Another year has come and gone, and we are off to the races once again as the 2024 tournament season is here! If the fishing holds like it has been in recent years, we have a lot to look forward to. Health and preservation of our unique fishery here in the Gulf of Mexico has always been and will continue to be our top priority here at the Orange Beach Billfish Classic. With the support of our sponsors and participants, we continue to be the worlds’ largest tournament donor to The Billfish Foundation!
It is with them that we take our fight to Capitol Hill to lobby for our interest in keeping our fishery healthy. Issues currently at hand include fighting the proposed Extreme Vessel Speed Reduction Zones in the gulf. If the people who are pushing for this would take a little time and do their research, call every boatyard on the gulf coast and ask them how many whale strike repair jobs they have done, they would probably conclude that we don’t have an issue with ramming whales in this part of the world. Then again, many of the folks that are pushing for these extreme laws have never been here. In addition, keeping the longliners out of the northern gulf is a constant fight.
Commercial fishermen have lobbyists on the hill fighting for them to get into our closed zones and nurseries just as we do to keep them out. Now more than ever it is critical that we make substantial and meaningful contributions to organizations like The Billfish Foundation so that they can allocate funds to conduct thorough and sound research to back our interest here in the Gulf of Mexico. Producing satellite tags, getting them deployed, analyzing and graphing the data, and presenting the findings at the Billfish Conference later this year are one of many examples of where our dollars go. It is imperative that we do what is necessary to keep our fishery protected from indiscriminating longline fishermen. With modern gear and technology, they could wipe out places like Desoto Canyon and Mississippi Canyon in a season and it could take decades for the stock to rebuild. For now though, we enjoy fantastic fishing through what we have learned and applied as fishermen and conservationists.
Last year we saw good marlin fishing in terms of both numbers and size. Conservation efforts are showing positive results on maintaining our marlin fishery. The Orange Beach Billfish Classic has a new tournament record for the heaviest Blue Marlin thanks to our good friends and long-time participant, the Mollie out of Destin, Fl. The massive fish drew an even more massive crowd and tipped the scales at a whopping 776.4 pounds! A big congratulations to Captain Jeff Shoults, angler Brian Stover and the rest of the crew from all of us here at OBBC! Speaking of records, we also saw the Alabama state record (and Gulf of Mexico record) for blue marlin go down to a monster 1,145.6-pound fish caught aboard Best Trait. This occurredlast October while fishing right out in front of Orange Beach at an oil rig called Blind Faith. We would like to congratulate the crew on that boat for that outstanding catch! Both fish are a testament to what good conservation practices can do for a fishery.
Fish size and numbers are two things that matter dearly to a fisherman. This is the reason most tournaments see the participants bet mostly catch and release (for numbers) and kill (for size). We at OBBC put ALL the tournament money towards these two divisions and nothing else. We are a true-blue marlin tournament, because we are all passionate about spending time with our friends and family chasing these magnificent fish. My fascination with these fish and concern for their well-being is what keeps me running analytics year after year on tournament results. Last year, if we look at five prominent tournaments with fields of 25 boats or more, one can see that the mean median average of fish weight (for a first-place finish) is as good as it is anywhere in the world. The list of tournaments I chose to use are as follows; OBBC, MGCBC (Biloxi ), ECBC (Emerald Coast), BMGC (Blue Marlin Grand Championship), and Baypoint Billfish Open. For a first-place finish in the kill division, you would need on average a 556.5-pound fish.
One tournament, the Emerald Coast Billfish Classic, did not have a qualifying fish brought in so the average really got knocked down because of that. If we exclude that one event, and just count the winning fish from OBBC (776.4 lbs.), Biloxi (723.7 lbs.), BMGC (597.4 lbs.), and Baypoint (685.1 lbs.), the average jumps to 695.7 lbs.! Bottom line, these days, you generally need at least a 600 pounder, and it really needs to be closer to 700 lbs. to win in a big tournament. The amount of blue marlin weighing over 700 lbs. caught in the gulf has skyrocketed over the last decade due to a multitude of factors, such as bigger and faster boats, sonar, live baiting, etc., etc. One of the glaring reasons for catching more of these big fish, in my opinion, is that we as a fishing community are now practicing catch and release on just about all the fish we catch with the exceptions of a few trophy grade fish that meet todays’ high minimum lengths. The days of bringing in fish that weigh in the 300’s are gone and if a fish weighs anywhere in the 400’s its because it was skinny. There is no denying that the average size fish that it takes to win in a big tournament today is going up, and that’s a good thing!
On the flip side, when looking at how many fish we are releasing in the same tournaments, the same rings true; the average number of fish it takes to win in Catch and Release is on the rise. If we go back 15 years, and you caught 3 blue marlin and released them all in a big tournament, you were in the money without question. You likely would have won the C&R division. We all know that this is far from the case now as it takes on average 5 blue marlin releases to get it done and a lot of times that isn’t enough! With modern techniques such as circle hook fishing and aggressive boat handling while battling fish, fight times have gone down and the number of gut hooked fish has gone down also, resulting in a much higher rate of survival for caught fish. These are all things we as fishermen and women should be proud of!
Good luck this year to all the teams, and let’s continue to put this place on the map by catching them more and catching them bigger every year! – Travis Dorland