Wow, I had the pleasure this past week of fishing in the Pirates Cove Billfishing Tournament held in Manteo NC. on the final day a boat called MIMI weighed in the largest Blue Marlin caught in the United States 1228.5 lb. It was 144" long and 83" in girth what a fish. It was an honor to get to see such a monster. It was caught on 80lb. tackle and took appro 2.5 hrs. to land.

THEre's an article with a picture of this fish that was posted on anotehr forum last night. I'll try to find it and post the link.

here's the link

[www.northcarolinasportsman.com]


shame to kill it

thats a beautiful blue, and i agree, what a shame.

Yes it is a shame to kill such a fish and unless it was in a Tournament it probably would not have been killed. However the Marine biologist that were on hand were very excited because they can get alot of info from this fish that otherwise would not have been able to be gotten. Estimated age of this fish is 30 yrs. It also brought a total purse to the team of 496,312.50 cash.

Someone else who was there to see the fish was telling me that it was so heavy the tail was cracking while it was hanging, so they had to move it to the ground to keep the tail from ripping off. Heck of a fish. I hate to see the big ones like that killed too, but hopefully the information obtained by the scientific folks will help preserve the other ones that are still swimming around.

Scott - I was in Nags Head last week. A friend and I took my kids out of Broad Creek to the inlet to watch you guys make the run to the bridge and through the inlet on Tues morning. It was quite a sight. I heard 99 boats were in the tournament. We were in a Regulator and left the offshore to you guys. Trolled the beach up to S Nags Head and picked up some Spanish.

I think it's important to note that the Pirates Cove Tournament is catch & release except for the bigger fish ( 400 lb and therefore older fish) and as discussed those that are kept are used for data gathering that is useful in fishery management decisions.