Ouch! Great article from GrindTV. The disappointment for this team must be off the charts. You think Carl is wishing he could of thrown a little more mustard into it??? It's a shame this 800 pound beast isn't with us anymore and the boys lost a huge payday by 9 minutes
Eight large marlin were weighed Wednesday, for considerable riches, during the first day of the three-day Bisbee's Black & Blue jackpot tournament off Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
But what does not show in the standings was by far the largest marlin, an 800-pound beast, that took five hours to land and was brought to the scale nine minutes past the 9 p.m. deadline, disqualifying a catch that would have netted a team from Texas more than $430,000.
What's more disappointing for Team Great Escape is that if no other team beats that weight during the remainder of the competition -- and marlin that large are rarely caught off Cabo San Lucas -- the catch would have been worth $1 million or more.
"I'm not in that good of shape. I should have worked out," Carl, the angler who fought the blue marlin, told a Pisces Sportfishing representative during the late weigh-in. "I just want a massage and to go to bed."
The fishermen, who comprise one of 103 teams vying for more than $2 million in prize money, were aware that a 599-pound marlin, caught earlier Wednesday aboard the vessel Reelaxe, was the fish to beat when the 800-pounder struck a large lure being trolled behind the boat.
It was about 3 p.m. and the team was more than 20 miles north of Cabo in the Sea of Cortez. Time should not have been a factor but Riley and the crew did not count on the marlin dying at great depth during the fight. Because the person fighting the fish cannot accept assistance from teammates, Riley was saddled with the task of reeling in 800 pounds of dead weight against an opposing current, and many times felt like giving up.
When the marlin was finally aboard, the team had only an hour to get back in the darkness. Word had spread of the giant marlin coming to shore and about 1,000 people gathered around the dock-side scale. Tournament director Wayne Bisbee was among those on the dock, official time piece in hand.
"We willed them to go faster and imagined we would see their lights at any second," wrote Ehrenberg, whose business charters the Great Escape. "But it was not to be. The 9 p.m. deadline came and the fish was disqualified. The boat came into view nine minutes after 9 to everybody's dismay.
The Bisbee's competition, which attracts anglers from around the world, is in its 30th year and famous for producing drama and controversy. Epic battles between man and fish have raged long into the darkness. Accusations of cheating have flown, and because of the amount of money involved, winning teams must pass lie-detector tests to determine if all rules were followed. One of many classic stories involved an angler who failed the test, became belligerent and smashed the windows of the hotel that served as tournament headquarters.
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