Fishermen catch a potential record blue marlin, win $1.16 million
In the first hour of the fifth and final day of the MidAtlantic Tournament, a team of fishermen hooked up to a blue marlin of historic proportions, which proved to be quite profitable.
Billy Gerlach aboard The Billfisher battled the massive marlin for 3½ hours with the team having the leader in hand two dozen times before the fish was finally gaffed and pulled onto the deck—that alone taking 30 minutes because of its size.
“It was unbelievable,” boat owner Jon Duffie told The Dispatch. “I still can’t believe it.”
That’s because the blue marlin weighed an amazing 1,135 pounds, a potential Maryland record. If approved by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, it would surpass the current record of 1,062 pounds caught by Robert Farris in 2009.
Whether a record or not, the blue marlin cashed in bigtime for The Billfisher team as it won the division and netted a whopping $1,167,762.
For Duffie, it was especially exciting as it was only the 14th day his new, custom-built boat had been on the water. His company, Duffie Boatworks of West Ocean City, manufactured the 64-foot vessel.
Duffie credited Gerlach with a “phenomenal” job fighting the fish and lauded the team for working together throughout the battle.
“It was our only bite of the day because we had only been fishing about 50 minutes,” Duffie told The Dispatch. “We started out just below the Washington Canyon, and we were off on our own, and less than an hour in we had the bite.
“It ate the left side and it ate the right rod for us, thankfully for a fish that big. The fish jumped a half dozen times, but nobody really got a good look at it on the boat except me. Everyone was like, ‘Why are you so excited?’ They hadn’t seen it and I told them, ‘You guys have no idea what we have here.’
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“I initially thought a 700-, 800-pound blue. We fought it for three hours and 20 minutes. It was incredible. It was the hardest battle I’ve ever seen. I don’t have a lot of experience with fish that size. It’s just a rarity for this area.”
The blue marlin measured 136½ inches with an 80-inch girth, Chesapeake Bay Magazine reported. According to the tournament writeup, it took eight men to hoist the marlin up onto the scale.
Photos courtesy of Ocean City Sunset Marina.