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“Weigh that fish!”
The crowd shouted as the massive blue marlin swung on the hook.
Judges and fishing enthusiasts stared at the catch, waiting for the end of the 65th Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament in Morehead City, N.C., this weekend. It took the crew of the Sensation more than six hours from hooking the marlin to bringing it onboard their vessel. It unofficially weighed 619.4 pounds, which would have clinched the tournament and $3.5 million in prize money – $2.77 million for winning the competition and $739,500 for bringing in this year’s first catch over 500 pounds.
Tournament officials normally announce a weight soon after a team comes back on shore. On Saturday night, they paused. Bite marks had put the prize in jeopardy.
“Okay, guys. Let’s talk about the rules here for a second,” said emcee Tommy Bennett, whose remarks were live-streamed by organizers. “It would appear that this fish has been bitten by a shark.”
It took longer than a second to come to a final ruling, but on Sunday morning, tournament officials officially disqualified Sensation’s fish due to the chunk missing from the marlin. The International Game Fish Association says a fish is ineligible to win if there is “mutilation to the fish, prior to landing or boating the catch, caused by sharks, other fish, mammals, or propellers that remove or penetrate the flesh,” according to the rule Big Rock cited.
