The champagne bottles were popping Tuesday at the dock in Morehead City, North Carolina, where a crew of fishermen brought in the biggest billfish ever weighed at the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament. The giant blue marlin, caught by the Marlin Fever team, weighed 919.9 pounds and claimed the Fabulous Fisherman’s prize worth $871,250.
With two days left in the tourney, there could be an even bigger payday on the horizon for Marlin Fever. If their top spot holds in the biggest fish category, the team is looking at a check worth more than $6 million, which tournament organizers say would set its own record for the biggest payout ever.
Big Rock tournament organizers announced the historic catch on Facebook and shared plenty of photos of the marlin, along with the celebration that followed. The post included few details about the story behind the catch. But according to one of the mates, Justin Petrilli, who was interviewed by a local news station, they hooked up with the fish around 11 a.m. and fought it for around two hours before bringing it aboard their boat, a 63-foot Jarret Bay.
“I knew it was big,” Petrilli said, “but when we actually saw it jumping, I was like, ‘No, that’s too big. I don’t want that one. Next please.’”
Organizers say the 919-pound marlin replaced the previous record of 914 pounds set in 2019. And while the Marlin Fever team was still at the top of the big-fish leaderboard as of Thursday afternoon, there are still two full days of fishing left in the event. That means the door is still open for another team to break the Big Rock record all over again.
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“MARLIN FEVER now sits atop the leaderboard with a potential payout of $6,513,188 total if it stays in first place,” organizers wrote in a post Wednesday. “But the race is far from over — the fleet now has its sights set on topping MARLIN FEVER’s monster catch.”