The Texas saltwater fish record has been shattered by nearly 100lbs, after a fishing team out of Houston reeled in a 972.7lb Blue Marlin in Port Aransas, TX.
The 972lb Blue Marlin measured 137.5 inches in length, and has absolutely demolished the record held by James Farrow since 1988, when he boated 876.5lb Blue Marlin out of the Gulf of Mexico.
To the fishermen who caught this behemoth the catch couldn’t have come at a better time, the ‘Aboard The Legacy’ fishing team was competing in the Bastante John Uhr Memorial Billfish Tournament and managed take home first place overall, and obviously first place for the biggest fish.
Victoria Advocate had a chance to speak with the anglers:
“It’s still sinking in,” said Tami Noling, the creator and director of the 3-year-old tournament. “We’re all on cloud nine. It’s just something that we never expected to happen here. Most of us have been fishing for years all over the world, and we didn’t expect this.”
Deerman said they were about 130 miles out from Port Aransas about 7 a.m. Friday when Richardson, the angler, came face-to-face with the beast.
“It took 40 minutes to get the fish in the boat, and it took all of us.
“The fight lasted 20 minutes,” said Deerman. “The fish had a series of jumps out of the water. It would stay down deep for 15 minutes at a time and then would come back to surface.”
They used a Shimano 130 rod and live tuna as bait.
It’s actually impossible for me to fathom a fish this big swimming around in the Gulf of Mexico, as the Pacific Blue Marlin is often heralded as the larger species its Atlantic brethren.
Myself, I was fortunate enough to catch a Pacific Blue Marlin 6 or 7 years ago (pic below), and it was only about ~300lbs, took me about an hour to fight the fish and bring it in. I was only fishing on 30lb test, so it’s somewhat understandable as to why the fight took so long, but I truly cannot wrap my mind around catching a fish 3x the size of mine own trophy.
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