Angler's first-ever marlin nets whopping sum of $2.4 millionBy: Pete Thomas, GrindTV.com
Monday, October 29, 2012 9:33am PDT
Kansas City angler Dave Sanchez caught his first marlin last Thursday off Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and it's reasonable to assume that it will remain his favorite catch for as long as he lives. That's because the 465-pound blue marlin, reeled in on the second day of the Bisbee's Black & Blue Marlin Jackpot Tournament, was worth $2,396,800 for Sanchez and his team aboard the yacht Frantic Pace.
"I'm really starting to like this offshore fishing," Sanchez said at the awards ceremony over the weekend. "We had a lot of fun. It was a great team effort and I'm just glad we ran across that fish. We found one, caught it, and as luck would have it, that was all it took."
Sanchez's previous big fish was a largemouth bass caught in his home state of Missouri.
The Black & Blue is the world's richest billfish tournament and the payout for Frantic Pace was the second-largest in the tournament's 32-year history. (In 2006, a record $4,165,960 purse was up for grabs at the Black & Blue, and the winner's share was $3.92 million.)
(The accompanying video shows Sanchez's marlin being brought to the scale.)
[youtube=600,390]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aLvtbc1cY4[/youtube]
At 465 pounds, the marlin was not especially large, considering that at least two blue marlin in the 700-pound class were caught in the weeks before the tournament began.
But because Sanchez's fish was the only marlin that met the 300-pound minimum qualifying weight, and because Frantic Pace had been entered in all of the daily jackpots, the team earned most of the $2,475,000 purse. The rest was paid out in a catch-and-release division.
Frantic Pace was one of 106 teams and Sanchez was one of more than 700 anglers entered in the three-day competition, and he was undoubtedly the luckiest.
When the marlin was reeled close to the boat the crew noticed that the snap swivel connecting the reel's main line to the leader had opened toward the end of the battle. Only the quarter-inch bend in the swivel was holding the leader in place; one fierce tug and the marlin would have earned its freedom.
But crewman Josh Temple gently grabbed the leader and slowly pulled the weary marlin close enough to be gaffed, securing the pot of gold at the end of the line.
http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/38865/anglers+first-ever+marlin+nets+whopping+sum+of+24+million/Below: Team Frantic Pace celebrates alongside a 465-pound blue marlin that ended up being worth nearly $2.4 million in the Bisbee's Black & Blue Marlin Jackpot Tournament off Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
