In Bermuda, 23 boats headed offshore to compete in the 38th Annual Sea Horse Anglers Club Billfish Tournament. This is the third and final leg of the 2011 Triple Crown series. At 8:10 am, "Fish On" hooked-up to a blue marlin and it seemed that they might release the first blue marlin for the third consecutive tournament, but this time things were different because it was a Monster.
Fish On
While "Fish On" battled away, El Cazador scored the first points with a blue marlin release at 8:49 am. Then "Queen of Hearts" hooked into a big fish at 9:11 am. After a battle of well over an hour, Queen of Hearts had the blue marlin in the boat at 10:31 am, and soon reported short length measurements of 118/64. The big blue marlin subsequently tipped the scales at 560 lbs and was good enough to win the Day One Blue Marlin Jackpot worth $13,933. Congratulations to Capt. Peter Olander and owner angler Walter Cross. These guys have a solid track record of hanging winners, this is the fourth time they have weighed a blue marlin down at Barr's Bay Park in a Triple Crown event. Prior catches included the 728 pounder that won the 2007 World Cup, as well as a 572 pounder that took heaviest blue marlin honors in the 2008 Sea Horse, and a 534 pounder that took a daily in the 2006 Classic.
Meanwhile, Fish On remained locked in battle. Eventually, after over three hours, they had the huge blue marlin on the leader, but it made its escape when things came slack soon after. The team did get the video and points for the release, but this was a very large blue marlin, which they were probably disappointed to lose. Instead of crying about it though, this team got back to business and at 1:51 pm they were hooked-up again; releasing a blue marlin at 2:05 pm. The two blue marlin releases were good enough for Fish On to win the Day One Billfish Release Points Jackpot worth $13,300 - so they pretty much swapped one daily for another, a nice consolation and they sit in first place at the end of Day One. It is also the second release daily that Fish On has won in this year's Triple Crown Series.
Uno Mas also released two blue marlin, which is very significant in the Triple Crown series standings as it elevates them from 3rd place with 2,200 points, up into the overall lead with 3,200 points - five hundred ahead of Sea Toy and six hundred ahead of the defending Series champion Click Through.
On Day One, there was also blue marlin releases recorded for Rameseas
and Over Budget, and a white marlin release for Georgie Girl.
The tally for Day One is 1 blue marlin boated, 7 blue marlin released and a white released.
