Baypoint Billfish Invitational

[Boboe]

I'm new to the forums--been reading them for a couple of weeks--but thought I'd post about last weekend's Baypoint Billfish Invitational in Panama City, FL.

To cut to the chase, a good friend of mine ran the deck on the winning boat this year. He's a hell of a billfisherman. He's a hell of an anything fisherman really. Here's the story of the winning fish, as best I can remember it.

Note: in north Gulf tournaments, boats don't come back to the dock at night.

Morning 1 dawns and by 8:30 AM, the Sea Wolff has gone 2/3 on whities, landing a little cute one (~45-50lbs), and then jumping off the smaller one of a double-up. The one landed was a pretty good white, at about 75-80 lbs. The color was great, the lines were pushing really hard with a good bit of sargassum on them, and 20-30 lb dolphins were plentiful, along with a few stray hoo's. This continued for the rest of the day.

Having given it a hell of a shot day 1, they didn't stay up through the night and try to get a swordie (only good for tag-and-release points in the tournament) or try to chunk up an open water yellowfin.

Day 2 dawns and everything's still looking really good. Water is beautiful and they're into the meat fish again. About mid-to-late morning (apologies for not remembering the time), my friend hears somebody else shout out with a "holy shit!" He turns just in time to see the short corner lure (and a damn big heavy one too) go flying a good 40' through the air. Talk about a bill whack! The lure was tossed so far that it was essentially out of the question for the fish. The adjacent rigger came in quick and was popped from the clip. The rigged ballyhoo was assaulted by the man in the blue suit and the 80 started to get dumped.

The captain of the Sea Wolff was going as fast as he could in reverse, and the Tiagra 80 was still being dumped. The deck hand saw the spool get down to 1/3, and backed the drag off. As you may know already or will know now, 1/3 spool is appx equal to 2x drag. Of course, lessening the drag at that point caused the line to egress even faster. It wasn't looking good, but the fish decided he was done running and went deep for the long fight.

About 40 minutes later the deck hand had the wind-on in his hand and went to wire the fish up to the boat. In his own words, "it was like it was tied off to a piling. I didn't even move him." The fish turned its head, and he had to dump the leader. This happened 11 more times with the same not-gonna-budge result. The 13th time, however, when he grabbed the leader and gave pull, he saw a shimmer of the fish--still down deep--turning onto its side. "HOLY SHIT! WE'RE GONNA GET HIM! HE'S DONE!"

4 1/2 hours later...

The leader was once again in hand and the deck hand has got as much pressure as he thinks the 9/0 ballyhoo hook can stand without straightening. The fish slowly inches up toward the boat toward the pair of waiting fliers. The two gaff men got good shots into the stud of a blue and he was subdued and brought through the door.

There was a problem, however. They couldn't get the door closed. The fish wouldn't fit. About 2-3' of the tail was still out the door. All 4 men took good grips on the fish with t-handle gaffs (meat hooks anybody?) and the ropes from the fliers. "Ok, on 3!" The result, according to my friend the deckhand, was, "it didn't even move a sixteenth of an inch." The blue was tied up to the chair and the cleats around the boat and the door left open. It couldn't be shut!

Hours later, back at the Baypoint Marina, the fish was weighed in. After blood loss and dehydration, the fish weighed in at 998#, the third-largest Blue Marlin ever caught in the Gulf of Mexico. Craziest thing? The same boat caught #2 in 2002, with the same guy on the rod.

Congrats to the Sea Wolff!

[Boboe]

Looks like I was wrong on one of the details. The angler already had the #1 blue caught in the Gulf. Story is at: http://ap.emeraldcoast.com/snews_display.php?aID=1410