BigBendFishing.Net

Great start to the 2016 Emerald Coast Blue Marlin Classic at the Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort. A record field of 85 boats is competing for a share of $1.95 million in prize money.

Breathe Easy, a Viking based in Orange Beach, is on its way in with a 123-inch blue marlin. Supposed to be here shortly after the scales open at 4 p.m. CDT.

Here's their catch.
We'll have live streaming, plus there are blogs, photo galleries, leaderboard, etc. on the web site:

http://www.fishecbc.com

Fishing continues through tomorrow with the scales opening again at 4 Central. It'll be a long night with some big tuna, wahoo and dolphin also sure to come in.

What a super looking fish. I thought most tournaments did the catch and release thing these days?

The fish weighed in a 835.8 pounds, with a 123-inch length and 67-inch girth. Breathe Easy was in across the board on all optional jackpots, so if no other blues are weighed, they will win in the neighborhood of $750,000.

MD, most of the big-game tournaments are primarily catch and release, in the 90 percentile range. But a few well over the federal minimum are brought to the scales, like this one. At some events they are sampled for scientific data and in all the meat is donated to charity.

By the way, the catch and release division in the ECBC has $500,000 on the line.

Wouldn't be at all surprised to see a 200-pound-plus yellowfin come to the scales tomorrow night.

Hey Dave! Sounds like you are having a fine time amongst the big dogs. Meanwhile, back here in little ole Apalachee Bay, I'm killing myself fishing this dang STAR tourney a few hours every other day. Got 34 catches so far, but it's starting to feel like a part-time summer job. On the other hand, I've had lots of summer jobs that were plenty worse than fishing.

Please let us know what the atmosphere is like at big-time weigh-ins where the winnings are six figures, as opposed to the gas money that's won at our low-key local affairs. I assume the boat crews at million dollar events include lawyers!

Tons of excitement at the weigh-in. We had approx. 45 boats out of a record 85 fishing come to the scales. A team aboard a 33 Center Console weighed a blue at 652 pounds, showing it can be done. Small boats can compete. The big fish from Friday was bumped by a local boat by a mere 2.4 pounds. Set new tournament weight records for tuna (190) and wahoo (112). We also did a courtesy weigh of a bluefin tuna that was fought for 12 hours on 50W reel. 454 pounds, but just sore muscles are all it will earn. Another boat lost more than $100,000 when their 180-pound yellowfin was mutilated by a shark, so it was disqualified.

At one point we had so many folks on the web site checking out the live feeds, leaderboard, etc. that the server crashed!

Plenty of lawyers, yes. Also doctors, bankers, captains of industry and plain ol' regular folks. Lots of family/buddy teams. It's certainly not a cheap hobby. Some of the battlewagons are spending $10,000 on fuel alone, not to mention crew salaries, food, dockage, bait, ice, etc. A custom boat these days can run up to $10 million. Big boost for the local economy and the sponsors are able to showcase their products/services to a great audience. We had probably a few thousand people crowding the marina last night to witness the weigh-ins.

Different playing field yes. But people still get pumped up catching, fighting and weighing big fish. The payout structure is a little higher too. The teams that win the giant pots are the ones that bet a big pile of money in the optional entries that they'll weigh the biggest or catch and release the most.

Awards breakfast this am, when the tourney officials will divvy up the $1.95 million in overall prize money.

GaryDroze wrote:Hey Dave! Sounds like you are having a fine time amongst the big dogs. Meanwhile, back here in little ole Apalachee Bay, I'm killing myself fishing this dang STAR tourney a few hours every other day. Got 34 catches so far, but it's starting to feel like a part-time summer job. On the other hand, I've had lots of summer jobs that were plenty worse than fishing.

Please let us know what the atmosphere is like at big-time weigh-ins where the winnings are six figures, as opposed to the gas money that's won at our low-key local affairs. I assume the boat crews at million dollar events include lawyers!

Dang Gary, isn't fishing supposed to be fun?

Yeah, yeah, yeah...that's all well and good ....where are the swimsuit photos ? Don't we usually get swimsuit pics ?

Was waylaid at the Biloxi tournament due to a bad spill and the Sandestin event doesn't have a swimsuit, aka bikini, contest. But I'll be back in action at the Blue Marlin Grand Championship in a couple weeks and will likely continue my string as a volunteer judge for the Miss Billfish contest. So I promise better pix then. In the meantime, you'll have to settle for these.