(This article was revised to include video.)
After releasing two blue marlins, the third marlin was the one that put Set A Course in the winner’s circle of the 30th annual Orange Beach Billfish Classic on May 16 at The Wharf in Orange Beach.
Angler and owner David Pearson landed a 595.8-pound blue marlin to win the blue marlin division of the Orange Beach Billfish Classic, which kicks off the billfish tournament season along the Gulf Coast. His catch as tournament champion and winner of the blue marlin division brought in $240,850 in prize money.
Set A Couse, a 64-foot Viking out of Bay Point of Panama City Beach and captained by Destin’s BJ Teems, is new to the billfish circuit.
Teems has been captain of the vessel since September but is not new to offshore fishing.
However, this was the first tournament aboard the Set A Course, and a first for Pearson of Marietta, Georgia.
“This was his first tournament ever,” Teems said of Pearson.
When Pearson signed Teems up to captain the boat, Teems picked out four tournaments to do. After Pearson hauled in the big one at the OBBC, he is ready to go again.
“He got a little taste of it, now we’ve added two more tournaments to the list,” Teems said.
Next up will be the Cajun Canyons Billfish Classic on May 28-30 in Venice, Louisiana.
But the tournament that got them on the board for the billfish season was the Orange Beach Billfish Classic.
Teems said the big blue was the third marlin of the day May 15.
Fishing an area known as Green Canyon, about 300 miles from Destin off Louisiana, Pearson caught two blues and released two.
Teems said the first one they caught was about two inches short. Blue marlin have to be 107 inches long to boat for the tournament.
“The second one probably would have made the cut, but it wound up chafing off, but we got a good release on it,” Teems said.
“I’m glad we didn’t end up boating that one because we wouldn’t have been able to keep the third one,” he said.
‘It burned his fingers on the spool’
Using blackfin tuna for bait on an 80-wide, they finally hooked the big one around 4 p.m.
Teems said he had marked the fish and when they dropped a bait to it, it didn’t want to eat. So, they dropped another one.
When mate Christian Obrien fed it, “It burned his fingers … he took the bait so fast and so violently that it burned his fingers on the spool,” Teems said.
“When he ate, within 10 seconds he was 300 yards away. It was pretty impressive,” Teems said.
Right off the bat, they got the bow out of the line.
“We ended up going 2 ½ miles in reverse as fast as I could make it go,” Teems said to catch up with the fish.
“In the beginning it jumped twice, but it was really far away. We couldn’t really tell, but I was pretty sure it was big enough,” Teems said.
The fight was non-stop.
“The fish never made it deeper than 100 to 150 feet, if that … it just stayed on top the entire time,” he said.
A hammerhead was interested in the catch
The last hour of the fight got interesting.
“We had a shark circling us for like an hour,” Teems said.
“The fish came up about halfway out of the water right behind the boat, and the shark was right there. As soon as it came out of the water, I was pretty sure we didn’t have to measure that one,” he said.
The crew was able to get gaffs in the marlin and pull it through the tuna door quickly to get it away from the hammerhead shark.
“It was stressful,” Teems said.
If the shark had taken a bite out of the marlin, it would have been disqualified from the tournament.
“I would have been really mad,” Teems said.
But they had the blue marlin onboard, unscathed, by 8:30 p.m.
At that point, they started making their way back closer to Orange Beach.
They fished until about noon on Saturday and then headed to the scales at The Wharf.
“I’ve always seen guys winning stuff all the time,” Teems said.
“But it’s a freaking feeling that hasn’t gone away … and I don’t see it going away anytime soon. It’s a great feeling,” he said.
Teems bragged on his crew.
“We’ve got the best crew and owner. We all get along great and have fun doing it,” he said.
Included in that winning crew were Thomas Campbell, Cody Garland, Billy Teems, Malaquias Vasquez, Obrien and Pearson.
Two Destin boats win big at Orange Beach
Capt. Stan Blackman of the Never Settle out of Destin was also a big winner at Orange Beach, taking home $61,920.
They released three blue marlin, placed second in tuna with a 556.6-pounder and first in dolphin with a 31.8-pounder.
“We caught the tuna on the last day right out front … it took almost 7 hours to catch the tuna,” Blackman said. Jim Murdica was the angler on the rod.
Blackman said they had just released a blue marlin at 7:06 a.m. and had plenty of time to catch another blue marlin for the catch and release division.
He had marked a fish and then all of sudden they got a bite.
“We decided to catch it … but it burned up all our time,” he said. “But it was worth it.”
The Diane Kay, also of Destin with Capt. Jordan Whiteman at the helm, brought in the winning tuna, a 591.2-pounder reeled in by Pat Tierney. They won $52,200 in prize money.
This article originally appeared on The Destin Log: 595-pound blue marlin wins Florida Panhandle crew $240,850 at tourney
Reporting by Tina Harbuck, The Destin Log / The Destin Log
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
