At 6:20 p.m. on the final day of the five-day White Marlin Open, the boat Billfisher pulled up to the scale and angler Jeremy Duffie of Bethesda, Maryland, weighed in the winning fish that was worth a staggering $4.5 million.
Duffie’s white marlin weighed 77.5 pounds and took the lead away from Keeley Megarity, the Houston fisherman who had caught a 71.5-pound white marlin the day before. Megarity on the boat C-Student took $197,000 for second place.
The actual payout for Duffie was $4,536,926, a world-record payout for one fish, surpassing the previous record of $3.2 million from last year’s White Marlin Open.
The tournament, based in Ocean City, Maryland, drew 408 boats that vied for $8.6 million in total prize money. The fishing was slower than usual this year with only 151 caught-and-released billfish compared to the average of 800.
Also on FTW Outdoors: Fisherman photographs ‘craziest thing’ seen on a fishing pier
The White Marlin Open is primarily a catch-and-release tournament with the biggest payouts reserved for the heaviest marlin. Tournament director Jim Motsko told Sport Fishing that the event averages a 97 percent release rate.
Bill Britt aboard Cabana weighed in a 511-pound blue marlin, the only qualifier in that division, and took home $1.2 million. But it was the Duffie catch that made the biggest headlines.
“My brother and I have been fishing out of Ocean City since we were born,” Duffie told Sport Fishing. “Winning has always eluded us, now we’ve done what we wanted to do.”
“As a family, grandparents, sisters and sisters-in-law, brothers, and friends, it’s something you’ll never be able to replace,” Duffie told FOX5. “It’s like the Super Bowl of fishing for people like us who do it. You try to win this tournament your whole life.”
Photos courtesy of the White Marlin Open and Wikipedia Commons.
