Hamilton, Bermuda
Saturday - 10 AM Atlantic Daylight Time
Whew! What drama! If we had written a script to make the first day of the Bermuda Big Game Classic as exciting as it could possibly be, it would have read exactly like today's reality.
Over the course of the BBGC's first day, 18 boats raised 25 blue marlin and 2 white marlin. Particularly impressive fact number one: No one raised anything before 11 AM so all 27 fish showed themselves in five hours.
The day wound down towards lines out at 4 PM. The crew of Chaos held a solid lead with their two releases. Tournament Control had made the lines-out warning announcements at 15 minutes left and 10 minutes left. With just seven minutes left, Capt. Alan Card called in a hook-up on Challenger. One minute later, he called in a second hook-up. Challenger began fighting a double-header just before lines out.
 "We hooked up in 83 fathoms (about 500 feet). We tagged and released Fernando's (Viscarrondo) smaller, first fish fairly quickly. Then Alberto (Ruiz) started on his fish which proved to be the much larger of the two," says Card. "We weren't far offshore and that fish took off for the shallows. We got into 10 fathoms (60 feet) of water and I could see the fish on the bottom. The line went straight down but we couldn't raise this one off the bottom. It had actually wedged itself into a hole!"
Ruiz, of Odessa, Florida, eventually managed to work that fish out of the hole and alongside, only to discover that this fish could possibly top the unique tournament minimum weight of 500 pounds by a sizeable margin.
All the other boats heard that Card planned to bring a fish to the dock at Barr's Park. Every captain, mate and angler made it to the party to watch this fish get weighed.
Weighmaster Raul Miranda hooked the certified electronic scale to the crane hook. The crowd pushed against the seawall to get a look at the giant laying in the cockpit of Challenger. The crane swung its arm over, carefully threading its way around outriggers and rod tips and lowered the tailrope down to the crew of Challenger. As the crane hoisted the fish tail-first out of the cockpit and up to ground level, the crowd gasped and cheered at the sight. Certainly this fish would qualify.
 Miranda steadied the fish and carefully read the digital scale display. "Six hundred and 46 pounds exactly!" shouted Miranda over the crowd's din. The crew of Challenger jumped for joy. Ruiz, Card and the rest joined the fish on the dock for photos of the historic moment. Then, without warning, the crew threw Ruiz and Viscarrado into the harbor.
Day Two
The bite started much earlier this morning. The infamous Capt. Ron Schatman was the angler aboard Capt. John Whiting's Bermuda Banger on a big blue marlin that struck just 14 minutes after lines in at 8 AM. Unfortunately, the fish spit the hook about 10 minutes into the fight. A few minutes later, Concubine's Capt. Tim Hyde called in a hook-up by Charles Schultz. At 10 AM Schultz was still fighting the behemoth blue. Equalizer also hooked up at 9:44 AM and angler James Kite was holding on to that fish at this report. Overproof's Paul Rowan boated a small wahoo -- the first of the tournament, then immediately hooked into a blue marlin which he still fought at report time.
Hamilton, Bermuda
Saturday - 4 PM Atlantic Daylight Time
 Concubine's Capt. Tim Hyde called in a hook-up by Charles Schultz at 10 AM. Less than an hour later, Hyde informed Tournament Control that he had a big fish aboard that came up expired. "Rather than just discard it, I'm going to bring it in rather than waste it," said Hyde. Capt. Hyde obviously forgot that if his fish passed muster at 500 pounds, it would qualify for the daily jackpot of over $10,000.
Equalizer also hooked up at 9:44 AM and angler James Kite managed to release a blue marlin a mere 18 minutes later.
Challenger -- the tournament leader with 1,146 points, called in yet another blue marlin hookup. In a tragic scenario, Challenger brought their blue alongside and had a legal release in every aspect, save one; they didn't get a release photo! No doubt foul language and a few tears followed the message from Dan Jacobs in Tournament Control: "Sorry, guys. The fish doesn't count."
 The weigh-in team met at Barr's Park to greet Concubine just around lunchtime. Capt. Tim Hyde backed Tony Martino's Hatteras 70 up to the seawall and the crane -- with the electronic scale attached -- carefully hoisted a big blue out of the cockpit. Everyone waited to see how close its weight would come to Challenger's 646-pounder. As the scale reading settled down, Weighmaster Raul Miranda smiled brightly. "Six hundred and twenty-eight pounds!" Certainly enough to take the daily jackpot and move Concubine into third place.
Overproof called in another hookup at 3:03 PM. At lines out at 4 PM, they still had the fish on and everyone waited to hear their report with bated breath. After all, if big enough, it could take the daily jackpot away from Concubine. And in today's 12- to 15-foot seas, Overproof's 31 feet means that they're working hard just to hold on, let alone catch a big blue marlin.
Breaking news! Overproof boated a blue "well over 500 pounds" and could conceivably bump Concubine. Tune in later to see how much it weighed.
Status at the end of Day 2 hit the leader board as follows:
|
| 1st Place |
Challenger with 1,146 points |
| 2nd place |
Chaos with 1,000 points |
| 3rd place |
Concubine with 628 points |
| 4th place |
Equalizer with 500 |
| 5th place |
De Mako with 500 |
|
