by both junior and our ever popular lady anglers, so don't be surprised to see some kids and some gals holding some big checks at the awards ceremony. This is sure to be another exciting year at the weigh-ins, so find yourself a parking spot early and get a good seat near the scales. Hopefully one afternoon I will see you there, from the opposite side of the scale of course!
Lance Smith is an outdoor writer and Captain of his family’s boat, the “Longfin”.
