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Speaker 4: All right, everybody coming from Hailey, Idaho in the First
Speaker 4: Light Store, the one and only First Light Store in
Speaker 4: first Lights home base of Haley, Idaho. We're here a
Speaker 4: bunch of guys from North Carolina who are who are
Speaker 4: wrapped up in the biggest news story to ever happened
Speaker 4: to fishing outside of we got Way to Fish. This
Speaker 4: is maybe bigger than that we got because it's the
Speaker 4: opposite of that. Here we had people in that case,
Speaker 4: we had people in a fishing tournament packing losing a
Speaker 4: fishing tournament because they packed fish full of lead. And
Speaker 4: now we have people who are temporarily suffering at for
Speaker 4: having a fish that technically weighs less than what it
Speaker 4: should have. Wait, we're gonna hear this full story. I'm talking,
Speaker 4: of course, about the marlin fisherman who got apparently, I mean, well,
Speaker 4: who got. We're gonna hear the whole story. If you've
Speaker 4: been reading the news and this has been Krin has
Speaker 4: a note here, this has been This is a viral
Speaker 4: fishing news story. This is when the world at large
Speaker 4: takes interest in fishing. The Washington Post, those big anglers
Speaker 4: over there, NPR, the New York Times, CBS News, CNN, Fox,
Speaker 4: USA Today, the UK's Daily Mail, and of course the
Speaker 4: meeater dot com with all these other outfits kind of
Speaker 4: sit underneath the meeater dot com and relevant have all
Speaker 4: covered the story. And if you're wonder what up to
Speaker 4: hell them talking about? If you saw a story about
Speaker 4: some guys that entered a marlin tournament and then had
Speaker 4: their fish get disqualified because it had been bitten by
Speaker 4: a shark and they lost all the winnings. That's who
Speaker 4: we're here with, all three principal players. This is the
Speaker 4: first time you guys done an interview together.
Speaker 3: That's correct? All right?
Speaker 4: Do you gut him? Walking through? Who? So? I know
Speaker 4: we got the guy holding the rid, the guy owning
Speaker 4: the boat, the guy captaining the boat. Okay, who do
Speaker 4: we start with? Let's start with who owns the damn boat?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: You owned the boat? Sorry?
Speaker 3: Okay, lay that out for us. My name's Ashley Blue.
Speaker 3: I live in Greenville, North Carolina, and I bought the
Speaker 3: Sensation last year, last March. Matter of fact, Oh huh,
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 4: So you just got it, just got out of my
Speaker 4: freshman year and you run the boat that day.
Speaker 3: I was on the boat.
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, And then go ahead, the angler, Bailey Gore.
Speaker 5: I'm from Booe, North Carolina. Hadn't really had a ton
Speaker 5: of experience marlin fishing, but now we do.
Speaker 4: Okay, Now you have a lot of You're like a
Speaker 4: subject matter expertise R that's been on an expert Okay.
Speaker 4: And then the captain.
Speaker 6: Yeah, my name is Greg McCoy. I live in Pinal Shores,
Speaker 6: North Carolina, right near where the tournament's based in Moorhead City,
Speaker 6: and I'm the captain of the Sensation.
Speaker 4: You've done the tournament how many times?
Speaker 6: At least fifteen fifteen years, probably more than that. I
Speaker 6: fished it on my own boat several years with friends
Speaker 6: of mine. I fished it on charter boats where my
Speaker 6: group chartered a boat, and then once I got into
Speaker 6: the industry as a mate and captain down there, I
Speaker 6: fished it on where we've had charters on our boats.
Speaker 6: Lots of different angles the way I fished the tournament,
Speaker 6: but just it's a big tournament. It's one of the
Speaker 6: biggest there is down there. Always been a dream of
Speaker 6: mine to win it, and we thought we got her
Speaker 6: done this year. You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Explain to me, why how are marlin tournaments so prevalent,
Speaker 4: Like you just don't You don't know if you're a
Speaker 4: guy that fishes like me, you know, I've never caught
Speaker 4: a marlin. I never had been on a boat that
Speaker 4: had a marlin on. I saw marlin hooked one time,
Speaker 4: but that was it. Why are people so aware of
Speaker 4: marlin tournaments?
Speaker 6: Well, I'd say in the sport fishing industry, salt water
Speaker 6: sport fishing, that is the royalty of sport fishing. Blue marlin,
Speaker 6: black marlin in other parts of the world. But in
Speaker 6: our area it's blue marlin. That's the top, top sport fishing.
Speaker 4: Fish, the biggest, coolest fish out there.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, yes, the most you know, brings in the big
Speaker 6: money guys, and uh so that's the one. You know,
Speaker 6: those marlin tournaments are the ones that bring in the
Speaker 6: most people and the most money. And this, this big
Speaker 6: rock tournament is a huge event. It really is. It's
Speaker 6: a lot of money involved and a lot of boats.
Speaker 6: We had I think what two hundred and seventy some
Speaker 6: boats entered in the tournament this year.
Speaker 4: And do they all got to take off from the
Speaker 4: same arena.
Speaker 6: No, you can fish it. It's just a matter of
Speaker 6: there's boundaries out in the ocean, a northern and southern boundary.
Speaker 6: Basically you can go as far east as you want.
Speaker 4: And what lay that off for me? What is the
Speaker 4: northern and southern boundary?
Speaker 6: Southern boundaries? We go by TDS which is true direction,
Speaker 6: which is the old Lorane coordinates. So the southern boundary
Speaker 6: is the two hundred line. The northern boundary I think
Speaker 6: is the what four hundred line, So it's it's basically
Speaker 6: the South Carolina and Virginia line, A little.
Speaker 3: Bit less of it, I got it.
Speaker 6: And then you just have there's a certain time. Nine
Speaker 6: am is the first time you can put any lines
Speaker 6: in the water. At nine am, they call over the radio,
Speaker 6: you know, lines in, lines in, and that's when you
Speaker 6: start fishing.
Speaker 4: And you gotta be done fishing at what time three o'clock?
Speaker 4: And then how many days of the tournament.
Speaker 6: It's a six state tournament. You fish four out of
Speaker 6: the six captain's choice on the late days, you take
Speaker 6: two late days during the week.
Speaker 4: And the tournament winner winds up being the Is it clean?
Speaker 4: Is it like? The biggest marlin caught during the six days?
Speaker 4: Is that's it? It's not a daily winner.
Speaker 6: They do have daily release prize. There's all different kind
Speaker 6: of categories, but yes, the real winners, the biggest fish
Speaker 6: put on the dock, the ones if you bring if
Speaker 6: your boat. One has to be over four hundred pounds
Speaker 6: to qualify.
Speaker 4: Okay, what's the biggest marlin you've ever seen come out
Speaker 4: of the water?
Speaker 6: Uh? The one, the biggest one I got was this year,
Speaker 6: six hundred and nineteen.
Speaker 4: This is that was the fish that was the career best, Yes, sir.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and it would have been a dream come true
Speaker 6: if it hadn't been disqualified.
Speaker 4: So here here's the thing I want to get laid
Speaker 4: out to before we get into the actual story of
Speaker 4: what happened. Were you are you? Were you the designated angler?
Speaker 4: Or did this happen to be that you grabbed the rod?
Speaker 4: A little bit of both? Okay, So that morning.
Speaker 5: We pulled numbers. There's six, yeah, six hours and the
Speaker 5: six guys fishing, and a number was preach hour. I
Speaker 5: was number five, I believe. So the fish was caught
Speaker 5: in the sixth hour. But I don't think it really mattered.
Speaker 5: I was the only one there without a rod in
Speaker 5: my hand. So Scooter Screwter, the mate, said get in the.
Speaker 4: Seat, so he put me there. That was it.
Speaker 5: So that's how you came to be the faithful God.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, it really didn't matter. It was chaos, everybody
Speaker 5: trying to get everything cleared. Everybody's doing up. I was
Speaker 5: all going to stand there.
Speaker 4: With nothing to do.
Speaker 5: Okay, I was in the steat. I had nothing to
Speaker 5: do because I'd been sleeping. God, I'll tell myself a
Speaker 5: little bit where you get a little Were you a
Speaker 5: little seasick or what? No, I was just beat. I
Speaker 5: was just take a little napping, hurt. The real go
Speaker 5: off can run out.
Speaker 4: Of the door and that ride can't change hands, right
Speaker 4: it can? Oh, it can't change hands? It can? So
Speaker 4: you can you can spell each other? Yeap?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 4: Now lay this out for me, because how many guys
Speaker 4: are on the boat?
Speaker 3: Uh, there's six anglers and then there was the captain, Greg,
Speaker 3: the mate and myself.
Speaker 4: Okay, So now when you leave out in the morning,
Speaker 4: you don't you know, statistically, if you if you imagine
Speaker 4: everybody's average, you have a point five percent chance of
Speaker 4: you have a you have a point five percent chance
Speaker 4: of winning. Less than a point five percent chance of winning,
Speaker 4: but there's a chance. So how are you guys figuring
Speaker 4: it out? Like you have a vessel, you have a
Speaker 4: bunch of participants, there's some amount of money to enter,
Speaker 4: there's some amount of side betting that goes on, and
Speaker 4: there has to be some understanding of what would happen.
Speaker 4: Let's just say you win, what would happen to the money?
Speaker 4: They lay the economics out for me from from a boat,
Speaker 4: not from the perspective of an individual, but give me
Speaker 4: the economics from the perspective of a boat.
Speaker 3: What we did, I mean, you can enter in there's
Speaker 3: so many different categories, like we had talked about earlier
Speaker 3: on different calcuttas. And we entered the first nine levels,
Speaker 3: which was everything that we were able to enter, and
Speaker 3: that was fifty two five dollars. And so what we
Speaker 3: did was we took the charter everything that took to
Speaker 3: be able to enter the tournament. We divided it by
Speaker 3: twenty four shares, which was four days of fishing six
Speaker 3: anglers to come up with twenty four. We had shareholders
Speaker 3: that bought those twenty four shares, and so that established
Speaker 3: their percentage that they were supposed to get in the agreement.
Speaker 3: It was set up where the boat would get thirty
Speaker 3: percent of any winnings, the shareholders would get seventy percent.
Speaker 3: The boat broke down to the captain getting ten percent
Speaker 3: of the boat's take, the mate getting ten percent, and
Speaker 3: then the owner getting ten percent or basically the oh.
Speaker 3: So the remaining seventy percent was divided twenty four ways,
Speaker 3: which would have been about one hundred and fifty five
Speaker 3: to one hundred and eighty thousand dollars depending on the
Speaker 3: the full amount we were supposed to get at like
Speaker 3: three point five million.
Speaker 4: Got it, and so you were like a clock you
Speaker 4: chartered the boat essentially yep. So you guys you got
Speaker 4: like you and your fellow fishermen. You guys didn't know
Speaker 4: each other.
Speaker 5: Now I knew one other guy, one of my friends.
Speaker 5: When I saw it, I texted was like, yeah, let's
Speaker 5: do it. And that was the only other guy I
Speaker 5: knew on the boat. And who were the other guys
Speaker 5: Just a bunch of random guys and everybody was in
Speaker 5: on the understanding though. Oh yeah, like the economics were clear.
Speaker 6: We had a little contract that we had them. We
Speaker 6: met up Sunday whoever could make it to the boat.
Speaker 6: You know, we had a little meet and greet and
Speaker 6: showed them some things on how to get in the bucket,
Speaker 6: harness in the fighting chair. But typically, you know, guys
Speaker 6: that fish these tournaments a lot are have their own
Speaker 6: their own designated crew. They've all done it together many times.
Speaker 6: We're a charter boat, so you know, this is a
Speaker 6: lot of time a charter boat wants to get one
Speaker 6: crew to charter them for the whole week. We weren't
Speaker 6: coming up with that. Ashley came up with this plan
Speaker 6: on selling the shares and it.
Speaker 3: It worked out.
Speaker 6: It's not ideal because you're dealing with different crew members
Speaker 6: every day. We had one guy that bought four shares.
Speaker 6: He wanted to fish all four days.
Speaker 4: Also, during this tournament, the anglers are swapping out every
Speaker 4: day exactly, So how many days did you fish?
Speaker 5: I just fished Saturday, just one day, and I'd bet
Speaker 5: nobody on the boat. Yeah really, yeah, I didn't make
Speaker 5: it to the meeting on Sundays. I just showed up it.
Speaker 4: You had like no, I mean, with all duies, you
Speaker 4: had no idea what you were getting into. Neither one
Speaker 4: of us, neither side like anything about the finer points
Speaker 4: of this tournament and all this.
Speaker 5: I'd followed it for years, but never never fished in
Speaker 5: it at all.
Speaker 3: When I came up with the idea, I wanted it
Speaker 3: to be. This has been such a bucket list tournament.
Speaker 3: It's the world's biggest marlin tournament on the East Coast,
Speaker 3: I mean as far as money wise, and it's known
Speaker 3: as a rodeo tournament, meaning it only follows its own rules.
Speaker 3: So in doing so, I wanted it to be affordable
Speaker 3: for the average person to be able to go check
Speaker 3: this bucket list off there, you know, and make it.
Speaker 3: We have all the tackle, we have all the expertise
Speaker 3: as far as the boat. All they really need to
Speaker 3: do is real end to fish. And so what it
Speaker 3: worked out to be is putting a group of people
Speaker 3: together that has now become lifelong friends. I mean, I
Speaker 3: see this being something that we can carry on for
Speaker 3: year every year, and if nothing else, just be able
Speaker 3: to enjoy the story together. But yeah, to make it
Speaker 3: affordable for everybody. It was only threeenty eighteen dollars per
Speaker 3: person to enter.
Speaker 5: Very unique opportunity for people like me. I really couldn't
Speaker 5: do that.
Speaker 3: Ever.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you have to you have to be a big
Speaker 4: you have to be like Ernest Hemingway for a day,
Speaker 4: for a day, all right. So so laid out for me,
Speaker 4: let's jump the fishing day. What what's like, what's the plan?
Speaker 4: What's the fish plant?
Speaker 6: We had? Uh? I told the guy. We had a
Speaker 6: group text, you know, and so I texted them all
Speaker 6: and we had already taken our lay days. So and
Speaker 6: this was the last day of the tournament.
Speaker 4: I said, all right, this is day six of the tournament.
Speaker 6: Day six. But we that was how we presented it
Speaker 6: as a first come, first serve. They got to pick
Speaker 6: which day, not day of the week, but day one,
Speaker 6: day two, day three, because we never knew what the
Speaker 6: lay days would.
Speaker 4: Be, and you're pulling your lay days based off weather.
Speaker 6: A lot of times. Yeah, we we fished Monday. It
Speaker 6: was the first day and it was absolutely horrendous, very rough,
Speaker 6: tough day. I think four of our six guys got
Speaker 6: sick beyond belief. Seasick. That kind of thing was that one?
Speaker 4: Were you one of them?
Speaker 6: No, I don't get seasick to knock on wood, huh.
Speaker 6: But so we fished Tuesday, we laid out Wednesday and Thursday.
Speaker 6: The weather was supposed to be horrible, which there's one
Speaker 6: category that the first fish over five hundred pounds weighed
Speaker 6: in is worth about almost eight hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: So that incentivized to get out early.
Speaker 6: Yes, until that fish is on the dog, it definitely
Speaker 6: gives you a lot of incentive to keep charging. But
Speaker 6: the weather was just crappy and there weren't a whole
Speaker 6: lot of big fish weighed in yet, so we decided
Speaker 6: to lay out, and you know, kind of gives you
Speaker 6: a chance to regroup. Anyways, we fished Friday. We did
Speaker 6: get a bite from but we probably had him on
Speaker 6: for sixty seconds and he shook the hook.
Speaker 3: Marlin.
Speaker 6: Yeah, definitely a marlin. My mate saw him come up
Speaker 6: and bite the lure. But so yeah, we I told
Speaker 6: the crowd to be there no later than five o'clock
Speaker 6: that we were leaving. At five point fifteen, most of
Speaker 6: the crowd was already there. By quarter of Bailey showed
Speaker 6: up I hadn't seen him during the week. Yes, oh
Speaker 6: you must be Bailey He's I said, yeah, he shook
Speaker 6: his hand, Come on, I'll show you a couple of things,
Speaker 6: and the crowd was all there. So we ended up
Speaker 6: leaving and I think about five o'clock. Because you can
Speaker 6: get out there anytime you want and find your piece
Speaker 6: of water and get all your stuff kind of can't
Speaker 6: put any lines in, but we get all our stuff
Speaker 6: set up ready to go. So when the horn sounds
Speaker 6: at nine, we're ready to dump.
Speaker 4: And you're out at like you're off, you're off the
Speaker 4: shelf on some kind of temperature break or.
Speaker 6: That's what we look for.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and are you able to see other dudes fishing
Speaker 4: or pretty like spread out?
Speaker 6: Well, it can be both. I mean again, there's two
Speaker 6: hundred and seventy some boats fishing the turn. I think
Speaker 6: the final day there was almost two hundred and sixty
Speaker 6: boats still eligible.
Speaker 4: And how deep a water you guys in We.
Speaker 6: Went out to two hundred plus fathoms, which is six
Speaker 6: foot per fathom, so yeah, I can't figure that kind
Speaker 6: of over twelve hundred foot I think my mask.
Speaker 4: You got it over some kind of canyon.
Speaker 6: We go out to what's called the break where it
Speaker 6: really starts maybe thirty fathoms, and it'll start dropping off
Speaker 6: pretty quickly, and then on out from there it just
Speaker 6: drops into the abyss. Really, I knew I kind of
Speaker 6: wanted to get back out fishing deep. We had spent
Speaker 6: the other days. Our bike Friday was in two hundred
Speaker 6: plus fathoms, so I kind of want to spend the
Speaker 6: last day fishing deep. We got out there and we
Speaker 6: got caught right in the middle of a fleet. I
Speaker 6: felt like I spent the whole morning dodging boats rather
Speaker 6: than fishing. Oh really, yeah, I like to find my
Speaker 6: own patch of water. Like being around a bunch of boats. Generally,
Speaker 6: when I'm in that situation, I'll steam off and try
Speaker 6: to get us out somewhere on our own. That morning,
Speaker 6: there were so many boats. I'd steam one direction, try
Speaker 6: to get out of them, and there'd be more over there.
Speaker 6: Steam another direction trying to get out of them, there'd
Speaker 6: be more over there.
Speaker 4: So you talk about depth, but that marlin, he spends
Speaker 4: the bulk of his life at the surface, at near
Speaker 4: the surface.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: They're not like swordfish that spend their day down.
Speaker 6: Correct. I'm no marine biologists. But they do spend a
Speaker 6: lot of their time at the surface. They do go
Speaker 6: deep on their own sometimes, but.
Speaker 4: They'll live up there in bask At the surface.
Speaker 6: They're always moving. They they're polegic. You think about how
Speaker 6: much five six hundred pound fish has to eat every
Speaker 6: day just to maintain. So they're always hunting, they're always moving,
Speaker 6: they're always swimming around, and generally what they eat is
Speaker 6: on the surface. They eat dolphin fish, you know, Mahi mahi.
Speaker 6: They eat anything they can get, really, you know.
Speaker 4: So, and what's your guys fishing strategy? How are you
Speaker 4: fishing that day?
Speaker 6: We're putting our regular spread out. We troll, you know,
Speaker 6: a little bit higher speed than we would with natural baits.
Speaker 6: Any natural baits have to have circle hooks, which adds
Speaker 6: a whole nother element to troll fishing.
Speaker 4: And that's a rule. What kind of rule, tournament rule
Speaker 4: or a state rule.
Speaker 6: It's a tournament rule. It's for conservation. A circle hook
Speaker 6: will generally you have to get the fish to swallow
Speaker 6: the whole bait and the hook and everything, and then
Speaker 6: you engage the drag and it comes out. And a
Speaker 6: circle hook, the way it's designed, it turns and it
Speaker 6: generally hooks them right in the corner of the draw.
Speaker 6: So it's a conservation thing. If you really end up
Speaker 6: releasing that fish, it's probably going to live, you know.
Speaker 4: He's not hooked down on the gut. Yeah, jay hook exactly.
Speaker 6: Now, with lures, which is what most of the guys
Speaker 6: in the tournament troll, you can use jay hooks because
Speaker 6: they're generally not going to swallow a lure. Once they
Speaker 6: get hold of it, they know it's not a real
Speaker 6: something they want to eat, so they come up and
Speaker 6: they usually they either they're either on or they're not.
Speaker 6: You know, with a jay hook, they thrash at it.
Speaker 6: They might bite it so they get hooked or they don't.
Speaker 6: Sometimes you can drop it back to We have pitch
Speaker 6: baits ready, which are natural bait Spanish Maco Big Ballely
Speaker 6: who if they come into our teasers, which don't have hooks,
Speaker 6: we can throw them a pitch bait. That situation is
Speaker 6: a lot easier with a circle hook because you can
Speaker 6: see them eat it. When you're just trolling circle hooks,
Speaker 6: they come up hard and fast and you don't see
Speaker 6: them eat it, so it's a little bit harder to
Speaker 6: get them if they have any resistance with a circle hook,
Speaker 6: they're going to drop the base.
Speaker 4: So when you see him that you can throw the
Speaker 4: bail and let them run it exactly.
Speaker 6: I got it, put it in free school.
Speaker 4: And are you guys catching all kinds of other junk
Speaker 4: while you're out doing this? Are you getting like ma
Speaker 4: he and tuna and whatnot?
Speaker 6: Well, that day, if I'll tell you about the fishing story,
Speaker 6: and I'll let Bailey tell you about But uh so
Speaker 6: we had got into afternoon, we're still dodging boats. We
Speaker 6: had an old friend of mine, Edgar Styron, that grew
Speaker 6: up in Hatteras, has been running boats fishing his whole life.
Speaker 6: He's forgot more about catching Marlon than I will ever
Speaker 6: even know in my life. And he rode with us
Speaker 6: the first two days. He was trying to pound some
Speaker 6: things into my head about how to catch these fish.
Speaker 6: And so that day I said, especially that afternoon, I
Speaker 6: was finally able to get out of the fleet. I said,
Speaker 6: we're going back deep. I told Ashley was up on
Speaker 6: the bridge to me, I said, I'm going back deep,
Speaker 6: and I'm doing what Edgar told me to do, So
Speaker 6: don't ask me to do anything else. That's what we're
Speaker 6: gonna do. And uh so we're trolling around, trolling along
Speaker 6: pretty much straight line. Port short rigger goes off.
Speaker 4: Okay, tell me what that means.
Speaker 6: We have riggers and they are basically just to spread
Speaker 6: this that you're spread out farther from the boat so
Speaker 6: you control more lines. They keep everything from getting tangled.
Speaker 6: So on each rigger we have a short and along
Speaker 6: and along goes all the way up to the top.
Speaker 6: The short is about midway on the rigor.
Speaker 4: And that's just the release.
Speaker 6: Yes, when it's in like a release clip. When the
Speaker 6: fish comes up and hit it, the pressure causes it
Speaker 6: to release and then it just goes to the rod
Speaker 6: and reel and you do your normal thing. All that
Speaker 6: is so you can drag more lines in the water
Speaker 6: without getting them tangled.
Speaker 3: Really got it.
Speaker 6: So, yeah, we get a hit on the port short
Speaker 6: seem like a decent fish. I didn't think it was
Speaker 6: what we were looking for. So everybody on the boat
Speaker 6: knew what it was. No, I didn't that one.
Speaker 4: I did not like what speed, you didn't know what
Speaker 4: species was.
Speaker 6: And so all our other anglers have a job. When
Speaker 6: we hit a fish, you know, we got to get
Speaker 6: all the other stuff out of the way so that
Speaker 6: we can start maneuvering, backing down. If it's a real
Speaker 6: big fish, we're going to back down on it to
Speaker 6: try to gain line a big a real big marlin,
Speaker 6: or a big tune or something they can spool you.
Speaker 6: We got a lot of line. They're big reels, but
Speaker 6: a big fish could conceivably take every bit you got
Speaker 6: and go bye bye. You know, if they get to
Speaker 6: the end of that school, it's going to break and
Speaker 6: they're gone. So we do a lot of maneuvering with
Speaker 6: the boat. That's where my job comes in a lot
Speaker 6: of times. I got to try to put us on
Speaker 6: the fish as well. But once we hook up, you know,
Speaker 6: I got them a new for the boat to help
Speaker 6: the angler out. So this fish we get everything clear,
Speaker 6: Do guys do a great job?
Speaker 4: We crank all the rods in, yes, sir. So he's
Speaker 4: got the one rode.
Speaker 6: In the water and all the other baits in the boat.
Speaker 6: Now it's the guy gets in the chair. I think
Speaker 6: that was Darren, guy named Darren Flannery. It was his turn. Uh.
Speaker 6: He gets in immediately, didn't have much trouble. I knew
Speaker 6: it wasn't what we were looking for. Reels it in.
Speaker 6: It turns out it's like a fifty pound barracuda.
Speaker 3: Oh I thought this was the fish.
Speaker 6: No, no, no, this is a this is a preliminary.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you like it. It's a nice big barracuda.
Speaker 6: Barracuda. Wasted time because for us, it's not worth anything
Speaker 6: in the turnament. There are game fish categories, but not barracuda.
Speaker 4: Well, that's the smoker of a barracuda.
Speaker 6: Big barracuda. Yes, and it did strip offline. You know,
Speaker 6: we probably have about sixteen pounds of drag where we're
Speaker 6: set for the strike on these fish. Anyways, I say,
Speaker 6: you know, we got enough time, guys, we got plenty
Speaker 6: of time. Let's get them back out. Let's go after
Speaker 6: what we're looking for. So we get back on same course,
Speaker 6: headed to where we were headed. Uh, probably about a
Speaker 6: half hour later this time is the one we're looking for.
Speaker 6: She comes piling across the spread.
Speaker 4: It's a she.
Speaker 6: Well, the bigger ones are okay, generally females. So she
Speaker 6: comes piling. We see. I didn't see her coming, but
Speaker 6: I think Ashley did.
Speaker 3: I had just sat down. We got everything back out
Speaker 3: and was turning around, like he said, and I had
Speaker 3: set down on a bean bag up in the top
Speaker 3: of the bridge, just kind of you know, so you
Speaker 3: can see everything without the rocket launchers in your in
Speaker 3: your face. And she came from the left going right
Speaker 3: and fully breached and crashed right on that same rod
Speaker 3: that the barracuda did. And I mean it was just
Speaker 3: like pandemonium from that point forward. And I mean you
Speaker 3: saw her come from the side full broadside, jumped and
Speaker 3: crashed right down on it. I mean, it wasn't any
Speaker 3: of that come up smacking around. It was cabooche and
Speaker 3: it was just like Holy Cow, and the excitement clear
Speaker 3: teasers and real rods in and that's when excitement hit.
Speaker 6: So if a canas right quick the epic ness of this,
Speaker 6: you need man. Also is you got to realize this
Speaker 6: is the final hour of the final day of the tournament.
Speaker 6: So two fifteen lines out at three o'clock.
Speaker 4: Because the fish have to be landed by three or
Speaker 4: it's hooked by three.
Speaker 6: You call in when you hook up, and you could
Speaker 6: go into the next day if you had to. I see,
Speaker 6: so now we hook up two fifteen, I get into
Speaker 6: the radio. You know, big Rock this is sensation. We're
Speaker 6: hooked up and uh so now we're fighting a fish
Speaker 6: and it goes and I'll let Bailey tell his story.
Speaker 6: But we we got a fish on. I saw the fish.
Speaker 6: I think Ashley was on the bridge with me. He
Speaker 6: saw it coming. I saw it once it jumped and
Speaker 6: hooked up a couple of my mate Scooter his name
Speaker 6: is Darren Cox, everybody affectionately known as Scooter, great young kid,
Speaker 6: great fisherman. He saw the fish real good and I looked.
Speaker 6: I says, is it the one? Scooter? I said, I
Speaker 6: seen it. I think it's the one. He says, that's
Speaker 6: the one.
Speaker 4: And look, you guys knew it was a big market.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I said, if we get this fish to the boat,
Speaker 6: we've we've won the big Rock. You know. So we
Speaker 6: all knew there really hadn't been there hadn't even been
Speaker 6: a five hundred pounder for that fabulous fisherman category yet,
Speaker 6: and I knew this one was over five hundred for sure,
Speaker 6: And well, I knew it was going to win the
Speaker 6: tournament at that point if we could get it to
Speaker 6: the boat.
Speaker 4: And now we had to do that, you know, so
Speaker 4: how much risk is there knowing that he's respecting the
Speaker 4: fact that he's sitting right here. How much risk is
Speaker 4: there in handing the rod over to unproven, a un
Speaker 4: idiot or unproven marlin angler, right, well, I mean at
Speaker 4: that point, are you like, damn it? We should have
Speaker 4: gone on ourselves.
Speaker 6: That was part of the deal. You know, these guys
Speaker 6: basically paid for the tournament and paid for the charter fee,
Speaker 6: so you know, we had to stick to our deal.
Speaker 6: And like Bailey said we would, we decided to do
Speaker 6: it instead of just going, you're the first guy up,
Speaker 6: the second guy up, because a lot of times when
Speaker 6: you're marlin fishing, you don't catch a whole lot of
Speaker 6: other stuff. So we decided to say, uh, you know,
Speaker 6: drawing numbers, and number one gets the first hour, number
Speaker 6: two gets the second hour because there was just happening,
Speaker 6: six hours of fishing and six anglers. So and I
Speaker 6: didn't even realize that it wasn't your hour.
Speaker 5: But I didn't even know at the time. I don't
Speaker 5: even know what time it was.
Speaker 6: I think Scooter. Scooter kind of runs the cockpit. That's
Speaker 6: his world. I'm up top and like I said, he's
Speaker 6: I let him do his thing because he he's good
Speaker 6: at it, and he's a great he loves hunting a fit.
Speaker 6: I tell people when they climb on the boat, if
Speaker 6: it if it flies, runs or swims, Scooter will kill
Speaker 6: it for you. And so I just let him do
Speaker 6: his things. So I think Scooter was happy with Bailey
Speaker 6: being the one book. And I want to tell you,
Speaker 6: we put him in there and it's you know, you're
Speaker 6: not crappy fishing. There's a big fighting chair and a
Speaker 6: harness that you're lashed into and there's a certain technique
Speaker 6: on how to do it, and he did, and you know,
Speaker 6: I'll hand it over to him, but I will say
Speaker 6: he did a fantastic job of angling.
Speaker 4: So thank you.
Speaker 5: So I was asleep. I got a picture of me
Speaker 5: when my buddies took it to fourteen, Me asleep on
Speaker 5: the couch like this with a beer sitting on my chest. Drunk,
Speaker 5: not drunk, just sleepy, just tired. So I was at
Speaker 5: two fourteen and two fifteen the fish hit. I heard
Speaker 5: everybody scramble on the back deck, took out, running out
Speaker 5: of the the cabin area, went out on the deck
Speaker 5: on the deck, and I came out the door. I
Speaker 5: stood one eye closed and when I looked out. I
Speaker 5: could see the marlin jumping across the wall.
Speaker 3: Seriously.
Speaker 4: I was like, okay, this that wake y'all. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: I went from a dad's sleep to wide open in
Speaker 5: two seconds. So everybody was back there, reeling in lines,
Speaker 5: getting the teasers out the water, getting thing cleaned up,
Speaker 5: and screweders holding the rod. He's like, get the chair,
Speaker 5: get the chair. And I was the only one standing there,
Speaker 5: so I got the chair. It was close to my time.
Speaker 5: I didn't even know what time it was at the time,
Speaker 5: so we got all strapped in and started cranking.
Speaker 4: But in your guys deal that you have laid out
Speaker 4: the financial plan, it doesn't matter right now.
Speaker 5: The guys that fished in the first three days get
Speaker 5: the same money. It doesn't matter as long as the fish.
Speaker 5: It's a team effort. As long as that fish gets
Speaker 5: the boat, we're happy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, got it, got it? So there you are. And
Speaker 4: is it like is it kind of the less you
Speaker 4: do the better sort of thing? Like you got the
Speaker 4: drag set. Yep, we got a drag set. Are they
Speaker 4: telling you like, don't pump the rod, don't do this,
Speaker 4: don't do that, or is a pre self explanatory.
Speaker 5: It's kind of self explanatory. You gotta let fish run.
Speaker 5: Fish running. You're not gonna stop that. So we just
Speaker 5: let it run. Whenever we get a second it stops.
Speaker 4: Start cranking again, start working the chair, and you're trying
Speaker 4: to circle the fish.
Speaker 6: Uh no, he's going straight hell bent for leather out back.
Speaker 6: So once we get everything cleared, I'm coming back hard.
Speaker 3: As I can.
Speaker 4: Okay, you're not trying to pass around and catch line.
Speaker 6: That's some of these videos you'll see of the water
Speaker 6: crashing over the trans and stuff. We didn't really get
Speaker 6: that effect. But uh yeah, And that's one thing I'm
Speaker 6: telling you, and he'd probably tell you. Number one rule
Speaker 6: I'm we always yell at people, do not touch the drag.
Speaker 6: We got the drag where we want it, don't touch it.
Speaker 6: And I told everybody these guys, your job is to
Speaker 6: keep the fish tight. It's not a race. But you've
Speaker 6: got to turn the damn handle when a fish is on.
Speaker 6: You know a lot of people they get dumbfounded a
Speaker 6: big fish like that and they go get awestruck and
Speaker 6: they don't turn the handle. That's the only way you
Speaker 6: can keep the pressure on the fishes. But keep cranking,
Speaker 6: you know, I've.
Speaker 5: Probably heard of a thousand times. Keep cranking, keep cranking.
Speaker 6: And then I would tell him, because a lot of guys,
Speaker 6: if it's their boat and they've angled a lot of
Speaker 6: big fish, they can tell by the change of noise
Speaker 6: in the engine that the boat's about to come back,
Speaker 6: you know. But I would tell him, I said, we're
Speaker 6: coming back. Keep cranking, keep cranking. So I would warn
Speaker 6: him when I was about to come back a little
Speaker 6: harder or whatnot.
Speaker 4: So how long does this? How long does this go on? For?
Speaker 4: Lay out the how long a fish fight takes?
Speaker 5: I was in the chair three and a half hours
Speaker 5: from the start until we swapped off, and that was
Speaker 5: that was about all I could do. I was yah
Speaker 5: hours of constant cranking.
Speaker 4: Huh, I had no idea.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we ended up with fighting the fish right at
Speaker 5: six hours, a little over six hours. But uh, when
Speaker 5: I was sitting in chair was three and a half.
Speaker 5: She spent three and a half hours on the fish.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, getting sunburnt. People the rubbing sunscreen on me.
Speaker 5: It was getting bad.
Speaker 3: I didn't rub up sunscreen.
Speaker 4: I don't know who it was.
Speaker 5: They missed my right foot, they got my back but.
Speaker 4: The right foot. So uh, during this whole long fight,
Speaker 4: the fish is mostly towards the surface. For the first
Speaker 4: we would you say, hour and a half, Yeah.
Speaker 6: First probably hour and a half he was up up
Speaker 6: top and that's where you want him, really.
Speaker 4: Uh huh, you know, you drawing a crowd.
Speaker 6: One other boat came by. We went into you know
Speaker 6: there line at three o'clock, so basically we went into overtime.
Speaker 6: I think there was one other boat near so they
Speaker 6: came by and watched for a while, and then they
Speaker 6: headed off into the sunset. You know, So we're out
Speaker 6: there alone at this point.
Speaker 4: But they knew what you were doing.
Speaker 6: They did. They knew, you know, they could see the
Speaker 6: boat and knew who We're a local boat. We're a
Speaker 6: charter boat right there on the Moorhead City waterfront.
Speaker 3: So well, the other part of the story that's so
Speaker 3: big in being a charter boat in these tournaments, they
Speaker 3: spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment, and there's
Speaker 3: this stuff called the omni sonar where a lot of
Speaker 3: these boats just go out there, don't put any lines
Speaker 3: in and just ride around and look underneath the water
Speaker 3: and spott a fish. A Morland a mile away and
Speaker 3: then they go and just pound over top of it.
Speaker 3: We don't have any of that stuff. We're just a
Speaker 3: straight charter boat. It's you know, it's I've heard about
Speaker 3: those systems, yes, and they're one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: They're you know, mega million dollar boats. It's you know,
Speaker 3: we're it's like David versus Goliath out there.
Speaker 4: Guys like the Jamaican Boss. That's a very good.
Speaker 6: So these omnies they can ping a fish. We can
Speaker 6: see one. We got a regular sonar bottom machine and
Speaker 6: if it swims right underneath us, I can see it.
Speaker 6: I can market, but I can't. These omnies are like military.
Speaker 6: They they ping the fish, they can lock onto the
Speaker 6: fish and they can follow it. These fish have tails.
Speaker 6: They don't just sco in one direct or. They go
Speaker 6: wherever they want, right. So the omni sonar when they
Speaker 6: ping one, they actually a touchscreen lock on target lock.
Speaker 6: Some of them, the boat will automatically turn when the
Speaker 6: fish turns. Other ones, the captain has to steer it.
Speaker 6: But most of those guys have one guy on the
Speaker 6: crew who is dedicated. That's all he does is watch
Speaker 6: the sonar and he'll say, you know, target acquired, and
Speaker 6: then he'll say, you know, steer whatever forty two degrees
Speaker 6: blah blah blah. And so not only can they find
Speaker 6: a fish, but they can follow them, and they've got
Speaker 6: the good ones are probably three quarters of a mile radius,
Speaker 6: so that's a mile and a half circle that they
Speaker 6: can find these fish. And like Ashley said, some of
Speaker 6: the guys with them, they can't run at top cruising
Speaker 6: speed with them deployed, but they can run twelve thirteen knots.
Speaker 6: So some of them are just going out there and
Speaker 6: riding around till they ping a fish, and then they
Speaker 6: go over there and put their gear out, and if
Speaker 6: the fits, they can also tell how deep it is.
Speaker 6: So if it's deep and it doesn't come up on
Speaker 6: the first pass, they just keep pounding it and pounding
Speaker 6: it and pounding it. Eventually that fish more than likely
Speaker 6: is going to come up.
Speaker 3: Huh. So they could go all day and never set
Speaker 3: a line. So talk about a competitive advantage, I mean
Speaker 3: it's right there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the party wants to stick it to those guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's amazing, absolutely.
Speaker 4: So at what point, Okay, let's get to like the
Speaker 4: pivotal moment in the fish fight. So just a spoiler
Speaker 4: alert here the fish gets bit by a shark.
Speaker 3: No, we didn't know anything about it. I mean when
Speaker 3: that fish stove deep when we were fighting, it was
Speaker 3: moved the chair to the left, moved the chair to
Speaker 3: the right. It was a lot of action. But when
Speaker 3: he got so exhausted, it's it's natural for these marlin
Speaker 3: to once they get so exhausted, they go down deep
Speaker 3: to try to basically die. And so when he went deep,
Speaker 3: our rod tip was bent like this for the remaining
Speaker 3: three four hours, bent over like this. And it was
Speaker 3: man versus goliath. Wrench up six inches, come down.
Speaker 4: He's just down. He's down, straight down.
Speaker 3: And so and Bailey got exhausted and he was like,
Speaker 3: this is enough, and everybody else looked at each other.
Speaker 3: Nobody wanted to get on the thing. And I was like, well,
Speaker 3: I'll get down there if you want me to. And
Speaker 3: why I did not want to do it, there's a
Speaker 3: lot of period.
Speaker 5: I guess I saw how I wore out.
Speaker 4: I was, yeah, and then they might be the one
Speaker 4: that loses it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we I came down out of the bridge
Speaker 3: and got strapped in and started working him on the
Speaker 3: on the chair and I'm kind of a sizeable guy,
Speaker 3: and between me and then the six hundred pounds fish,
Speaker 3: the chair kind of decided to break and so the
Speaker 3: foot rest out of the chair, just the pin totally
Speaker 3: bend it down and the bottom of the chair falls
Speaker 3: out and I'm basically standing up with the with the rod.
Speaker 3: The fish doubled over and it's like, holy cow, and
Speaker 3: I mean, so the fight's still going on. No sign
Speaker 3: of shark, no nothing. So we end up maneuvering over
Speaker 3: to the gunnel and setting it in basically wicked tuna
Speaker 3: style and set it in there and started doing basically
Speaker 3: six inches cranks, and I mean it again, the rod
Speaker 3: was just bent over like this.
Speaker 4: And it's so common to happen in a fight with
Speaker 4: the marlin to end it like that, to where the
Speaker 4: fish is down deep.
Speaker 6: It's more common than you would think. Yeah, they go
Speaker 6: the big ones. When they jump like that, they expend
Speaker 6: so much energy. And when they go down deep like that.
Speaker 6: You know, there's a lot of guys that have more
Speaker 6: experience at it than me, but I've caught a few,
Speaker 6: and uh, when they go deep like that, they generally
Speaker 6: go down there their heart explodes, they have a heart attack,
Speaker 6: and they die. So the thing about the shark that
Speaker 6: you mentioned, you know that fit. We knew basically how
Speaker 6: deep it was because we have a top shot mono
Speaker 6: backed by braid on the reel exactly the top shots blue,
Speaker 6: the braid is is orange, and we knew the top
Speaker 6: shot was two hundred yards, so that's six hundred feet
Speaker 6: right there, and then we would kind of judge how
Speaker 6: far into the braid we were. And when Bailey on
Speaker 6: the get Go was angling, when he was on the surface,
Speaker 6: we had the top shot back on the reel. When
Speaker 6: he went deep, then he pulled the top shot back
Speaker 6: off and we had a significant amount of braid off
Speaker 6: as well. So when these guys after Ashley's wrestling match
Speaker 6: with the fight and chair, and we knew basically how
Speaker 6: deep he was, well probably over a thousand feet at
Speaker 6: that point. And then literally, I think he was being
Speaker 6: generous and saying six inches a time, it was literally
Speaker 6: maybe an inch maybe two inches over a period of
Speaker 6: four plus hours trying to get that fish. So and
Speaker 6: I knew in my mind that he was already dead.
Speaker 6: So whether he got bit before or after or whatever,
Speaker 6: I don't know, but uh. You know, none of us
Speaker 6: were a thousand feet deep with that fish.
Speaker 4: Okay, so eventually, let's jump ahead. Eventually, here he is
Speaker 4: boat side.
Speaker 6: We brought him up. He was straight up and down.
Speaker 6: Those last four hours. I sat up on the helm
Speaker 6: chair with my feet up in the air, just watching
Speaker 6: those guys do their thing. A couple of times I
Speaker 6: told them we're gonna lose some line. I gotta bring
Speaker 6: the boat up into the current, and then we're gonna
Speaker 6: come back hard. We're gonna get them stretched out. We'll
Speaker 6: come back hard. Hopefully we'll gain more line. Hopefully we'll
Speaker 6: get them floating in the current.
Speaker 4: You know. And you and you, but you feel like
Speaker 4: the fish is dead. Yes, no head shakes, nothing but
Speaker 4: that in and of itself, there is nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 6: No, it's dead, dead weight at that point. So then
Speaker 6: what I'm.
Speaker 4: Saying, like from a from a rule perspective, that fish
Speaker 4: being dead or alive doesn't matter.
Speaker 6: No, no, no, no not. Everything was done there was
Speaker 6: to that point within the rules. And now it's just
Speaker 6: I mean, we can't uh. You know, we didn't tell
Speaker 6: the fish to go down there. We didn't tell them
Speaker 6: to die. Uh, And we're just We're just trying to
Speaker 6: get them back.
Speaker 4: The reason I'm bringing this up is there a like,
Speaker 4: for instance, I got uh, we got guys that are
Speaker 4: on the show quite often, uh, Seth and Chester. They
Speaker 4: like to fish swalleye tournaments. Some of those tournaments the
Speaker 4: fish has to be alive, right, as you all know,
Speaker 4: in all the bass tournaments, the fish has gotta be alive.
Speaker 4: I'm just saying, like, that's not an issue. Now, there's
Speaker 4: no there's no crime in hauling up a dead fish.
Speaker 6: You're exactly correct.
Speaker 4: Let me ask you this question, not that this happened
Speaker 4: to you, but let's say you're let's say there's some
Speaker 4: freak occurrence, you're cruising along a snag and already dead fish.
Speaker 3: Is that a problem, It's Holly, It's highly unlikely.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'll just say, like, theoretically, that's probably not even
Speaker 4: addressed in the rules.
Speaker 6: I mean, yeah, you might not know it's done, so
Speaker 6: you might call it in as being hooked up because
Speaker 6: you're trolling it seven eight nots.
Speaker 4: Anyways, I guess what I'm getting at with my wild
Speaker 4: hypothetical is in the rules, and I haven't I haven't
Speaker 4: personally read the rules. In the rules, there's not much
Speaker 4: consideration of there's not much consideration of the the sort
Speaker 4: of timeline of the fish's death, right right, God.
Speaker 6: Well you're bringing it. If you do boat of fish,
Speaker 6: it's gonna be dead by the time you get back
Speaker 6: to the scales anyway.
Speaker 4: Got it? So any fish coming in is coming in dead, yes, sir.
Speaker 4: And the short of bringing a there's no werner into
Speaker 4: doing a knee cropsy. You don't know what died in
Speaker 4: the water. Out of the water where there's no.
Speaker 6: Live Well, it's gonna fit a six pound marline.
Speaker 4: So eventually get him up and here he is. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and is he and is he like uh like money python?
Speaker 4: Is he like mostly dead or is he dead?
Speaker 3: He's dead at the doornail?
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, that's not my I thought that's Princess Bride,
Speaker 4: isn't it? Philm mostly dead? So he's dead.
Speaker 6: These guys keep asking me, can you see him on
Speaker 6: the screen because we're straight up and down. So at
Speaker 6: some point I'm going to see the fish on my
Speaker 6: uh on my sounder.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it.
Speaker 6: Took Finally, at about twenty five fathoms, here comes this
Speaker 6: line across the screen.
Speaker 3: I knew that was a fish vertical.
Speaker 6: Uh, well, it was horizontal because the sounder is always
Speaker 6: making a it's like a ticker tape, just.
Speaker 4: Because that's how it strikes me. Right, Yeah, but that
Speaker 4: fish is coming up, so.
Speaker 6: I see the line. I says, he's at twenty five fathoms. Guys,
Speaker 6: I see him now, and uh, these guys started to
Speaker 6: get a little more energized that they were tall. They
Speaker 6: were tired. Man, it's hard. You know, we'd been on
Speaker 6: it for hours and hours and people were you know,
Speaker 6: there's always a chance you're pulling up six hundred some
Speaker 6: pounds of dead weight, So yeah, pull the hook, break
Speaker 6: the line anything, you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there was some serious phrase in the line.
Speaker 4: Yeah, really starting to come up. And what are the
Speaker 4: other mugs who are in the tournament? They're now back
Speaker 4: at the marina.
Speaker 3: Oh they're they're calling in. Are you sure the sensation
Speaker 3: is still hooked up? Or you know I'm sitting Is.
Speaker 4: There a number two fish sitting there already?
Speaker 3: No, nobody had boded one that day. There were what
Speaker 3: three total boats that were still hooked up after the
Speaker 3: lines out?
Speaker 4: What really? Yes?
Speaker 3: And all of them basically called in released, meaning that
Speaker 3: they knew it wasn't big enough to play, so they
Speaker 3: weren't going to kill the fish and let it go.
Speaker 4: At that time, there were four books, four boats fighting marlins,
Speaker 4: three total boats, so you and two other boats at
Speaker 4: the closing time, right, But they weren't fighting tankers, right.
Speaker 6: They were released and gone home well before we ever
Speaker 6: saw our.
Speaker 4: So they didn't have contempt.
Speaker 6: Here is the only boat fighting fish.
Speaker 4: But here they are. The world can't move on, that's right,
Speaker 4: because we got to see what these guys got.
Speaker 6: And you got guys that are on the leaderboard back there,
Speaker 6: and you know what part of their bodies puckering at
Speaker 6: that time.
Speaker 4: Okay, so here the boat comes. Now walk me through
Speaker 4: how you secure the fish.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm reeling it up, and Scooter's right there looking
Speaker 3: over the bike. And as soon as we see the
Speaker 3: leader come touch the tip of the rod, that's considered
Speaker 3: a catch. And so Scooter reaches over there and grabs
Speaker 3: the that's a catch. Yes, he can shake at boat side. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and well how do.
Speaker 4: You can't enter them?
Speaker 3: Well, it's considered a release. So if he comes up
Speaker 3: and you've touched it and then he gets off, then
Speaker 3: it's called a release, even though he's dead.
Speaker 6: Oh I got Yeah, there's a point category for releases.
Speaker 4: That fish got scent, right, Yeah, you doot.
Speaker 6: If they're small and you catch one, as soon as
Speaker 6: you touch the leader, it's considered a release and you
Speaker 6: get points four hundred points for blue marlin, one hundred
Speaker 6: and twenty five for sale or a white.
Speaker 4: Even if you're you grab that leader, he shakes the
Speaker 4: hook right, doesn't matter, got it?
Speaker 3: So uh, Scooter grabs it, wraps, pulls up and we
Speaker 3: see the bill come up like this on the side
Speaker 3: of the boat. And so Scooter doesn't even put gloves on,
Speaker 3: reaches you gets so excited, reaches over the side and
Speaker 3: grabs the bill right there, holding on and it's just
Speaker 3: like open the door, open the door. And so we
Speaker 3: finally got the door open, and uh, he shoves the
Speaker 3: fish backwards and then below the transom and comes back
Speaker 3: in and the fish is dead, but his mouth is
Speaker 3: like this big coming through. And I reached over and
Speaker 3: grabbed that little maa he gaff and shoved it right
Speaker 3: down his throat and hooked him from the inside and
Speaker 3: we pulled him on the boat. And I mean there
Speaker 3: was still eighteen inches two feet of fish still hanging
Speaker 3: out in the back of the door, and I mean
Speaker 3: it was just celebration happy. I mean nothing. We didn't
Speaker 3: see anything with regard to any bytes or anything. The
Speaker 3: pictures that we've got right there just I mean, it's
Speaker 3: a beautiful fish.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was laying on the opposite side of the bikes.
Speaker 4: So we do gotcha, gotcha.
Speaker 3: So I go up to the bridge and they're all,
Speaker 3: you know, getting positioned for pictures and I'm taking pictures
Speaker 3: from the bridge for everybody. And then they're secure and
Speaker 3: everything have you.
Speaker 4: And at this moment do you call in? Do you
Speaker 4: call into the tournament organizers and say, hey, we're coming
Speaker 4: in with a big, fatty.
Speaker 3: Yes, and uh, matter of fact, I mean the boat
Speaker 3: we were on. The guy that's over the mic the
Speaker 3: whole day, through the whole tournament. His name is Randy Ramsey,
Speaker 3: and he used to be the owner of Pro Wrestler,
Speaker 3: but he built that boat. That was the very first
Speaker 3: Jarrett Bay ever built, the Sensation is and so he
Speaker 3: built it for himself so to be able to call
Speaker 3: in to him and say, Sensation just boated the fish.
Speaker 3: Maant a lot to us and the tournament everybody. They
Speaker 3: people were driving from hours away to come see this fish.
Speaker 3: And so when we come pulling around the port more
Speaker 3: in city.
Speaker 4: Port wall, how many miles did you have to motor?
Speaker 6: Fifty five.
Speaker 3: And that's nautical miles, So it's not like a straight
Speaker 3: shot where we've a straight shot a lot of times
Speaker 3: would be a good way to get in, but we
Speaker 3: have to. We have the lookout shoals that come off
Speaker 3: of the beach out to what we call the knuckle,
Speaker 3: so you can either if it's good weather or in
Speaker 3: daylight you can shoot the shoals. There's a passage through there,
Speaker 3: or at night you really want to go around the
Speaker 3: knuckle to make sure you don't sit there on two
Speaker 3: foot of water sitting on your side. And so we
Speaker 3: had to go around the knuckle and then come in
Speaker 3: in the dark. And as soon as we came through
Speaker 3: the the port, the turn basin is an no wake
Speaker 3: zone because of all the big ships and stuff, and
Speaker 3: so we turned into the morid City waterfront and the cheers.
Speaker 3: It's just really you felt like you had just won
Speaker 3: the Stanley Cup.
Speaker 4: And at this point you have, Okay, at this point,
Speaker 4: what is your awareness and what is your concern about
Speaker 4: the bite mark on it?
Speaker 3: Zero didn't even know, I mean just total in the moment,
Speaker 3: people sitting three stories up, hanging off of buildings, people
Speaker 3: in the Marinas, standing it on the bio cheering forest.
Speaker 3: I mean, motoring through that whole area from Jack's Bar
Speaker 3: all the way through where our slip is to the
Speaker 3: Gulf docks and Southern Salt, I mean, it was just
Speaker 3: mind blowing. That experience was, you know, I just I
Speaker 3: can't put it in words. Then backing into the Big
Speaker 3: Rock landing, the fire engines blowing their horns, people cheering.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was probably the biggest amount of the
Speaker 3: largest amount of people ever been down there the Big
Speaker 3: Rock Tournament.
Speaker 4: Okay, let me let me hit you with a couple hypotheticals.
Speaker 4: Let's say you'd pull the fish up and the tail
Speaker 4: had been gone.
Speaker 3: Oh that we would call that in. Then you knew
Speaker 3: it was over. Yeah, you know it was over.
Speaker 4: Or it's a half a fish, sure got it. So
Speaker 4: so there's an aware like there is a there's a
Speaker 4: scenario on which you would recognize that there was a problem,
Speaker 4: but this scenario was just zero problem, zero problem. And
Speaker 4: and as as people, what's the first chance that people
Speaker 4: get to come up and see the fish clearly.
Speaker 3: We backed into the big rock land and they tossed
Speaker 3: us the lines. We secured the boat. The way master
Speaker 3: gets on the boat and start suspecting the fish. We actually,
Speaker 3: it's in a blanket, so it's covered up, and we
Speaker 3: got blankets over top of it.
Speaker 4: You don't want weight loss from driving it out.
Speaker 3: So we peel all that stuff back and he asked
Speaker 3: us questions like did you stick any foreign objects in it?
Speaker 3: A lot of times in these bigger fish when they
Speaker 3: gaff him sometimes they will use a tampon and stick
Speaker 3: it in there to keep it from bleeding out. God,
Speaker 3: And so we said, no, there's nothing in nothing in
Speaker 3: the fish. Just know we didn't put ice down its throat.
Speaker 3: We didn't do anything to add any weight, no, sir.
Speaker 3: And so then he.
Speaker 4: Starts he inspects the fish. Yes, as you run a
Speaker 4: metal detector on the fish.
Speaker 3: I didn't see any sign of a metal detector. But
Speaker 3: that's a good question. I just wonder how nitpicky they get.
Speaker 3: Not really, I mean, I mean he was being precise,
Speaker 3: but it just when he he looked at something around
Speaker 3: the tail and he was like, what's this And we
Speaker 3: looked at him like, I don't know and he's like,
Speaker 3: it looks like a shark bite. And I was like,
Speaker 3: I can assure you nobody on this boat has seen
Speaker 3: a shark the whole time, the whole week, we have
Speaker 3: not seen a shark. And so then they kind of
Speaker 3: step up off the back of the boat and start
Speaker 3: whispering amongst themselves. I mean it was the crowd was
Speaker 3: going nuts, like weigh this fish and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: and they're kind of talking in small groups amongst themselves
Speaker 3: and not really talking with us. But and so I
Speaker 3: get off the boat and I walk over there, and
Speaker 3: I asked one of the president of the Big Rock
Speaker 3: Amory and I said, look, you know what's going on.
Speaker 3: He's like, there's a good chance we're not gonna wait
Speaker 3: his fish. We're not gonna I was like, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: that's that's not gonna be a good idea.
Speaker 6: Yeah. The crowd was getting into mob mentality. They they
Speaker 6: wanted to see that fish hung up and wait and
Speaker 6: is that right? But you call it you were When
Speaker 6: I call in and tell them, you know, we voted
Speaker 6: our fish, he they'll call you back. And they say,
Speaker 6: all right, once you get up and running, cap, you know,
Speaker 6: give us an eta so they put the word out
Speaker 6: it's on streaming on streaming services, and people start coming
Speaker 6: from miles around.
Speaker 4: And you had thrown an estimate their way, right, I.
Speaker 6: Told them we'll be in probably about eleventh estimate. Oh no, no,
Speaker 6: I didn't. I says, we'll be in around eleven thirty
Speaker 6: and we've got one to put on a show. I
Speaker 6: did tell him that.
Speaker 3: Ye, And I was staying in constant contact with Randy
Speaker 3: directly by end reach out there because where we were
Speaker 3: at it was a little spotted on the voice over
Speaker 3: on the VHF. So he was well aware of everything
Speaker 3: through in reach.
Speaker 4: Okay, So so you go up to these boys and
Speaker 4: there and there, and their attention is focused on this mark. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and uh, is there? Is there? What is the primary
Speaker 4: question they're looking at? I mean, is there in your
Speaker 4: mind a question about that the mark had been there
Speaker 4: before that it happened while you were fighting the fish,
Speaker 4: Like what what is the initial debate?
Speaker 3: They give us no kind of inclination of what they're
Speaker 3: looking for. They're just trying to collect data.
Speaker 4: And so but when he says we're not we might
Speaker 4: not weigh the fish, He's he had to have given
Speaker 4: you like a because.
Speaker 3: It was just and he just said, you know, based
Speaker 3: off of this, we're not gonna We're not gonna wait
Speaker 3: the fish. And I was like, I don't. I don't
Speaker 3: think that's gonna be the best idea. We need to
Speaker 3: hang this fish. And fully, because the way it was
Speaker 3: bent in the back of the cockpit, you really couldn't.
Speaker 3: I mean, six hundred pounds you can't really flip it
Speaker 3: around and maneuver. So they finally decided to go ahead
Speaker 3: and hang the fish. But they said, well, in a compromise,
Speaker 3: we're not gonna We're gonna hang the fish, but we're
Speaker 3: not gonna wait. And I was like, oh, this is
Speaker 3: not I was gonna willing to take what I could
Speaker 3: get at the time. So we got the boat and
Speaker 3: the fish out of the boat. It's sitting up there
Speaker 3: twelve feet in the air. I mean, everybody's cheering, and
Speaker 3: then they come over the mic and how long is
Speaker 3: that fish? About one hundred and forty four inches, Okay,
Speaker 3: so about almost twelve feet. That's from the tip of
Speaker 3: the bill to the back of the tail.
Speaker 6: Four I think there was one hundred and twelve from
Speaker 6: the tip of the lower jaw to the fork of
Speaker 6: the tails.
Speaker 4: Got it, but you throw the bill in there, it's
Speaker 4: twelve foot fish.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So then Tommy Bennett gets on the MC and he's
Speaker 3: up there, he's like, well, based off of rule twenty three,
Speaker 3: we're going to looking at disqualifying the fish. And then the.
Speaker 4: Okay, tell me what rule twenty three says.
Speaker 3: Rule twenty three talks about weight alter casecation alteration, yeah, alteration. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So it's more so you know, for situations like the
Speaker 3: Walleye tournament and things of that nature.
Speaker 4: Stuff in marlin yeah or dolphin yeah, yeah, I got you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but uh, none of that occurred. I mean, that's
Speaker 3: not but in one blip of it, it refers to
Speaker 3: IGF rules apply to mutilation, and so that's it's just
Speaker 3: like a very small blip. It's it's like playing Super
Speaker 3: Mario Brothers and you got to go over here or Zelda.
Speaker 3: You gotta go over here and find out what you
Speaker 3: got to do in order to go over here and
Speaker 3: do the thing that you need to do, and it's
Speaker 3: the Big Rock is not an igf A tournament. So
Speaker 3: i g f A is a very strict organization based
Speaker 3: off of world records, and they have tournaments that are
Speaker 3: strictly I GF.
Speaker 4: Well it's IGF A that the ride can't change hands.
Speaker 3: Right, and there's so many different facets of that. You
Speaker 3: can't handline, you can't there's just it's so rigid to
Speaker 3: be able to just pass off this one rule to
Speaker 3: IGFA standards. What it tells me is the Big Rock
Speaker 3: really didn't spend their time with their attorneys to spell
Speaker 3: it out themselves. I mean, it's very easy to take
Speaker 3: the same language and just type it in there instead
Speaker 3: of just being you know, haphazard and saying, oh, well,
Speaker 3: there's two rule books to IGFA, the tournament ones, so.
Speaker 4: They take fish mutilate, fish mutilation, and it's a note
Speaker 4: within the rule about weight alteration. Weight alteration being that
Speaker 4: you've added weight.
Speaker 6: The leadoff of rule twenty three, and the Big Rocks
Speaker 6: rule book is in big bold itals sized letters says
Speaker 6: altercation of weight, and then it goes on down through
Speaker 6: there about how you can't add weight to the fish.
Speaker 6: This you can't put water down at stru can't put
Speaker 6: ice in it.
Speaker 4: That's all Rule twenty three, and then at the.
Speaker 6: Bottom Ashley was referring to it says about mutilation. IGFA
Speaker 6: rule of mutilation and that's about all it says there.
Speaker 6: And you know, did I see a mark on the fish? Yes?
Speaker 3: I did, but.
Speaker 6: Like Ashley said, there was no concern in my mind,
Speaker 6: it was very superficial mark. And I mean people can
Speaker 6: argue I didn't do my homework, I didn't know the rules.
Speaker 6: I've read the rules one hundred times over, backwards forwards.
Speaker 6: I didn't really not have any concern that this was
Speaker 6: going to be a case to disqualify the fish.
Speaker 4: How do you explain the mark on the fish? I mean,
Speaker 4: is it like just is it just objectively true that
Speaker 4: that's a bite mark from a shark? Or is that
Speaker 4: not objectively true.
Speaker 3: I don't know whether it was a short or it
Speaker 3: was a barracuda, or I don't know what it was. Honestly,
Speaker 3: I don't know when it happened. I mean, if I've
Speaker 3: gone back and looked at the footage of watching because
Speaker 3: we had to go pro on the whole time, so
Speaker 3: I've got it on GoPro of him breaching him, you know,
Speaker 3: getting hooked up for the basically the first hour of
Speaker 3: the fight, and we turned it off to save the
Speaker 3: battery because even more so we needed it for landing
Speaker 3: and so watching that fish and based off of where
Speaker 3: the bite or the occurrence happened, it wasn't a detriment
Speaker 3: to its ability to maneuver or fight us. It wasn't
Speaker 3: like there was a dorsal fin missing or a tail missing,
Speaker 3: or it had been bitten in the stomach area where
Speaker 3: it would have caused organic I mean organ issues.
Speaker 4: But you feel that is it certain that the fish
Speaker 4: was we'll use bit, Okay, Is it certain that the
Speaker 4: fish was bit after you hooked it? Based off your
Speaker 4: video evidence there that there's that not even app.
Speaker 3: It's not even absolutely true on it.
Speaker 4: We can't let's say you knew. Let's say let's say it,
Speaker 4: let's say that the fish had been bit before, meaning
Speaker 4: how often have you caught a fish that's scarred up
Speaker 4: from having been bit?
Speaker 3: I mean, it just obviously depends on where you're fishing at.
Speaker 4: But yeah, let me get it. For instance, when we're
Speaker 4: fishing where we fish salmon? Okay, I don't know. One
Speaker 4: in definitely, one, one in six, one and seven have
Speaker 4: some kind of mark from U seals, birds, whatever, right,
Speaker 4: And these are fish that are eating a hook, right, Okay,
Speaker 4: So it's it's it's like it's common that it would happen.
Speaker 4: But I mean, is the nature of the injury such
Speaker 4: that someone would look and say, ah, that there's no
Speaker 4: way that a fish with that mark would have ever
Speaker 4: been in the mood to hit a bait.
Speaker 3: No, nothing has ever been said about that.
Speaker 4: And do the rules say anything about that. You can't
Speaker 4: catch and submit a fish that had had a bad
Speaker 4: thing happened to it in the past.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 3: On the contrary, what it's what they're they're relying to
Speaker 3: on and that where i GFA points that out is
Speaker 3: when it's an competitive advantage for the angler, that basically
Speaker 3: saying that you're not fighting one hundred percent of that fish.
Speaker 3: So to answer your question, you're exactly right. There's nothing
Speaker 3: in there language wise to say that if that fish
Speaker 3: had encountered something minutes before it the bit the hook.
Speaker 3: But we saw no definition normally if it encounters a shark.
Speaker 3: Sharks aren't just you know, hey, I'm gonna eat one bite.
Speaker 4: And then that's what I thought was so puzzling, yeah,
Speaker 4: is why would he if you're bringing a fish up
Speaker 4: inches at a time, how would there be anything and
Speaker 4: you got like a shortfin mako down there there wouldn't
Speaker 4: be no fish.
Speaker 6: They wouldn't.
Speaker 4: That's what.
Speaker 3: That's what.
Speaker 4: That's one thing that puzzled me by is like, how
Speaker 4: would how would the shark ever be like yeah, never mind, Yeah,
Speaker 4: they wouldn't make any sense. Like it's like hanging there right.
Speaker 4: You couldn't ask for a better chance for a shark
Speaker 4: to devower.
Speaker 6: Your freemale like that.
Speaker 4: But the fact that he would just be like, nah,
Speaker 4: that might I had enough energy to nip it, but
Speaker 4: I don't want to eat it just doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3: Right, And that's where we're kind of coming at with it.
Speaker 3: That though IGFA has their rules and I respect them
Speaker 3: ole hardly. I've talked to Zach at IGFA about this
Speaker 3: whole situation and he says, actually, we don't really have
Speaker 3: a dog in the fight because they're not IGFA sanctioned.
Speaker 3: They don't answer to us. They chose to arbitrarily pull
Speaker 3: one of our rules out and reference it. You know,
Speaker 3: that's between you and the tournament.
Speaker 4: But that but the IGFA rule does have language about
Speaker 4: getting mauled by a shark.
Speaker 3: It has about that coming into any counter with marine mammals,
Speaker 3: the propeller of the boat. I mean, it's kind of
Speaker 3: more so back in the day, a lot of people
Speaker 3: would if they couldn't stop a big fish, they'd run
Speaker 3: it over, you know, trying to give a competitive advantage.
Speaker 3: Got it my argument totally beyond a shadow of doubt.
Speaker 3: They have not proved that based off of the mutilation
Speaker 3: rule it has satisfactory persuaded anybody that's been on that
Speaker 3: boat that it gave us a competitive advantage. They want
Speaker 3: to just take the first part of the rule and
Speaker 3: apply it and not give the meaning of the rule merit.
Speaker 3: And so my argument to the Big Rock, and I
Speaker 3: think that this would help every angler out there that
Speaker 3: participates in this one hundred and seventy one boat tournament
Speaker 3: and set a precedent's moving forward to be a leader
Speaker 3: in the industry, is to do away with IGFA reference,
Speaker 3: come up with your own language, and instead of discounting
Speaker 3: a majestic animal that we're encountering and just frivolously throwing
Speaker 3: it away, bring it in, weigh it, hang it, utilize
Speaker 3: it for science like we should for conservation needs, be
Speaker 3: able to utilize it for especially if it's not been
Speaker 3: mutilated to a point where it's edible for human consumers.
Speaker 3: I mean and that in my mind, that would be
Speaker 3: where mutilation would take you too, and discount the fish
Speaker 3: by one hundred you know, make a penalty for it
Speaker 3: for encountering it, not at one hundred pounds or seventy
Speaker 3: five pounds or one hundred and fifty pounds, whatever they feel,
Speaker 3: but get away from the IGFA rules if you're not
Speaker 3: going to encounter all the IGFA rules.
Speaker 4: How many fish historically at this tournament have been pitched
Speaker 4: for this type of violation?
Speaker 3: Realistically, in the past three tournaments, there's been two, I mean,
Speaker 3: the two winning the two potential winning fish have been utilized,
Speaker 3: had to utilize that particular rule that being the top
Speaker 3: dog in ours, and so that's just.
Speaker 4: How much Tell me what was up with the other incident?
Speaker 3: Well, the other instance, it was a record setting fish
Speaker 3: that they say that the top dog had already landed
Speaker 3: the fish. Now, there's no real definition of landed. Some
Speaker 3: people think it's when the bill covered passes the horizon
Speaker 3: of the transommer, your full control of the fish, or
Speaker 3: the fight is over, which is even more ambiguous. That
Speaker 3: they encountered sharks. There was two sharp bites on it
Speaker 3: got numerous news articles talking about the sharp bites on it.
Speaker 3: Plus the guy didn't really have an adoor that was
Speaker 3: satisfactory to pull that fish in there, so they crammed
Speaker 3: in as much of the fish as they could, tied
Speaker 3: a tail rope across of it, and hung it to
Speaker 3: the bridge to bend the fish in half, which it
Speaker 3: said they encountered a lot of the the exhaust heat
Speaker 3: coming in, you know, from the time it was boded
Speaker 3: and brought in, so all that mutilation. Literally that fish
Speaker 3: couldn't hang on its own weight, it was so big.
Speaker 3: But at the mutilation, if you look at them side beside,
Speaker 3: it's you know, it's mutilated. It's not fit for human fish. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and know that fish won the tournament, won the tournament.
Speaker 4: So picture that you had a bunch of with all
Speaker 4: brought classified documents home to their house and then one
Speaker 4: of them got in trouble. Yeah, so imagine that. But like,
Speaker 4: why was that fish?
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, they're trying to say that there was indisputable
Speaker 3: video documentation that that mutilation happened after the fight was
Speaker 3: over and the boat the fish had been boated.
Speaker 4: So they're saying, oh, I got bit by a shark,
Speaker 4: but it got bit by a shark after the bill
Speaker 4: broke the transom.
Speaker 3: Or landed the quote unquote landed.
Speaker 4: But I would see in that case, I would argue
Speaker 4: just putting my argument hat on. In that case, I
Speaker 4: would be like, well, must that have been that landed?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: If it's gitting eaten by shark.
Speaker 3: They on the last interview I did, got asked pose
Speaker 3: the same question. I said, well, guys, I've Marlon fished
Speaker 3: a lot in my day, and I've never come into
Speaker 3: contact with anybody that said, hey, you'll never believe this story.
Speaker 3: We had a landed marlin that jumped in the cockpit
Speaker 3: of the boat, bit the shark, bit the Marlon twice
Speaker 3: and then jumped back overboard. I mean, if it was landed,
Speaker 3: it should have in a situation where a shark wasn't
Speaker 3: available to eat it. So and they won, Yeah, they won,
Speaker 3: and in the past, in the past twenty years.
Speaker 4: But but but on that case, uh, there's no observer
Speaker 4: right right?
Speaker 6: No, they did.
Speaker 3: They polygraph polygraph you guys, they did they polygraphed greg.
Speaker 6: The next morning, would they ask and they had They
Speaker 6: had already made their decision before I even finished.
Speaker 3: The place raft.
Speaker 6: They asked there was It was a long process kind
Speaker 6: of unnerving, you know, they strap you all this stuff,
Speaker 6: and they asked a couple of base questions. Is it
Speaker 6: the month of June? That type of thing. They're all
Speaker 6: yes or no questions. Sure, did anybody, anyone of you
Speaker 6: or your crew knowingly cheat in the Big Rock Tournament
Speaker 6: to alter the weight of your fish? Blah blah blah. No,
Speaker 6: you know, so several questions like that. They did focus
Speaker 6: on the mark on the fish and a few questions.
Speaker 3: Like what.
Speaker 4: When did you become aware?
Speaker 6: Yeah, when did you become aware? Were you aware of
Speaker 6: the uh uh mark on the fish when you first
Speaker 6: put it on the boat? No? You know, and then
Speaker 6: I mean I saw the mark on them again, I
Speaker 6: didn't have much concern that it was going to be
Speaker 6: a problem, you know, no thing with this whole rule. Uh.
Speaker 6: There's been a moratorium on commercial shark fishing for a
Speaker 6: dozen years now, and there are a whole bunch of
Speaker 6: sharks out there, so it's going to get worse and worse.
Speaker 6: And these fish, like we talked about, have a tendency
Speaker 6: to go deep also when they're you guys know from
Speaker 6: your hunting and you're fishing these animals when they're wounded
Speaker 6: or hooked. A fish is hooked, it puts off a signal.
Speaker 4: Oh do they know?
Speaker 6: Man throw the water? So these sharks, it's like bringing
Speaker 6: the dinner bell.
Speaker 4: It's unbelievable. I don't understand how they know about how
Speaker 4: they know there's a fish stressed. Yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker 6: Absolutely. So you're you know, you're talking about your seals
Speaker 6: and stuff out here. You know, we're a little different
Speaker 6: with our with the sharks and stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So that did they wind up getting Did you
Speaker 4: get a certified weight so that this can get sorted out? Yes,
Speaker 4: so they did that. They at least banked a certified weight.
Speaker 3: Six hundred and nineteen point four pounds.
Speaker 4: Okay, they wrote unofficial, but they agreed, like there's there's
Speaker 4: a there's an absolute agreement on what the weight is, right, Okay.
Speaker 3: With respect to this encounter of mutilation, Over the past
Speaker 3: twenty years, there's about eight different cases where the Big
Speaker 3: Rock has allowed four fish that had been had come
Speaker 3: in contact and had been bitten by other fish to
Speaker 3: still hang, to still be weighed, and to still remained
Speaker 3: on the leader board or receive a daily prize. And
Speaker 3: so my argument isn't necessarily directed towards the top dog,
Speaker 3: which everybody's trying to be deal with the comparison because
Speaker 3: it was so recent, But there are plenty of other instances,
Speaker 3: and that's where I really feel like the Big Rock
Speaker 3: can utilize this particular instance to be able to benchmark
Speaker 3: change the rules, change the rules to something that's more
Speaker 3: favorable based on the conditions that we're dealing with these days,
Speaker 3: and be able to archive all the bad decisions that
Speaker 3: they've made in the past in order to be able
Speaker 3: to move forward so that we don't have this controversy anymore. Sure,
Speaker 3: and we're able to utilize the fish. We're not being
Speaker 3: bad stewarts of a resource, and we're able to you know,
Speaker 3: make this tournament better. And I think that that would
Speaker 3: draw more anglers in there where it shows empathy from
Speaker 3: the board, not totalitarian.
Speaker 4: Yep, yep. They got the certified weight the asterisk. But
Speaker 4: but but they can later agree to the certified weight.
Speaker 6: They put unofficial on the board. Yeah, that's another thing
Speaker 6: they didn't Usually they'll put a uh, they pin a
Speaker 6: placard right to the fish with the weight on it.
Speaker 6: We didn't get that, you know, we didn't get any
Speaker 6: of the interviews they normally do.
Speaker 4: Got plenty of interviews.
Speaker 6: Well yeah, one not for you, but.
Speaker 4: So okay that there's there's two remaining things I want
Speaker 4: to talk I want to talk about the what's next?
Speaker 4: Want but I just to get a little bit of
Speaker 4: an understanding. How did how did this based on your perspective,
Speaker 4: how did this spread so much?
Speaker 6: I think the uh, the outrage of the crowd, Like
Speaker 6: I actually said, there's probably twelve thousand people there.
Speaker 4: I mean, and they were on your side, and oh yeah, really.
Speaker 3: Okay, we're going to tear down the gates and start
Speaker 3: a riot. I mean they they had hated me. The
Speaker 3: microphone has said actually we're gonna hang this fish. But
Speaker 3: on the on the consideration that you calmed the crowd.
Speaker 3: And I looked right at Tommy, I said, look, man,
Speaker 3: this is you don't want to hand me that microphone
Speaker 3: right now. I was like this.
Speaker 4: People were like, people were basically this.
Speaker 3: Is bullshit, yes, one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's videos of people they're chating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is ridiculous, and a lot more uncertain terms, huh,
Speaker 3: and I and people that would know what they're talking about, yes,
Speaker 3: And they basically were trying to put us off to
Speaker 3: the next day for the decision, basically for crowd control.
Speaker 3: It had nothing. They had already made their minds up
Speaker 3: of what they were going to do. We had to
Speaker 3: really push the issue to be able to get them
Speaker 3: to hang the fish, to wait to fish, to announce
Speaker 3: the wake. Because they kept telling me Ashley, it's enough wake,
Speaker 3: it's enough weight. I'm like, that's I'm not going to
Speaker 3: go to bed tonight with the idea that it's enough waight,
Speaker 3: And I said. The whole idea of waiting till tomorrow
Speaker 3: to find out how messed up we were the night
Speaker 3: before reminded me of the twenty twenty election dealing with
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. I just I'm sitting here, like, how do
Speaker 3: we find out, you know, with great certainty putting two
Speaker 3: hundred and seventy one boats in limbo the sushi and
Speaker 3: we have no problem with the sushi or any of
Speaker 3: the other you know people that were involved. Our beef
Speaker 3: is not with them. Yeah, it's with the tournament to
Speaker 3: be able to make our our anglers, our tournament better,
Speaker 3: and our community better.
Speaker 4: I don't want to don't don't name the person, but
Speaker 4: is it ultimately is it ultimately at the discretion of
Speaker 4: one individual, or is that the discretion of a panel
Speaker 4: of judges.
Speaker 3: It's a panel of judges. I think there's about forty
Speaker 3: forty people that are on the board of but it's
Speaker 3: where they split. There's a rules committee that's made up
Speaker 3: of a percentage of them that the whole overall board
Speaker 3: is forty. I don't know exactly how many are on
Speaker 3: the rules committee. They would not give me a verdict.
Speaker 3: The only thing that I've heard from the Big Rock
Speaker 3: is two things since this whole thing went down that
Speaker 3: Saturday night. Was one, when I talked to Amory, which
Speaker 3: is the president and the one of the attorneys, Roger Crowe.
Speaker 3: They called me two minutes after Greg was supposed to
Speaker 3: go in for his polygraph tests and to tell me
Speaker 3: that they were disqualifying the fish, which told me that
Speaker 3: they weren't taking any of what Greg was doing over
Speaker 3: there into consideration that there's no way they met.
Speaker 4: It didn't hinge on the results of that polygay exactly.
Speaker 6: They also cut the live streaming feed that they have
Speaker 6: going on, and that was I had several people, man,
Speaker 6: I was watching it on the streaming and all of
Speaker 6: a sudden it just went out, really and they cut
Speaker 6: that on purpose, so that everybody, I mean probably hundreds
Speaker 6: of thousands were watching that live stream and now all
Speaker 6: of a sudden it just got cut off. I had
Speaker 6: people tell me, I'm searching the internet to try to
Speaker 6: find another fee.
Speaker 4: Is it a is there a Is there a appeals
Speaker 4: process and articulated appeals process.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's spelled out in the contract, in the application
Speaker 3: that we all sign, and it basically says, this is
Speaker 3: my second point. I just remember, I'm glad you. It
Speaker 3: says that we have the ability to protest, you know,
Speaker 3: based off of you know, being a member of the
Speaker 3: entry we entered a tournament, and I have filed no
Speaker 3: paperwork of lawsuit.
Speaker 4: You haven't.
Speaker 3: No, this has been totally just about the protest. And
Speaker 3: so the only thing I did was retain counsel to
Speaker 3: be able to help me through the situation, through the
Speaker 3: mediation portion of it. And so, in a knee jerk reaction,
Speaker 3: the Big Rock Committee sends an text message to my
Speaker 3: attorney telling me that I have been barred from any
Speaker 3: Big Rock events moving forward indefinitely because of what because
Speaker 3: I protested a rule that they are that they had.
Speaker 3: All I'm doing is asking for clarification, and so they've
Speaker 3: taken it.
Speaker 4: I could see if you were like storm the gates.
Speaker 3: I'm not been anything like that. On the contrary, I've
Speaker 3: been very accommodating and very proactive.
Speaker 4: You're fighting for your fish, that's right.
Speaker 3: I'm fighting for all the English too. I'm fighting for
Speaker 3: a rule change, not necessarily on my fish, but moving
Speaker 3: forward as one of the situations that we need to
Speaker 3: bring a platform too. But they have barred us from
Speaker 3: the kids Big Rock, which does nothing but cause harm
Speaker 3: to the kids that want to be involved. It's the KWLA,
Speaker 3: our future charters that want to be involved in with
Speaker 3: the Big Rock. I mean, it's just it's almost like
Speaker 3: you're trying to strong arm something. I mean, if they
Speaker 3: felt good enough with their decision that they made that night,
Speaker 3: they should feel real confident that they're going to be
Speaker 3: found in favor and then they'll move on.
Speaker 4: So if I ask them why you were barred, they'd say,
Speaker 4: because you're you're being a sore loser.
Speaker 3: I guess that's the only thing.
Speaker 4: But that's what they'd have.
Speaker 6: In their rules, that there's a provision for protest. I mean,
Speaker 6: we're just following their rule book at this point.
Speaker 3: Man, I don't have people picketing out in front of
Speaker 3: their office. I don't have you know, any negative directed
Speaker 3: towards them personally.
Speaker 4: So they have a rule that you can challenge, and
Speaker 4: you challenge within the rule.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 6: They say, how you have to do it before the
Speaker 6: awards are given out, which actually did to the letter,
Speaker 6: and now before they're even their due process is done
Speaker 6: in their rules with this mediation, they've sent them a
Speaker 6: letter saying that we're no longer allowed to enter any
Speaker 6: you too, Well, I guess I don't know if it's
Speaker 6: the boat, him or me or what. Maybe I need
Speaker 6: to find a new job, huh.
Speaker 3: Ashually, I wouldn't let you job hinge on just that tournament.
Speaker 3: We'll win the next.
Speaker 4: One, man, So if you so, what will happen now?
Speaker 3: Well, we've got mediations starting Thursday morning, and that's going
Speaker 3: to include Big Rock, the Sushi and the second and
Speaker 3: third place boats where we're all going to kind of
Speaker 3: meet and try to try to hash this out and whatnot.
Speaker 4: And are they holding all that jingle and escrow right
Speaker 4: now or have they handed it out?
Speaker 3: Yeah, nothing's been dispersed as far as the funds and whatnot.
Speaker 3: And rightfully, so I mean, I don't think anybody is
Speaker 3: necessarily trying to make their fuel bill off of the
Speaker 3: winnings of that particular tournament, though it would be nice
Speaker 3: to having their account. But I think a week later.
Speaker 6: The people that are giving us backlash, and that is
Speaker 6: a very small minorities. We have an incredible amount of support,
Speaker 6: but the ones that are saying, oh, you're being selfish,
Speaker 6: you're holding out these other people's money, and again, we're
Speaker 6: just following the protocol what is set forth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we've had a lot of people. It was amazing.
Speaker 3: A lot of people didn't think I was going to
Speaker 3: show up to the awards ceremony because of the emotional
Speaker 3: roller coaster of the night before. I'm the type of
Speaker 3: person I'm I'm gonna be there regardless. So I show
Speaker 3: up up and we're going through the wards and everything,
Speaker 3: and they're handing out the checks and whatnot, and they're
Speaker 3: announcing such and such boat won this. Uh is there
Speaker 3: a representative for this boat? Nope? All right, Uh that
Speaker 3: we're gonna be going through this this pretty quick. And
Speaker 3: there was probably about six or seven boats that in
Speaker 3: protests didn't even show up for their own checks. Really
Speaker 3: I've had an outcrying of boat owners and captains come
Speaker 3: up to me and say, look, you know, keep the course.
Speaker 3: You're doing a great job. We had this situation at
Speaker 3: such and such date, and you know, we didn't say anything,
Speaker 3: and it just keeps cropping up, and nobody's really had
Speaker 3: the balls to stand up and say, hey, you know,
Speaker 3: we got a problem here. We need we need to
Speaker 3: correct it and move forward.
Speaker 4: I feel that I don't really know, and this is
Speaker 4: all new to me, and I'm only getting what you
Speaker 4: guys are telling me. But man, I feel like I
Speaker 4: feel if you had if you if you took it
Speaker 4: to it, let's say you had to take it to
Speaker 4: a jury, Okay, a jury of your peers, like in
Speaker 4: different peers. I feel that there would be so many
Speaker 4: areas where you would create like the reasonable doubt around
Speaker 4: even like the sequencing, right, you know, unless you could
Speaker 4: have a bunch of fish experts and physiologists come in
Speaker 4: and say that there's no way that you know, like
Speaker 4: the timeline of stuff, you know. I feel like the
Speaker 4: people would be like, I can't I can't say absolutely
Speaker 4: that that that's it. But but again they're not. That's
Speaker 4: not how they decide there. They don't decide their disputes
Speaker 4: with a jury trial. But like thinking about it in
Speaker 4: that way, I feel that, based on my understanding, if
Speaker 4: it went to a jury, it'd be it'd be very
Speaker 4: hard to deprive you of the win in that scenario.
Speaker 4: To get a unanimous you know what I mean, To
Speaker 4: get twelve people to unanimously degree to kick your fish out,
Speaker 4: it would be a tough I don't think it happened.
Speaker 4: It'd be tough, man. It takes some it takes some
Speaker 4: lawyer in man.
Speaker 3: One thing we can take away is we entered that
Speaker 3: tournament at fifty two five hundred dollars. We put together
Speaker 3: a group of people that have unconditionally supported each other.
Speaker 3: We've fished against all types of opposition, being the omni
Speaker 3: sonar and all the other things. Uh. We fished against
Speaker 3: the world's best fishermen, and by god, we brought the
Speaker 3: biggest freaking fish to the landing. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they can't take that away from us. No, No,
Speaker 4: it's oh so Uh how much would the fish for
Speaker 4: to one three.
Speaker 3: Point around three point five million dollars? The first place
Speaker 3: Sushi only got like two point seven because the fish
Speaker 3: was the two categories that they won were the biggest fish,
Speaker 3: but they didn't qualify. It wasn't over five hundred pounds,
Speaker 3: so they didn't get the Fabulous Fishermen, which was the
Speaker 3: extra three quarters of a million dollars.
Speaker 4: What's uh are you guys friends at that other boat?
Speaker 3: I never met him in my life?
Speaker 4: What's what's that? What's what's that dynamic? If you don't
Speaker 4: want to speak to what that dynamic looks like right now,
Speaker 4: you don't need to.
Speaker 3: We really haven't spoken much much to them, so I
Speaker 3: mean I still hold them in respect of you know,
Speaker 3: where they're at in their position.
Speaker 4: And sure they're in a delicate position to right. Yeah,
Speaker 4: got it? Huh man. I used to think that if
Speaker 4: I was going to go back at the time, I'd
Speaker 4: become a raffle in sweepstakes lawyer. I can't it take
Speaker 4: me a long time to explain my frustrations with raffle
Speaker 4: and sweepstakes law But I feel like I might if
Speaker 4: I went to law school, man might become a fish
Speaker 4: tournament lawyer.
Speaker 6: What's been cool about talking with you too?
Speaker 3: Is?
Speaker 6: Uh? You know what we've done all these I told
Speaker 6: some of my friends, I think I need a press secretary.
Speaker 6: You know, I got all these people, and but it's
Speaker 6: only been little blurbs, and all they want to do
Speaker 6: is talk about the contrary. So what got lost in
Speaker 6: all this is the epicness of catching this fish for
Speaker 6: the last hour of the last day and we're out
Speaker 6: there for six hours and they're just listening back on
Speaker 6: the OC on the radio, you know, and our supporters
Speaker 6: are praying and hoping and rooting for us. And then
Speaker 6: you know, Bailey doing such a great job angling where
Speaker 6: he never really he's fought some big tuna, I think,
Speaker 6: but that's a whole different different way we fight him,
Speaker 6: for sure. Uh. You know, it's just great fish story.
Speaker 6: You know, there's great fish stories out.
Speaker 4: There if you're gonna do a movie, and this is.
Speaker 6: One of them. You know, we went uh what five
Speaker 6: hours into overtime, you know, and probably every other boat
Speaker 6: by that point in the tournament was back in their slip.
Speaker 6: You know, we're the only ones out there. We're still
Speaker 6: we're watching the sun go down, We're still trying to
Speaker 6: get this fish to the surface, you know. So and
Speaker 6: that's kind of what I got lost. What I say
Speaker 6: about them not putting the weight placard on not giving
Speaker 6: us our time on the microphone. At the Big Rock,
Speaker 6: that's all part of the uh. They have this beautiful
Speaker 6: fountain there what hundred pound brass statue of Marlin and
Speaker 6: there's water, and every Big Rock winner has a plaque
Speaker 6: on that fountain.
Speaker 3: The boat dasting granted etched in there.
Speaker 6: We're not going to get that, you know. So and
Speaker 6: it's a huge story. Now. We had a comment. I
Speaker 6: made a comment in one interview that you know, a
Speaker 6: year from now, nobody's gonna care. And and somebody made
Speaker 6: a comment on one of these social media as well,
Speaker 6: you're right, they won't care. All those T shirts are selling,
Speaker 6: it will just be in the thrift stores by then,
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 4: And what are the T shirts?
Speaker 3: The T shirt's just my daughter. I left her in
Speaker 3: charge of She's twelve years old and she has been
Speaker 3: a huge supporter and she loves that boat more than
Speaker 3: any people. And so she came up and she's like, Dad,
Speaker 3: we really need to have a T shirt that says
Speaker 3: Team Sensation People's Champ twenty twenty three Big Rock and
Speaker 3: have the boat on it. I said, you know, girl,
Speaker 3: you've done such a good job and marketing and everything,
Speaker 3: and if you're twelve years old, and if you want
Speaker 3: to do that, by George, We're gonna do it. So
Speaker 3: we have sold almost six thousand T shirts really in
Speaker 3: one week, and we've got a list of more, and
Speaker 3: it's just the outpouring of people's support has just been
Speaker 3: mind blowing. And my daughter right now is now I
Speaker 3: think she could teach a business class because she's got
Speaker 3: she's working off of three different computers, she's got Venmo working.
Speaker 4: She's I'm gonna bring her into my law offer man,
Speaker 4: my fish Turny law fer marketing wing.
Speaker 3: And her name is Bristol Blue. Just as a shot out,
Speaker 3: that's great.
Speaker 4: Well, I'll say this, I hope justice is done, you
Speaker 4: know without like, I'm just not a subject matter expert,
Speaker 4: and to be honest with you, I'm not going to
Speaker 4: go read everything about it. But I mean, like, like
Speaker 4: I said, like if you look at it for me,
Speaker 4: you know, looking at the story, like at just kind
Speaker 4: of when you put a I was exposed to an
Speaker 4: argument the other day and some person in the argument said,
Speaker 4: I'm using common sense? What are you using?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: Taken from that angle, it's it's unfortunate, right, But but
Speaker 4: I realized that that that's not always the measure we
Speaker 4: apply to stuff. So, but if I heard down the
Speaker 4: road you guys want your appeal, I'd feel pretty good
Speaker 4: about it. Yes, without without knowing that you know, I'm
Speaker 4: not the judge, right, I'm not the judge. I'm just
Speaker 4: I'm just a guy listened to a fish story, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we appreciate this opportunity, and you've got a great platform,
Speaker 3: and it's just an honor to be here.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm glad you guys came and told the full story,
Speaker 4: and you're right man like just I mean, just such
Speaker 4: a wild story to hook it.
Speaker 3: And we should get fight at the end of the
Speaker 3: sett and sun.
Speaker 4: You know it's great.
Speaker 6: We should get meat Eater out to the East coast
Speaker 6: and do an episode on the sensation.
Speaker 4: I'd like to well me and Kran. I was telling
Speaker 4: her it wasn't I Kran. Before it even happened. I
Speaker 4: was telling her how if we ought to go down.
Speaker 4: I was telling the Kream, we need to take our
Speaker 4: equipment go down. And she gets bad seasick, she told me. So,
Speaker 4: I don't know what we're gonna do with her, but
Speaker 4: bring her down there and load her up on all
Speaker 4: the bracelets and things behind her ears and whatnot. And uh,
Speaker 4: and we wanted to make like a like an audio
Speaker 4: experience off of Marlin Tournament. That would be cool, it'd
Speaker 4: be fun to do. Well, guys, thanks so much for
Speaker 4: coming out.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: I'll be anxious to see what all happens. And I
Speaker 4: don't think those t shirts are gonna wind up at
Speaker 4: the where they say they're gonna wind up.
Speaker 6: Yeah, at the at the Salvation Army store or something
Speaker 6: like that. People, I can't go on my phone. I
Speaker 6: can't barely scroll because it's ping, ping ping, going to
Speaker 6: the you know sensation. Uh, the Facebook is I mean
Speaker 6: I can't even barely get on my phone to do
Speaker 6: make call my friend or something. Oh really, because there's
Speaker 6: so many messages coming through. If people wanting these shirts
Speaker 6: and stuff, you.
Speaker 4: Know you was all married, yes you want You're not married. No,
Speaker 4: you've been leveraging this for dates and stuff.
Speaker 3: You might as.
Speaker 6: No. I have a beautiful girlfriend. And yeah, she was
Speaker 6: there at the Big Rock Land and I could hear
Speaker 6: her yelling.
Speaker 3: Gregg, I love you.
Speaker 6: So that was pretty cool. Yeah, when we were backing
Speaker 6: in and I'm looking for you know, it was pretty cool.
Speaker 4: Well, like I said, man, I hope justice is served,
Speaker 4: trying to choose my words carefully. I hope justice is served.
Speaker 4: If I hear that you got your money, I'd be tickled.
Speaker 4: So thank you man.
Speaker 7: Thanks coming on, guys, Seal Gray John like silver in
Speaker 7: the sun, Ride ride, ride on alone, sweetheart.
Speaker 8: We're done, beat this damp horse to death, taking a
Speaker 8: new one and ride away. We're done, beat this damn
Speaker 8: horse death. So take a new one and ride on.