iStockphoto / Kelly Dalling
History was made on Monday when a local boat fishing in the Bermuda Triple Crown fishing tournament caught and weighed the third largest marlin ever landed in Bermuda.
The grander blue marlin caught by the local UnWined boat tipped the scales at a whopping 1,268 pounds which is the third largest blue marlin ever caught in the history of the tiny island nation.
To sweeten the occasion, this occurred on Day 2 of the Bermuda Triple Crown fishing tournament’s Big Game Classic and no blue marlin were weighed on Day 1 which means the Daily Blue Marlin Jackpot from Day 1 rolled over into Day 2 so this fish not only vaulted UnWined up in the standings it was worth a bonus payout of $190,666 to the team that caught it.
Third Largest Blue Marlin Ever Caught In Bermuda: A 1,268-Pound Grander
The fish measured 145 inches long with a stout girth of 79.5 inches. When it was hooked by UnWined, the boat actually had a triple header of blues going. The other two fish were brought to the boat and released fairly quickly but it took them a marathon fight of 5+ hours to bring this 1,268 pound blue marlin to the boat.
And if this fish holds on to win the tournament, which it seems like a near certainty that it will be the largest blue caught in the Bermuda Big Game Classic, it will be worth an additional $193,600 making this single fish worth a total of $384,266 to the team fishing onboard the UnWined.
To my knowledge, this is the largest marlin caught anywhere in the world so far this year. The other most recent grander was a 1,042-pound blue caught in Madeira back in June. It is certainly possible other grander blue marlin have been caught this year but they haven’t been reported or made headlines as far as I’ve seen.
Elsewhere in the tournament, the team fishing onboard Sea Striker landed a whopping 7 blue marlin for 3,500 points. Two other boats released 5 blues and are hot on their tail with 2,500 points in one of the most prestigious fishing tournaments in the world. Outside of the marlin category, BREE weighed a 145.6-pound tuna to take the lead in the ‘heaviest gamefish’ category.
For what it’s worth, the IGFA fishing world records for blue marlin are split into Atlantic and Pacific. The fishing world record for Atlantic Blue Marlin is 1402 pounds, 2 ounces. That fish was caught on February 29th, 1992 by angler Paulo Amorim while fishing out of Vitoria, Brazil. The Pacific Blue world record is 1376 pounds and that fish was landed by angler Jay de Beaubien on May 31s, 1982 while fishing out of Kona, Hawaii.