The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 454: A Shark Ate My 3 Million Dollars

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

Steve Rinella talks with Ashley Bleau, Bailey Gore, and Captain Greg McCoy. Topics include: The biggest, coolest fish; when the rod changes hands; the East Coast’s biggest tournament; The Sensation; hooking your first blue marlin; the final hour of the final day; keep cranking!; David vs. Goliath; diving deep down; when you catch a 619-pound blue marlin; tournament rules; a shark bite; defining “landed” and “mutilation”; losing out on $3.5 million in prize money; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop MeatEater MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We're here with a bunch of guys from North Carolina who are wrapped up in the biggest news story to ever happen to fishing outside of, uh, we got weights and fish this is maybe bigger than that we got because it's the opposite of that here we had people in that case we had people in a fishing tournament packing losing a fishing tournament because they packed fish full of lead and now we have people who are

temporarily suffering at the head for the for having a fish that technically weighs less than what it should have weighed we're gonna hear this full story i'm talking of course about the marlin fishermen who got apparently i mean well who got we're gonna hear the whole story if you've been reading the news and this has been, Corinne has a note here. This is a viral fishing news story. This is when the world at large takes interest in fishing. The Washington Post, those big anglers over there, NPR, the New York Times, CBS News, CNN, Fox, USA Today,

the UK's Daily Mail, and of course, TheMeatEater.com. All these other outfits kind of sit underneath TheMeatEater.com and relevance. They've all covered the story. And if you're wondering what the hell I'm talking about, if you saw a story about some guys that entered a marlin tournament and then had their fish get disqualified because they had been bitten by a shark and they lost all the winnings. That's who we're here with. All three principal players. This is the first time you guys have done an interview together. That's correct.

All right. Do you have them walking through? Who's who? I know we got the guy holding the rod, the guy owning the boat, the guy captaining the boat. Okay. Who do we start with? Let's start with who owns the damn boat oh you own the boat yeah okay lay that out for us uh my name is ashley blue i live in greenville north carolina and i

bought the sensation last year last march matter of fact oh huh i didn't know you so you just got it just got out of my freshman year and you were on the boat that day i was on the boat, yes. Okay. And then, go ahead, the angler. Bailey Gore. I'm from Boone, North Carolina. Hadn't really had a ton of experience marlin fishing, but now we do. Okay. Now you have a lot of, you're like a subject matter expert on marlin tournaments. Definitely not an expert.

Okay. And then the captain. Yeah. My name is Greg McCoy. I live in Pine Knoll Shores, North Carolina, right near where the tournament's based in Moorhead City. And I'm the captain of the Sensation. You've done the tournament how many times?

At least 15 years, probably more than that. I fished it on my own boat several years with friends of mine. I fished it on charter boats where my group chartered a boat. And then once I got into the industry as a mate and captain down there, I fished it on where we've had charters on our boats. Lots of different angles of the way I've fished the tournament. It's a big tournament it's one of the biggest there is down there always been a dream of mine to win it and we thought we got her done this year you know but yeah explain to me why uh how are marlin tournaments so prevalent like you just don't you don't know if you're a guy that fishes like me

you know i've never caught a marlin i never had been on a boat that had a marlin on i saw a marlin hooked one time but that was it um why are people so aware of marlin tournaments well i'd say in the sport fishing industry uh saltwater sport fishing, that is the royalty of sport fishing. Blue marlin, black marlin in other parts of the world, but in our area, it's blue marlin. That's the top sport fishing fisher. Just the biggest, coolest fish out there. Absolutely, yes. You know, brings in the big money guys and uh so that's the one you know those marlin tournaments

are the ones that bring in the most uh people and the most money and this this big rock tournament is a huge event it really is it's a lot of money involved and uh a lot of boats we had i think what 270 some boats entered in the tournament this year. Oh. And do they all got to take off from the same marina? No, you can fish it. It's just a matter of there's boundaries out in the ocean, a northern and southern boundary, basically.

You can go as far east as you want. Lay that out for me. What is the northern and southern boundary of the zone? Southern boundary is we go by TDs, which is true direction, which is the old Loran coordinates. So the southern boundary is the 200 line. The northern boundary, I think, is the 400 line. So it's basically the South Carolina and Virginia line,

a little bit less of the... I got it. And then you just have... There's a certain time, 9 a.m. is the first time you can put any lines in the water. At 9 a.m., they call over the radio, you know, lines in, lines in, and that's when you start fishing. And you've got to be done fishing at what time? 3 o'clock.

And in how many days is the tournament? It's a six-day tournament. You fish four out of the six. Captain's choice on the lay days. You take two lay days during the week. And the tournament winner winds up being the is it clean is like the biggest marlin caught during the six days is that's it it's not a daily winner um they do have daily release prize there's all different kind of categories but yes the real winner is the the biggest fish

okay put on the dock the ones if you bring if boat one, it has to be over 400 pounds to qualify. Okay. What's the biggest marlin you've ever seen come out of the water? The biggest one I caught was this year, 619 pounds. That was the fish, that was the career bass?

Yes, sir. Yeah, and it would have been a dream come true if it hadn't been disqualified so here's the thing i want to get laid out to you before we get into the actual story of what happened um were you are are you a dead were you the designated angler or did it just happen to be that you grabbed the rod a little bit of both okay um so that morning we pulled numbers um There's six hours and there's six guys fishing. Okay. And a number was for each hour.

I was number five, I believe. Got it. So the fish was caught in the sixth hour, but I don't think it really mattered. I was the only one there without a rod in my hand. So Scooter, the mate, said, get in the seat. So he put me there. That was it. So that's how you came to be the faithful

ride holder. At that point, yeah, it really didn't matter. It was chaos. Everybody trying to get everything cleared. Everybody was doing something. I was the only one standing there with nothing to do. I was in the seat. I had nothing to do because I'd been sleeping. I'll tell it myself a little bit. Were you a little seasick or what? No, I was just beat.

I was just taking a little nap and heard the reel go off and came running out the door. And that rod can't change hands, right? It can. Oh, it can change hands? It can. So you can spell each other. Yep.

All right. Now, lay this out for me because how many guys are on the boat? There's six anglers, and then there was the captain greg the mate and myself okay so now when you leave out in the morning you you don't you know statistically if you look if you imagine everybody's average you have a 0.5 chance of you have a you have a 0.5 chance of winning less than a 0.5 chance of winning but there's a chance so how are you guys figuring out like you have a vessel you have a bunch of participants there's some amount of money to enter there's some amount of side betting that goes on and there has to be some understanding of what would happen let's just say

you win what would happen to the money like lay the economics out for me from a from a boat from from the not from the perspective of an individual but a boat, not from the perspective of an individual, but give me the economics from the perspective of a boat. What we did, I mean, you can enter in, there's so many different categories like we had talked about earlier, different Calcuttas. And we entered the first nine levels, which was everything that we were able to enter. And that was $52,500. And so what we did was we took the charter, everything that took to be able to enter and that was $52,500. And so what we did was we took the charter, everything that

took to be able to enter the tournament. We divided it by 24 shares, which was four days of fishing, six anglers to come up with 24. We had shareholders that bought those 24 shares. And so that established their percentage that they were supposed to get. In the agreement, it was set up where the boat would get 30% of any winnings. The shareholders would get 70%. The boat broke down to the captain getting 10% of the boat's take, the mate getting 10%, and then the owner getting 10% or basically the boat. Oh. So the remaining 70% was divided 24 ways,

which would have been about $155,000 to $180,000, depending on the full amount we were supposed to get, like $3.5 million. Got it. And so you had chartered the boat. Essentially, yeah. So you and your fellow fishermen, you guys didn't know each other. No. I knew one other guy, one of my friends.

When I saw it, I texted him. He was like, yeah, let's do it. Why not? That was the only other guy I knew on the boat at all. Who were the other guys? Just a bunch of random guys. Everybody was in on the understanding, though. Oh, yes.

The economics were clear. We had a little contract that we had. We met up Sunday, whoever could make it to the boat you know we had a little meet and greet and showed them some things on how to get in the bucket harness and the fighting chair and but uh typically you know guys that fish these tournaments a lot or uh have their own their own designated crew you know they've all done it together many times yeah we're a charter boat so you know this is a lot of time a charter boat wants to get one crew to charter them for the whole week we weren't coming up with that ashley came up with this plan on selling the shares and

it worked out um it's not ideal because you're dealing with different crew members every day. We had one guy that bought four shares. He wanted to fish all four days. Also, during this tournament, the anglers are swapping out every day. Exactly. So how many days did you fish? I just fished Saturday, just one day. And I had nobody on the boat.

Really? Yeah. I didn't make it to the meeting on Sunday, so I just showed up at 4.45 Saturday morning ready to go. So you had like no, I mean, with all due respect, you had no idea what you were getting into. Neither one of us. No, neither side.

Like anything about the finer points of this tournament and all this? I'd followed it for years but never fished in it at all. When I came up with the idea, I wanted it to be, this has been such a bucket list tournament. It's the world's biggest marlin tournament on the East Coast. I mean, as far as money-wise, and it's known as a rodeo tournament, meaning it only follows its own rules. So in doing so, I wanted it to be affordable for the average person

to be able to go check this bucket list off their, you know, and make it. We have all the tackle. We have all the expertise as far as the boat. All they really need to do is reel in the fish. And so what it worked out to be is putting a group of people together that has now become lifelong friends. I mean, I see this being something that we can carry on for year over year. And if nothing else, just be able to enjoy the story together. But yeah, to make a affordable for everybody it was only 303 thousand eighteen dollars per person to

enter got it very unique opportunity for people like me yeah i normally couldn't do that ever you know yeah you got to you got to be a big uh you got to be like ernest hemingway for a day for a day all right so so lay it out for me let's jump the the the fishing day what um what's like what's the plan what's the fish plan we had uh i told the guy we had a group text you know and so i texted them all and we had already taken our lay days so and this was the last day of the tournament i i said all right this is day six of the tournament day six but we that was how we uh presented it as a first come first serve they got to pick which day not day of the week but day one day two day three because we never knew what the

lay days would be and you're pulling your lay days based off weather a lot of times yeah we we fished monday was the first day and it was absolutely horrendous uh very rough tough day uh i think four of our six guys uh got sick beyond belief uh seasick that kind of thing was that one were you one of them? No. I don't get seasick. It's a knock on wood, huh? But so we fished Tuesday. We laid out Wednesday and Thursday. The weather was supposed to be horrible. Yeah.

Which there's one category that the first fish over 500 pounds weighed in is is worth uh about almost eight hundred thousand dollars so that incentivizes you to get out early yes it it until that fish is on the dock it definitely gives you a lot of incentive to keep charging but the weather was just crappy and uh there weren't a whole lot of big fish weighed in yet so we decided to lay out and uh you know kind of gives you a chance to regroup anyways we fished uh friday we did get a bite friday but we probably had him on for 60 seconds and he shook the hook a marlin yeah and definitely a marlin okay uh my mate saw him come up and bite the lure but uh so yeah we i told the crowd to be there uh no later than five o'clock that we were leaving at 5 15 most of the crowd was already there by quarter of

bailey showed up uh i hadn't seen him during the week yes uh you must be bailey he's i said yeah shook his hand come on i'll show you a couple things and the crowd was all there so we ended up leaving i think about five o'clock because you can get out there anytime you want and find your piece of water and get all your stuff kind of can't put any lines in uh but we get all our stuff set up ready to go so when the horn sounds at nine we're ready to dump and you're out at like you're off you're out off the shelf on some kind of temperature breaker that's what we look for yeah and are you able to see other dudes fishing or is it pretty like spread out well it can be both okay i mean again there's 270 some boats fishing the turn i think the final day there was almost

260 boats still eligible yeah um and how deep water you guys in uh we went out to 200 plus fathoms which is six foot per fathom so yeah i can't do that kind of stuff over 1200 foot i think my mask you know you got it over some kind of canyon um we go out to what's called the break where it really starts maybe 30 fathoms and it'll start dropping off pretty quickly and then on out from there it just drops into the abyss really yeah um i knew i kind of wanted to get back out fishing deep we had spent the other days uh our bite friday was in 200 plus fathoms so i kind of want to spend the last day fishing deep um we got out there and we got caught right in the middle of the fleet um i felt like i spent

the whole morning dodging boats rather than fishing oh really um yeah i like to find my own patch of water i don't like being around a bunch of boats uh generally when i'm in that situation i'll steam off and try to get us out somewhere on our own that morning there were so many boats i'd steam one direction try to get out of them and there'd be more over there steam another direction trying to get out of them there'd be more over there so you talk about depth but that marlin he spends the bulk of his life at the surface at near the surface right they're not like swordfish that spend their day down correct i'm no marine biologist but they do spend a lot of their time at the surface they do go deep

on their own sometimes yeah but they'll lay up there and bask at the surface feed on they're always moving they they're pelagic you think about how much uh five six hundred pound fish has to eat every day just to maintain so they're always hunting they're always moving yeah they're always swimming around and generally what they eat is on the surface they eat dolphin fish you know mahi mahi um they eat anything they can get really you know so and what's your guys fishing strategy how are you fishing that day um we're putting our regular spread out we troll you know a little bit higher speed than we would with natural baits any natural baits have to have circle hooks which adds a whole nother element to uh troll fishing um and that's a rule what kind of rule tournament rule or state rule it's a tournament rule it's for conservation a circle hook will generally you have to get the

fish to swallow the whole bait and the hook and everything and then you engage the drag and it comes out and the circle hook the way it you engage the drag and it comes out and the circle hook the way it's designed it turns and it generally hooks them right in the corner of the draw so it's a conservation thing if you really end up releasing that fish it's probably going to live you know so he's not hooked down in the gut yeah jay hook exactly now with lures which is what most of the guys in the tournament troll you can can use J-hooks because they're generally not going to swallow a lure. Once they get hold of it, they know it's not a real something they want to eat. So they come up and they usually, they're either on or they're not,

you know, with a J-hook. They thrash at it. They might bite it, so they get hooked or they don't. Sometimes you can drop it back to them we have pitch baits ready which are natural bay spanish mackerel big ballyhoo um if they come into our teasers which don't have hooks we can throw them a pitch bait that situation is a lot easier with a circle hook because you can see them eat it when you're just trolling circle hooks they come up hard and fast and you don't see them eat it when you're just trolling circle hooks they come up hard

and fast and you don't see them eat it so it's a little bit harder to get them you know if they have any resistance with a circle hook they're going to drop the bait so when you see them eat it you can throw the bail and let them run it exactly yeah i got it put it in free spool and are you guys catching all kinds of other junk while you're out doing this are you getting like mahi and tuna and whatnot well that day if i'll tell you about the fishing story i'll let bailey tell you about but uh so we had it got into afternoon we're still dodging boats um we had an old friend of mine edgar styron uh that grew up in hatteras has been running boats fishing his whole life he's forgot more about catching marlin than i will ever even know in my life and he rode with us

the first two days he was trying to pound some things uh into my head about how to catch these fish and um so that day i said especially that, I was finally able to get out of the fleet. I said, we're going back deep. I told Ashley, who was up on the bridge to me, I said, I'm going back deep and I'm doing what Edgar told me to do. So don't ask me to do anything else. That's what we're going to do. And so we're trolling around, trolling along, pretty much straight line.

Port short rigger goes off okay tell me what that means i know the port part we have riggers and they are basically just to spread this you're spread out farther from the boat so you control more lines they keep everything from getting tangled so on each rigger we have a short and a long, and the long goes all the way up to the top. The short is about midway on the rigger. And that's just a release. Yes. It's in like a release clip.

When the fish comes up and hit it, the pressure causes it to release, and then it just goes to the rod and reel, and you do your normal thing. Yep. All that is is so you can drag more lines in the water without getting them tangled really got it um so yeah we get a hit on the uh port short um seemed like a decent fish i didn't think it was what we were looking for so everybody on the boat you knew what it was no i didn't. That one I did not. Like you didn't know what species it was. And so all our other anglers have a job.

When we hit a fish, you know, we got to get all the other stuff out of the way so that we can start maneuvering, backing down. If it's a real big fish, we're going to back down on it to try to gain line. A real big marlin or a big tuna or something they can spool you we got a lot of line they're big reels uh but a big fish could conceivably take every bit you got and go bye-bye you know yeah yeah if they get to the end of that spool it's gonna break and they're gone so um we do a lot of maneuvering with the boat that's where my job comes in a lot of times um i gotta try to put us on the fish as well as well but once we hook up you know i gotta maneuver the boat to

help the angler out um so this fish we get everything cleared the guys do a great job we crank all the rods in yes sir so you just got the one rod in the water all the other baits in the boat now it's the guy gets in the chair. I think that was Darren. Yep. A guy named Darren Flannery. It was his turn. He gets in.

Immediately didn't have much trouble. I knew it wasn't what we were looking for. Reels it in. It turns out it's like a 50-pound barracuda. Oh. I thought this was the fish. No, no, no. Oh.

This is a preliminary. I'm leading up to it. Yeah, you like it. This is a preliminary. I'm leading up to it. Yeah, you like it. So a nice big barracuda. Barracuda, waste of time for us. It's not worth anything in the tournament. There are game fish categories, but not barracuda. But that's a smoker of a barracuda.

Big barracuda, yes. And it did strip offline. We probably have about 16 pounds of drag where we're set for the strike on these fish. Anyways, I say, you know, we got enough time, guys. We got plenty of time. Let's get them back out. Let's go after what we're looking for. So we get back on, same course, headed to where we were headed.

Probably about a half hour later, this time it's the one we're looking for. She comes piling across the spread. It's a she? Well, the bigger ones are. Okay. Generally females. So she comes piling. I didn't see her coming, but I think Ashley did.

I had just sat down. We got everything back out and was turning around like he said. I had sat down in a beanbag up in the top of the bridge just kind of you know so you can see everything without the rocket launchers in your in your face and she came from the left going right and fully breached and crashed right on that same rod that the barracuda did and i mean it was just like pandemonium from that point forward and i mean you saw her come from the side full broadside jumped and crashed right down on it i mean it wasn't any of that come up smack it around it was caboosh and it was just like holy cow and the excitement clear teasers and real rods in and that's when the excitement hit so if i can just right quick the epicness of anything you need man also is you got to realize

this is the final hour of the final day of the tournament so 2 15 lines out at three o'clock does the fish have to be landed by three or just hooked by three you call in when you hook up and and you could go into the next day if you had to i see okay so now we hook up 215 i get in the radio you know big rock this is sensation we're hooked up and uh so now we're fighting the fish and it goes and i'll let bailey tell his story but we we got the fish on i saw the fish i think ashley was on the bridge with me he saw it coming i saw it once it jumped and hooked up a couple of my mate scooter uh his name is darren cox everybody affectionately known as scooter great young kid great fisherman um he saw the fish real good and i look i says is it the one scooter i said i've seen it i think it's the one he says that's the one and uh like you guys knew

it was a big mario yeah i said if we get this fish to the boat uh we've we've won the big rock you know so we all knew they really hadn't been uh there hadn't even been a 500 pounder for that fabulous fisherman category yet and i knew this one was over 500 for sure and well i knew it was going to win the tournament at that point if we could get it to the boat now we had to do that you Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada.

The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps,points and tracking that's right you were always talking about uh we're always talking about on x here on the meat eater podcast now you um you guys in the great white north can can be part of it be part of the excitement you can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service that's a sweet function as part of membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team.

Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. So how much risk is there, knowing that he's respecting the fact that he's sitting right here, how much risk is there in handing the rod over to an unproven... A random idiot.

An unproven marlin angler? Right. At that point, are you like, damn it, we should have just gone out ourselves? That was part of the deal. These guys basically paid for the tournament and paid for the charter fee, so we had to stick to our deal yeah and like bailey said we would uh we decided to do it instead of just going you're the first guy up the second guy up because a lot of times in when you're marlin fishing you don't catch a

whole lot of other stuff so we decided to say uh you know draw numbers and number one gets the first hour number two gets the second hour because there was just happening six hours of fishing and six anglers so and i didn't even realize that it wasn't your hour but i didn't even know at the time i didn't even know what time it was i think i have no idea about anything scooter kind of runs the cockpit that's's his world. I'm up top. And like I said, I let him do his thing because he's good at it, and he's great. He loves hunting. I tell people when they climb on a boat, if it flies, runs, or swims,

Scooter will kill it for you. Got it. And so I just let him do his thing. So I think Scooter was with bailey being the one book and and i want to tell you we put him in there and it's you know you're not crappy fishing there's a big fighting chair and a harness that you're lashed into and there's a certain technique on how to do it and he did and uh you know i'll hand it over to him but uh i will say he did a fantastic job of angling so well thank you so i was asleep i got a picture of me when my buddies took at 214

me asleep on the couch like this with a beer sitting on my chest drunk not drunk just sleepy just tired um so i was at 214 at 215 the fish hit yeah um i heard everybody scrambled on the back deck took out running out of the um the cabin area yeah went out on the deck under the deck and i came out the door i still had one eye closed and when i looked out i could see the marlin jumping across the wall oh seriously i was like okay let's go i'll wake you up oh yeah yeah i went from a dead sleep to wide open in two seconds um so everybody's back there reeling in lines getting the teasers out the water get everything cleaned up um and screwed was holding the rod he's like get the chair get the chair and i was the only one standing there so i got the chair yeah um it close to my time. I didn't even know what time it was at the time. So we got all strapped in and started cranking.

But in your guys' deal that you have laid out, the financial plan, it doesn't matter, right? No. The guys that fish the first three days get the same money. It doesn't matter. Got it. As long as the fish – it's a team effort. As long as that fish gets in the boat, we're happy.

Yep. Got it. Got it it so there you are and is it like um is it kind of the less you do the better sort of thing like you got the drag set yep we got the drag set are they telling you like don't pump the rod don't do this don't do that or is it pretty self-explanatory it's kind of self-explanatory you got to let the fish run if it's running you're not gonna stop that um so we just let it run whenever we get a second it stops start cranking try to gain start working the chair um and you're trying to circle the fish uh no i'm he's going straight hell bent for leather out back so once we get everything cleared i'm coming back hard as i can okay you're not trying to pass

around and catch line that's some of these videos you'll see of uh water crashing over the transom and stuff we didn't really get that effect but uh yeah we and that's one thing i'm telling you and he'd probably tell you number one rule i'm we always yell at people do not touch the drag we got the drag where we want it don't touch it got it and i told everybody these guys your your job is to keep the fish tight it's not a race but you've got to turn the damn handle when a fish is on you know a lot of people they get dumbfounded a big fish like that and they go get awestruck and they don't turn the handle that's the only way you can keep the pressure on the handle that's the only way you

can keep the pressure on the fish is by keep cranking you know yep yep i probably heard it a thousand times keep cranking keep cranking and then i would tell him because a lot of guys if it's their boat and they've angled a lot of big fish they can tell by the change of noise in the engine that the boat's about to come back. But I would tell him, I said, we're coming back. Keep cranking, keep cranking. So I would warn him when I was about to come back a little harder or whatnot. So how long does this go on for?

Like lay out how long a fish fight takes. I was in the chair for three and a half hours from the start until we swapped off. And that was about all I could do. I was gassed of constant cranking. Huh. I had no idea. Yeah, we ended up fighting the fish right at six hours,

a little over six hours. But when I was sitting in the chair, it was three and a half. So you spent three and a half hours on the fish oh yeah getting sunburned people were out there rubbing sunscreen on me it was getting bad i didn't rub sunscreen on me i don't know who it was they missed my right foot they got my left leg and my back but no right foot so uh during this whole long fight, the fish is mostly toward the surface for the first, what would you say, hour and a half? Yeah, first probably hour and a half he was up top. And that's where you want them, really.

And are you drawing a crowd? One other boat came by. We went into, you know, their lines out at 3 o'clock. So, basically, we went into you know their lines out at three o'clock so basically we went into overtime um i think there was one other boat nearest they came by and watched for a while and then they headed off into the sunset you know so we're out there alone at this point and but they knew what you were doing they did they knew you know they could see the boat and knew who we're a local boat.

We're a charter boat right there on the Moorhead City waterfront. Yeah. Well, the other part of the story that's so big in being a charter boat, in these tournaments, they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment. And there's a stuff called the Omni Sonar, where a lot of these boats just go out there don't put any lines in and just ride around and look underneath the water and spot a fish a marlin a mile away and then they go and just pound over top of it we don't have any of that stuff we're

just a straight charter boat it's you know it's i've heard about those systems yes and they're 150 000 they're you know mega million dollar boats it's you know we're it's like david versus versus goliath out there you guys like the jamaican bobsled team man that was a very good yes so these omnis they can ping a fish we can see one we got a regular sonar bottom machine yeah and if it swims right underneath us i can see it i can mark it but i can't these omnis are like military they they ping the fish they can lock on to the fish and they can follow it huh these fish have tails they don't just go in one direction they go wherever they want right so the omni sonar when they ping one they actually touch screen lock on target lock some of

them the boat will automatically turn when the fish turns other ones the captain has to steer it but most of those guys have a one guy on the crew is dedicated that's all he does is watch the sonar and he'll say you know target acquired here and then he'll say you know steer whatever 42 degrees blah blah blah and they'll so not only can they find the fish but they can follow them yeah and they've got the good ones are probably three quarters of a mile radius wow so that's a mile and a half circle that they can find these fish and like ashley said some of the guys with the they can't run at top cruising speed with them deployed but they can run 12 13 knots so some of them are just going out there and riding around until they ping a fish and then they go over there and put

their gear out and if the they can also tell how deep it is yeah so if it's deep and it doesn't come up on the first pass they just keep pounding deep it is yeah so if it's deep and it doesn't come up on the first pass they just keep pounding it and pounding it and pounding it eventually that fish more than likely is going to come up huh so they could go all day and never set a line so talk about a competitive advantage i mean it's it's right there yeah and party wants to stick it to those guys yeah yeah it's amazing absolutely so uh at what point okay let's get to like the pivotal moment the fish fight so just a spoiler alert here the fish gets bit by a shark no we didn't know anything about it i mean when that fish dove deep um we when we were fighting it was move the

chair to the left move the chair to the right it was a lot of action but when he got so exhausted it's it's natural for these marlin to once they get so exhausted they go down deep to try to basically die and so when he went deep our rod tip was bent like this for the remaining three four hours bent over like this and it was man versus goliath wrench up six inches come down he's just down on the he's down straight down and so and bailey got exhausted and he was like oh this is enough and everybody else looked at each other nobody wanted to get on the thing and i was like well i'll get down there if you want me to and why did i want to do it i don't know there's a lot of people i guess they saw how wore out i was yeah and then they want to be the one who loses it yeah so we um i came down

out of the bridge and and got strapped in and and started working him on the on the uh chair and i'm kind of a sizable guy and between me and then the 600 pound fish the chair kind of decided to break and so the foot rest out of the chair just the pin totally bent it down and the bottom of the chair falls out and i'm basically standing up with the with the rod the fish doubled over and it's like holy cow and i mean so the fight's still going on no sign of shark no nothing so we end up maneuvering over to the gunnel and setting it in basically wicked tuna style and set it in there and started doing basically six inches cranks and i mean it again the rod was just bent over like this and is this common to happen in a fight with the marlin, to end it like that, to end it where the fish is down deep?

It's more common than you would think, yeah. The big ones, when they jump like that, they expend so much energy. And when they go down deep like that, you know, there's a lot of guys that have more experience at it than me, but I've caught a few. And when they go deep like that they generally go down there their heart explodes they have a heart attack and they die okay so the thing about the shark that you mentioned you know that fit we knew basically how deep it was because we have a top shot mono backed by braid on the on the reel seeing color count exactly the top shots blue the braid is uh is

orange and we knew the top shot was uh 200 yards so that's 600 feet right there and then we kind of judge how far into the braid we were and when bailey on the get-go was angling when he was on the surface we had the top shot back on the reel oh yeah but when he went deep uh then he pulled the top shot back off and we had a significant amount of braid off as well um so when these guys after ashley's uh wrestling match with the fighting chair and we knew basically how deep he was well probably over a thousand feet at that point and then literally i think he was being generous and saying six inches at a time was literally maybe an inch maybe two inches over a period of four plus hours trying to get that fish up and i knew in my mind that he was already dead so whether he got bit before or after or whatever

i don't know but uh you know none of us were a thousand feet deep with that fish okay so eventually let's jump ahead eventually here he is boat side we brought him up he was straight up and down those last four hours i sat up on the helm chair with my feet up in the air uh just watching those guys do their thing a couple times i told them we're gonna lose some line i gotta bring the boat up into the current and then we're gonna come back hard we're gonna get them stretched out we'll come back hard hopefully we'll gain more line hopefully we'll get them floating in the current you know yeah and you and you but you feel like the fish is dead yes no head shakes nothing but that in and of itself there's nothing wrong with that no right it's dead dead weight at that point so then i'm saying like from a from a rule perspective

that fish being dead or alive doesn't matter no no no no Not everything was done. The fire was at that point within the rules. And now it's just, I mean, we can't, uh, you know, we didn't tell the fish to go down there. We didn't tell them to die. Uh, we're just, we're just trying to get them back. The reason I'm bringing this up is there are like, for instance, I got, uh, we got guys that are on the show quite often. Uh, Seth and Chester, they like to fish walleye tournaments. Some of those tournaments the fish has to be alive right as you all know in all the bass tournaments the fish has got to be

alive i'm just saying like that's not an issue no there's no crime in hauling up a dead fish yeah you're exactly correct okay 100 well let me ask you this question not that this happened to you but let's say you're swimming let's say there's some freak occurrence you're cruising along you snag an already dead fish is that a problem it's highly it's highly unlikely yes i'll just say like theoretically that's probably not even addressed in the rules i mean yeah you might not know it dead, so you might call it in as being hooked up because you're trolling it seven, eight knots anyways. I guess what I'm getting at with my wild hypothetical is, in the rules, and I haven't personally read the rules, in the rules, there's not much consideration of,

there's not much consideration of the sort of timeline of the fish's death right right got it well you're bringing if you do boat a fish it's going to be dead by the time you get back to the scales anyway got it so any fish coming in is coming in dead yes sir yeah and then short of bringing a there's no order in to doing a necropsy you don't know what died in the water out of the water there's no uh live well that's gonna fit a 600 pound marlin yeah so you eventually get him up and here he is we get and is he and is he like uh like monty python is he like mostly dead or is he dead he's dead as a

doornail yeah no that's not my thought that's princess bride isn't it phil mostly dead so he's dead these guys keep asking me can you see him on the screen because we're straight up and down so at some point i'm gonna see the fish on my uh on my sounder yeah and it took finally at about 25 fathoms here comes a line across the screen i knew that was the fish vertical uh well it was horizontal because the the sounder is always making a it's like a ticker tape just because that's how it strikes right yeah but that fish is coming up so i see the line i says he's at 25 fathoms guys i see them now and uh these guys started getting a little more energized that they were tall they were tired man it's hard you know

we've been on it for hours and hours and people were you know there's always a chance you're pulling up 600 some pounds of dead weight so yeah pull the hook break the line anything you know yeah there were some serious frays in the line yeah oh really starting to come up and then what are the other mugs who are in the tournament they're now back at the marina oh they're they're calling in. Are you sure the sensation's still hooked up? Okay. Is there a number two fish sitting there already? No, nobody had boated one that day.

There were, what, three total boats that were still hooked up after the line's out. What? Really? Yes, and all of them basically called in released, meaning that they knew it wasn't big enough to play, so they weren't going to kill the fish and let it go at that time there were four books four boats fighting marlins three total boats so you and two other boats yeah but they released fish at the closing time right but they weren't fighting tankers right they were released and gone home

well before we ever saw our so they didn't have content we were the only boat fighting but but here they are the world can't move on that's right because we gotta see what these guys got and you got guys that are on the leaderboard back there and you know what part of their body's puckering at that point okay so here the boat comes now walk me through how you secure the fish well i'm reeling it up I'm reeling it up. I'm reeling it up. And Scooter's right there looking over the back. And as soon as we see the leader come touch the tip of the rod, that's considered a catch.

And so Scooter reaches over there and grabs the. That's a catch? Yes. He can shake at both sides? Yeah. Well, how do you can't enter him? Well, it's considered a release. So if he comes up and you've touched it and then he gets off,

then it's called a release, even though he's dead. Oh, I got you. There's a point category for releases. That fish got sink, right? Yeah. They don't float. If they're small and you catch one, as soon as you touch the leader, it's considered a release.

And you get points 400 points for blue marlin 125 for sale or a white even if you're you grab that leader he shakes the hook right doesn't matter got it so uh scooter grabs it wraps pulls up and we see the bill come up like this on the side of the boat and so scooter doesn't even put gloves on reaches you get so excited reaches over the side and grabs the bill right there holding on he's just like open the door open the door and so we finally got the door open and uh he shoves the fish backwards and then below the transom and comes back in and the fish is dead but his mouth is like this big coming through and i reached over and grabbed that little mahi gaff and shoved it right down his

throat and hooked him from the inside and we pulled him on the boat and I mean there were still 18 inches two feet of fish still hanging out the back of the door and I mean it was just celebration happy that I mean nothing we didn't see anything with regard to any bites or anything the pictures that we've got right there just I, I mean, it's a beautiful fish. Yeah, it was laying on the opposite side of the bites. So we didn't know anything about any of that. Gotcha, gotcha. So I go up to the bridge, and they're all, you know, getting positioned for pictures,

and I'm taking pictures from the bridge for everybody, and then they're securing everything. And at this moment, do you call in? Do you call in to the tournament organizers and say, hey, we're coming in with a big fatty? Yes. And matter of fact, I mean, the boat we were on, the guy that's over the mic the whole day through the whole tournament, his name is Randy Ramsey, and he used to be the owner of Jarrett Bay.

Sounds like a pro wrestler, man. But he built that boat. That was the very first Jarared bay ever built the sensation is and so he built it for himself so to be able to call in to him and say sensation just boated the fish man a lot to us and the tournament everybody they people were driving from hours away to come see this fish and so when we come pulling around the port morehead city port wall how many miles did you have the motor uh 55 and that's nautical miles so we a lot it's not like a straight shot where we've a straight shot a lot of times would be a good way to get in but we have to we have the

cape lookout shoals that come off of the the beach out uh to what we call the knuckle. So you can either, if it's good weather or daylight, you can shoot the shoals. There's a passage through there. Or at night, you really want to go around the knuckle to make sure you don't sit there on two foot of water sitting on your side. And so we had to go around the knuckle and then come in in the dark.

And as soon as we came through the port, the turn basin is a no-wake zone because of all the big ships and stuff and so we turn in to the morehead city waterfront and the cheers it's just it's really you felt like you just won the stanley cup and at this point you have okay at this point what is your awareness and what is your concern about the bite mark on it zero didn't even know i mean just total in the moment people sitting three stories up hanging off of buildings people in the marinas standing on the bow cheering for us i mean motoring through that whole area from jack's bar all the way to where our slip is to the gulf do and Southern salt. I mean, it was just mind blowing. Uh, that

experience was, you know, I just, I can't put it in words. Then backing into the, the big rock landing, the, the fire engines blowing their horns, people cheering. I mean, it was, uh, probably the biggest amount of largest amount of people ever been down there for the big rock tournament. Okay. Let me, let me hit you with a couple hypotheticals let's say you'd pull the fish up the tail had been gone oh no we would call that in then you knew it was over yeah you know it was over or it's a half a fish sure got it so so you there's an aware like there is a there's there's a scenario in which you would recognize that there was a problem, but this scenario was just zero problem.

Zero problem. And what's the first chance that people get to come up and see the fish clearly? We backed into the big rock landing. They tossed us the lines. We secured the boat. The waymaster gets on the boat and starts inspecting the fish we actually it's in a blanket so it's covered up and we got blankets over top of it you don't want weight loss from drying out so we peel all that stuff back and he's asked us questions like did

you stick any foreign objects in it a lot of times in these bigger fish when they gaff them sometimes they'll use a tampon and stick it in there to keep it from bleeding out got it and so we said no there's nothing in nothing in the fish just note we didn't put ice down his throat we didn't do anything to add any weight no sir and so then he starts he inspects the fish yes does he run a metal detector on the fish uh i didn't see any sign of a metal detector uh but that's a good question i was wondering how nitpicky they get um not really i mean i mean he was being precise but it just when he he looked at something around the tail and he was like what's this and we looked at him like i don't know and he's like it looks like a shark bite and i was like i can assure you nobody on this boat has seen a shark the whole time the

whole week we have not seen a shark and so then they kind of step up off the back of the boat and start whispering amongst themselves i mean it was the the crowd was going nuts like weigh this fish and stuff like that and they're kind of talking in small groups amongst themselves and not really talking with us but um and so i get off the boat and i walk over there and i asked one of the the of the Big Rock, Amory, and I said, look, you know, what's going on? He's like, there's a good chance we're not going to weigh this fish. We're not going to, I was like, I was like, oh, that's, that's not going to be a good

idea. Yeah. The crowd was getting into mob mentality. They, they wanted to see that fish hung up and weighed. Is that right? Yeah. they they wanted to see that fish hung up and weighed and is that right yeah but you call it you were when i call in and tell them you know we boated our fish he's they'll call you back and they say all right once you get up and run cap you know give us an eta so they put the word out

it's on streaming on streaming services and people start coming from miles around and you had thrown an estimate their way right i told him we'll be in probably about 11 i mean a weight estimate oh no no i didn't you sent length i says we'll be in around uh 11 30 and we've got one to put on a show i did tell him that yeah and i was staying in constant contact with randy directly by our in reach out there because where we were at it was a little spotted on the voice over on the VHF. So he was well aware of everything through in-reach. Okay.

So you go up to these boys and their attention is focused on this mark. Yeah. And what is the primary question they're looking at? I mean, is there in your mind a question they're looking at i mean is is there in your mind a question about that the mark had been there before that happened while you were fighting the fish like what what is the initial debate they give us no kind of inclination of what they're looking for okay they're just trying to collect data and so but when he says we might not weigh the fish, he had to have given you like a because. It was just, he just said, you know, based off of this, we're not going to weigh the fish.

And I was like, I don't think that's going to be the best idea. We need to hang this fish and fully, because the way it was bent in the back of the cockpit, you really couldn't, I mean, 600 600 pounds you can't really flip it around and maneuver and so they finally decided to go ahead and hang the fish but they they said well in a compromise we're not gonna we're gonna hang the fish but we're not gonna weigh it and i was like oh this is not i was willing to take what i could get at the time okay so we got the boat the fish out of the boat it's sitting up there 12 feet in the air i mean everybody's cheering and then they come over the mic and how long is that fish about 144 inches okay so about almost 12 feet

that's from the tip of the bill to the to the back of the tail fork length was 112 from the tip of the lower jaw to the fork of the tail got it but. But you throw the bill in there, it's a 12-foot fish. Yeah. Okay. So then Tommy Bennett gets on the MC, and he's up there. He's like, well, based off of Rule 23, we're looking at disqualifying the fish. And then the – Okay.

Tell me what Rule 23 says. Rule 23 talks about weight – Altercation. Altercation. Alteration. Yeah, altercation. Alteration. Yeah, alteration. Yeah. So it's more so for situations like the walleye tournament and things of that nature.

Like stuffing marlin fillets down your marlin. Yeah, or dolphin fillets. Yeah, I got you. But none of that occurred. But in one blip of it, it refers to IGF rules apply to mutilation. Okay. And so it's just like a very small blip. It's like playing Super Mario Brothers and you got to go over here, or Zelda, you got to go over here and find out what you got to do in order to go over here and do the thing that you need to do.

And the Big Rock is not an IGFA tournament. Okay. the big rock is not an igfa tournament okay so igfa is a very strict organization based off of world records and they have tournaments that are strictly igfa well it's igfa that the rod can't change hands right and there's so many different facets of that you can't hand line you can't there's just it's so rigid to be able to just pass off this one rule to IGFA standards. What it tells me is the big rock really didn't spend their time with their attorneys to spell it out themselves. I mean, it's very easy to take the same language and just type it in there instead of just being haphazard and saying, oh, well, there's two rule books to IGFA. There's two rule books to IGFA. There's tournament ones. So they take fish mutilation,

and it's a note within the rule about weight alteration, weight alteration being that you've added weight. The lead off of Rule 23 in the Big Rocks rule book is in big, bold, italicized letters says uh alter uh altercation of weight okay um and then it goes on down through there about how you can't add weight to the fish this can't put water down its throat can't put ice in it that's all rule 23 and then at the bottom, Ashley was referring to, it says about mutilation, IGFA rule of mutilation. And that's about all it says there. And, you know, did I see a mark on the fish?

Yes, I did. But like Ashley said, there was no concern in my mind. It was a very superficial mark. And, I mean, people can argue I didn't do my homework. I didn't know the rules. I've read the rules a hundred times over backwards, forwards. I didn't really not have any concern that this was going to be a case to disqualify the fish. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

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handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. How do you explain the mark on the fish? I mean, is it just objectively true

that that's a bite mark from a shark or is that not objectively true i don't know whether it was a a shark or it was a barracuda or i don't know what it was honestly i don't know when it happened i mean i've gone back and looked at the footage of watching, because we had the GoPro on the whole time. And so I've got it on GoPro of him breaching, him getting hooked up for basically the first hour of the fight. And we turned it off to save the battery because even more so, we needed it for when landing.

And so watching that fish and based off of where the bite or the occurrence happened, it wasn't a detriment to its ability to maneuver or fight us. It wasn't like there was a dorsal fin missing or a tail missing or it had been bitten in the stomach area where it would have caused organ issues. But you feel that, is it certain that the fish was we'll use bit okay is it certain that the fish was bit after you hooked it based off your video evidence or is that there's that not even absolutely it's not even absolute true on it we can't let's say you knew let's say let's say it let's say that the fish had been bit before. Meaning, how often have you caught a fish that's scarred up from having been bit? I mean, it just obviously depends on where you're fishing it. Let me give you a for instance.

Where we fish salmon, okay? I don't know. Definitely one in six, one in seven have some kind of mark from uh seals birds whatever right and these are fish that are eating the hook right okay so it's it's it's like it's common that it would happen but i mean the is the nature of the injury such that someone would look and say ah that there's no way that a fish with that mark would have ever been in the mood to hit a bait. No, nothing has ever been said about that.

And do the rules say anything about that you can't catch and submit a fish that had had a bad thing happen to it in the past? No. On the contrary, what they're relying on and where IGFA points that out, is when it's a competitive advantage for the angler. That's basically saying that you're not fighting 100% of that fish. So to answer your question, you're exactly right. There's nothing in there language-wise to say that if that fish had encountered something minutes before it bit the hook.

But we saw no definition. Normally, if it encounters a shark, sharks aren't just, you know, hey, I'm going to eat one bite. That's what I thought was so puzzling. Yeah. Is why would he, if you're bringing a fish up inches at a time, how would there be anything, and you got like a short fin mako down there, there wouldn't be no fish.

No, they wouldn't stop. That's one thing that puzzles me about it. How would the shark ever be like, yeah, never mind. Yeah. It wouldn't make any sense. It's like hanging there. Right. You couldn't ask for a better chance for a shark to devour your fish.

Free meal. Free meal for sure. But the fact that he would just be like, nah, not my, nah. I had enough energy to nip it, but I don't want to eat it just doesn't make sense. Right. And that's where we're kind of coming at with it, that though IGFA has their rules and I respect them wholeheartedly. I've talked to Zach at IGFA about this whole situation.

And he says, actually, we don't really have a dog in the fight because they're not IGFA sanctioned. They don't answer to us. They chose to arbitrarily pull one of our rules out and reference it. That's between you and the tournament. But the IGFA rule does have language about getting mauled by a shark. It has about that coming into any encounter with marine mammals, the propeller of the boat. I mean, it's kind of more so, back in the day, a lot of people would, if they couldn't stop a big fish, they'd run it over,

trying to give a competitive advantage. Got it. My argument, totally beyond a shadow of a doubt, they have not proved that based off of the mutilation rule, it has satisfactorily persuaded anybody that's been on that boat that it gave us a competitive advantage they want to just take the first part of the rule and apply it and not give the meaning of the rule merit you know and so my argument to the big rock and i think that this would help every angler out there that participates in this 171 boat tournament and set a precedence moving forward to be a leader

in the industry is to do away with the IGFA reference come up with your own language and instead of discounting a majestic animal that we're encountering and just frivolously throwing it away bring it in weigh it hang it utilize it for science like we should for conservation needs be able to utilize it for especially if it's not been mutilated to a point where it's edible for human consumption i mean and that in my mind that's would be where mutilation would take you to and discount the fish by 100 you know make a for encountering it at 100 pounds or 75 pounds or 150 pounds, whatever they feel. But get away from the IGFA rules if you're not going to encounter all the IGFA rules.

How many fish historically at this tournament have been pitched for this type of violation? Realistically, in the past three tournaments, there's been two. I mean, the two winning, the two potential winning fish have been utilized, had to utilize that particular rule, being the top dog and ours. And so that's just the most recent. What was up with the other incident? Well, the other instance, it was a record-setting fish

that they say that the top dog had already landed the fish. Now, there's no real definition of landed. Some people think it's when the bill passes the horizon of the transom or you're in full control of the fish or the fight is over, which is even more ambiguous. They encountered sharks. There was two shark bites on it. Got numerous news articles talking about the shark bites on it. Plus, the guy didn't really have a door that was satisfactory to pull that fish in there. So they crammed in as much of the fish as they could, tied a tail rope across it, and hung it to the bridge to bend the fish in half which it

said they encountered a lot of the um the exhaust heat coming in you know from the time it was boated and brought in so all that mutilation literally they that fish couldn't hang on its own weight it was so big and but the mutilation if you look at them side by side it's you know it's mutilated it's not fit for human and that fish got booted yeah you know that fish won the tournament won the tournament won the tournament so picture that you had a bunch of people that all brought classified documents home to their house and then one of them got in trouble. Yeah. So. Imagine that. But like, I don't get what you're saying.

Why was that fish okay? Well, they're trying to say that it was indisputable video documentation that that mutilation happened after the fight was over. And the fish had been boated. So they're saying, oh, it got bit by a shark, but it got bit by a shark after the bill broke the transom. Or landed. The quote unquote landed. But I would. i would see in that case i would argue just putting my arguing hat on in that case i would be like well must not have been that landed right if it's still getting eaten by shark yeah on the last interview i did i got asked posed the same question i said well guys i've marlin fished a lot in my day and i've never come into contact with anybody that said hey you'll never believe this story we had a landed marlin that jumped in

the cockpit of the boat bit the shark bit the marlin twice and then jumped back overboard i mean if it was landed it should have been in a situation where a shark wasn't available to eat it so and they won yeah they won and in the past, in the past 20 years. But on that case, there's no observer, right? Right. No. Do they polygraph guys? Take polygraphs. Did they polygraph you guys?

They did. They polygraphed Greg. The next morning. What'd they ask you? And they had already made their decision before I even finished the paragraph, though. It was superficial. They didn't even do it.

They asked, it was a long process, kind of unnerving. They strap you all this stuff, and they ask a couple base questions. Is it the month of June? That type of thing. They're all yes or no questions sure um did anybody any one of you or your crew knowingly cheat in the big rock tournament to alter the weight of your fish blah blah blah no you know so several questions like that they did focus on the mark on the fish and a few questions. Like what?

When did you become aware? Yeah, when did you become aware? Were you aware of the mark on the fish when you first put it on the boat? No. I mean, I saw the mark on them. Again, I didn't have much concern that it was going to be a problem you know another thing with this whole rule uh there's been a moratorium on commercial shark fishing for a dozen years now and there are a whole bunch of sharks out there so it's going to get worse and worse and these fish like we talked about have a tendency to go deep also when they're you guys know from your hunting and your fishing these animals when

they're wounded or hooked a fish is hooked it puts off a signal oh do they know man throw the water so these sharks it's like ringing the dinner bell it's unbelievable i don't understand how they know but how they know there's a fish stressed yeah it's incredible absolutely so you're you know you're talking about your seals and stuff out here. We're a little different with the sharks and stuff. Yeah. So did they wind up getting, did you get a certified weight so that this can get sorted out? Yes.

So they did. They at least banked a certified weight. 619.4 pounds. they wrote unofficial but they but they they agree like there's there's a there's an absolute agreement on what the weight is right okay with respect to this encounter of mutilation over the past 20 years there's about eight different cases where the big rock has allowed for fish that had been had come in contact and had been bitten by other fish to still hang to still be weighed and to still be remain on the leaderboard or receive a daily prize and so my argument isn't necessarily

directed towards um the top dog which everybody's trying to deal with the comparison because it was so recent. But there are plenty of other instances, and that's where I really feel like the Big Rock can utilize this particular instance to be able to benchmark, change the rules. Change the rules to something that's more favorable based on the conditions that we're dealing with these days

and be able to archive all the bad decisions that they've made in the past in order to be able to move forward so that we don't have this controversy anymore sure and we're able to utilize the fish we're not being bad stewards of a resource and we're able to you know make this tournament better and i think that that would draw more more anglers in there where it shows empathy from the board not totalitarian you know you know uh they got the certified weight they asterisk but but they can later agree to the certified weight they put unofficial on the board yeah that was another thing they didn't usually they'll put a uh they pin a placard right to the fish with the weight on it we didn't get that you know we didn't get any of the

interviews they normally do um we got plenty of interviews well yeah unwanted not not for you but so but okay that there's there's two remaining things i want to talk about. I want to talk about the what's next, but just to get a little bit of an understanding, how did this, based on your perspective, how did this spread so much? I think the outrage of the crowd, like Ashley said, there was probably 12,000 people there. And they were on your side. Oh, yeah, 100%. Really? They were willing to tear down the gates and start a riot. said there's probably 12 000 people there i mean and they were on your side and oh yeah 100 really

they were willing to tear down the gates and start a riot i mean they they had handed me the microphone and said actually we're gonna hang this fish but on the on the consideration that you calm the crowd i looked right at tommy i said look man this is you don't want to hand me that microphone right now i was like this so this, you're telling me. So people were like, people were basically, this is bullshit. Yes, 100%. There's videos of people that are chanting, this is ridiculous. In a lot more uncertain terms. Rowdy, I mean.

And people that would know what they're talking about. Yes. And they basically were trying to put us off to the next day for the decision. Okay. Basically for crowd control. It had nothing. They had already made their minds up for what they were going to do. We had to really push the issue to be able to get them to hang the fish, to weigh the fish, to announce the weight.

Because they kept telling me, Ashley, it's enough weight. It's enough weight. I'm like, I'm not going to go to bed tonight with the idea that it's enough weight. And I said the whole idea of waiting till tomorrow to find out how messed up we were the night before reminded me of the 2020 election dealing with Donald Trump. I just I'm sitting here like, how do we find out, you know, with great certainty, putting 271 boats in limbo of the sushi? And we have no problem with the sushi or any of the other you know people that were involved our beef is not with them yeah it's with the tournament to be able to make our our anglers our tournament better and our community better I don't want to don't don't name the person but

um is it ultimately is it ultimately at the discretion of one individual or is it at the discretion of a panel of judges? It's a panel of judges. How many? I think there's about 40 people that are on the board. And were they split? There's a rules committee that's made up of a percentage of them. The whole overall board is 40.

I don't know exactly how many are on the rules committee. They would not give me a verdict. The only thing that I've heard from the big rock is two things since this whole thing went down that Saturday night was one. they called me two minutes after greg was supposed to go in to for his um polygraph test and to tell me that they were disqualifying the fish which told me that they weren't taking any of what greg was doing over there into consideration that there's no way they met it didn't hinge on the results of that polygraph exactly um they also cut the live streaming feed that they have going on and that was uh i had several people man i was watching it on the streaming and all of a sudden it just went out really and they cut that on purpose um so that everybody i mean probably hundreds of thousands

were watching that live stream and then all of a sudden it just got cut off i had people tell me i'm searching the internet to try to find another feed is it uh is there a is there a appeals process an articulated appeals process yes it's spelled out in the contract in the application that we all sign. Yeah. And it basically says, this is my second point. I just remembered. I'm glad you know. It says that we have the ability to protest, you know, based off of, you know, being a member of the entry. We entered the tournament.

And I have filed no paperwork of lawsuit. You haven't? No. This has been totally just about uh the protest and so the only thing i did was retain counsel to be able to help me through the situation through the the mediation portion of it and so in a knee-jerk reaction the um big rock committee sends a text message to my attorney telling me that I have been barred from any Big Rock events moving forward indefinitely. Because of what? Because I protested a rule that they, or a ruling that they had. All I'm doing is asking for clarification. Yeah. And so they've taken-

I could see if you were like, storm the gates. I've not been anything like that. On the contrary, I've been very accommodating and very proactive. But you're fighting for your fish. That's right. I'm fighting for all the anglers too. I'm fighting for a rule change, not necessarily on my fish, but moving forward as one of the situations that we need to bring a platform to. But they have borrowed us from the kids' big rock, which does nothing but cause harm to the kids that want to be involved,

it's the KWLA, our future charters that want to be involved in with the Big Rock. I mean, it's just, it's almost like you're trying to strong-arm something. I mean, if they felt good enough with their decision that they made that night, they should feel real confident that they're going to be found in favor and then they'll move on so if i asked them why you were barred they'd say because you're uh you're being a sore loser i guess uh that's the only thing but that's what they'd have in their rules there's a provision for protest i mean we're just following their rule book at this point i mean i don't have people picketing out in front of their office i don't have you know any negative directed towards them personally so they have a rule that you can challenge and you challenge within the rule right they say how you have to

do it before the awards are given out which actually did to the letter and uh and now before their even their due process is done in their rules with this mediation, they've sent them a letter saying that we're no longer allowed to enter any. You too. Well, I guess. I don't know if it's the boat, him, or me. Maybe I need to find a new job, huh, Ashley? I wouldn't let your job hinge on just that tournament.

We'll win the next one. Man. So what will happen now? Well, we've got mediation starting Thursday morning, and that's going to include Big Rock, the Sushi, and the second and third place boats where we're all going to kind of meet and try to hash this out and whatnot. Are they holding all that jingle and escrow right now,

or have they handed it out? Yeah, nothing's been dispersed as far as the funds and whatnot, and rightfully so. I mean, I don't think anybody is necessarily trying to make their fuel bill off of the winnings of that particular tournament, though it would be nice to have in their account, but I think a week later. The people that are giving us backlash,

and that is a very small minority. We have an incredible amount of support. But the ones that are saying, oh, you're being selfish. You're holding out these other people's money. And again, we're just following the protocol, what is set forth. Yeah. And we've had a lot of people. It was amazing.

A lot of people didn't think I was going to show up to the award ceremony because of the emotional rollercoaster the night before. I'm the type of person, I'm going to be there regardless. So, I show up and we're going through the awards and everything. And they're handing out the checks and whatnot. And they're announcing such and such boat won this. Is there a representative for this boat? No? All right.

We're going to be going through this pretty quick. And there was probably about six or seven boats that, in protest, didn't even show up for their own checks. Really? I've had an outcrying of boat owners and captains come up to me and say, look, you know, keep the course. You're doing a great job. We had this situation at such and such date, and, you know,

we didn't say anything, and it just keeps cropping up, and nobody's really had the balls to stand up and say, hey, you know, we've got a problem here. We need to correct it and move forward. I feel that – I don't really know. I mean, this is all new to me, and I'm only getting what you guys are telling me, but man, I feel like,

I feel like if you had, if you took it to, let's say you had to take it to a jury, okay, like a jury of your peers, like in different peers, I feel that there would be

so many areas where you would create like the reasonable doubt around even like the sequencing right you know unless you could have a bunch of fish experts and physiologists come in and say that there's no way that you know like the the timeline of stuff you know i feel like the people would be like i i can't um i can't say absolutely that that that's it but but again they're not that's not how they decide their they don't decide their disputes with

a jury trial but like thinking about it in that way i feel that um based on my understanding if it went to a jury it'd be it'd be very hard to deprive you of the win in that scenario to get a unanimous you you know what I mean? To get 12 people to unanimously agree to kick your fish out would be tough. I don't think it'd happen. It'd be tough, man. It takes some lawyering, man. One thing we can take away is we entered that tournament at $52,500.

We put together a group of people that have unconditionally supported each other we've fished against all types of opposition being the Omni Sonar and all the other things we fished against the world's best fishermen and by God we brought the biggest freaking fish to the landing they can't take that away from us

no so how much would the fish would have won three point around 3.5 million dollars the the first place sushi only got like 2.7 because the fish wasn't big enough the two categories that they won were the biggest fish but they didn't qualify it wasn't over 500 pounds so they didn't get the fabulous fisherman which was the extra three quarters of a million dollars what's uh are you guys friends with that other boat i never met him in my life yeah what's what's that what's what's that dynamic if you don't want to speak to what that dynamic looks like right now you don't need to uh we really haven't spoken okay much much to

them so i mean it's uh i still hold them in in respect of you of where they're at in their position sure they're in a delicate position got it huh man I used to think that if I was going to go back in time I'd become a raffle and sweepstakes lawyer it'd take me a long time to explain my frustrations with raffle and sweepstakes

law but I feel like I might if I went to law school man I might become a fish tournament lawyer dude what's been cool about talking with you too is uh you know what we've done all these i told some of my friends i think i need a press secretary you know and i got all these people and but it's only been little blurbs and all they want to do is talk about the controversy so what got lost in all this is the epicness of catching this fish on the last hour or the last day, and we're out there for six hours, and they're just listening back on the dock on the radio, you know,

and our supporters are praying and hoping and rooting for us. And then, you know, Bailey doing such a great job uh angling where he'd never really he's fought some big tuna i think but that's a whole different yeah it's different ball game different way we fight them for sure uh you know it's just great fish story you know there's great fish stories out there if you're gonna do a movie that's how you'd have it and this is one of them you know we went uh what five hours into overtime you know and probably every other boat by that point in the tournament was back in their slip you know we're the only ones out there we're still we're watching the sun go down we're still trying

to get this fish to the surface you know so and that's kind of what i got lost uh what i say about them not putting the weight placard on not giving us our time on the microphone at the Big Rock. That's all part of it. They have this beautiful fountain there, what, 1,500-pound brass statue of a marlin, and there's water, and every Big Rock winner has a plaque on that fountain, the boat name. Etched in granite. Et etched in there we're not going

to get that you know so and it's a huge story now uh we had a comment i made a comment in one interview that you know a year from now nobody's gonna care and uh and somebody made a uh comment on one of these social media as well you, you're right, they won't care. All those T-shirts you're selling will just be in the thrift stores by then. What are the T-shirts? The T-shirts, just my daughter, I left her in charge. She's 12 years old, and she has been a huge supporter, and she loves that boat more than anything.

The people's champ. And so she came up, and she's like, Dad, we really need to have a T-shirt that boat more than anything. And so she came up and she's like, dad, we really need to, to have a t-shirt that says, uh, team sensation, people's champ,

2023 big rock, uh, and have the boat on it. And, uh, I said, you know, girl,

you've done such a good job and marketing and everything. And if you're 12 years old, and if you want to do that, we're by, by George, we're going to do it. And so we have sold almost 6,000 t-shirts in one week. And we've got a list of more and it's just the outpouring of people's

support has just been mind blowing. And my daughter right now is now, I think she could teach a business class cause she's got, she's working off of three different computers. She's got Venmo working. I'm going to bring her into my law firm, man. My fish tourney law firm. It's going to be a marketing wing.

And her name is Bristol Blue just as a shout out. That's great. Well, I'll say this. I hope justice is done. I'm just not a subject matter expert. And to be honest with you, I'm'm not gonna go read everything about it but i mean like like i said like if you look at it for me you know looking at the story like at just kind of when you put a i was exposed to an argument the other day and and some person in the argument said um

i'm using common sense what are you using right take it from that angle it's it's unfortunate right but but i realized that that's not always the measure we apply to stuff so but um if i heard down the road you guys wanted your appeal i'd feel pretty good about it yes without without knowing you know i'm not the judge right i'm not the judge i'm just a i'm just a guy i listen a fish story, you know? Well, we appreciate this opportunity, and you've got a great platform, and it's just an honor to be here. Well, I'm glad you guys came and told the full story,

and you're right, man. Like, just, I mean, just such a wild story to hook it and fight it into the set and sun, you know? It's great. We should get Meat Eater out to the East Coast and we should get into the set and sun you know that's great we should get meat eater out to the east coast and do a uh episode on the sensation i'd like to well me and karen were i was telling her it wasn't that karen before this even happened i was telling her how we ought to go down we i was telling karen we need to take our equipment go down and she gets bad seasick she told me so i don't know what we're gonna do with her but bring her down there and

load her up on all the bracelets and things behind her ears and whatnot and uh and we wanted to make like a like a audio experience off marlin tournament that'd be cool yeah it'd be fun to do well guys thanks so much for coming out man I'll be anxious to see what all happens. And I don't think those T-shirts are going to wind up at the – where did they say they're going to wind up? Yeah, at the Salvation Army store or something like that. No, they're not. I'm going to wear one.

People – I can't go on my phone. I can't barely scroll because it's ping, ping, ping going to the – you know, the Facebook is – I mean, i can't even barely get on my phone to do make call my friend or something oh really because there's so many messages coming through of people wanting these shirts and stuff you know you guys all married yes everyone you're not married no sir you've been leveraging this for dates and stuff he might as well be no i have a beautiful girlfriend and yeah she was there at the big rock landing i could hear her yelling greg i love you so that was pretty cool yeah when we were backing in and i'm looking for you know it was pretty cool

yeah well like i said man i hope justice is served trying to choose my words carefully i hope justice is served if i hear that you got your money i'd be tickled so we would be thank you man all right thanks for coming on guys Ride on, ride on, little blood I wanna see your gray hair Shine like silver in the sun Ride on, ride on, my love Ride on, ride on, sweetheart We're done beat this damn horse to death

So take your new one and ride on We're done beat this damn horse to death So take your new one and ride on Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. On-axe hunt is now in canada it is now at your fingertips you canadians the great features that you love and on x are available for your hunts this season now the hunt app is a fully functioning gps with hunting maps that include public and crown land hunting zones aerial imagery 24k topo We'll see you next time.