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Thursday, July 10, 2008

Bay Point Billfish Competitors Battle the Same Obstacle?

PANAMA CITY BEACH- “This is our premiere event. This is our super bowl. For me, the Bay Point tournament is my premiere tournament,” said Traders Hill Captain Marlin Land.

Yes, this is the tournament of all tournaments for Panama City Beach native Marlin Land, captain of Traders Hill, the boat that is a one time champion here at Bay Point.

Land has been competing in this tournament for the last 12 years, but the 25th addition of the tournament brings a new look his way.

This year the blue marlin category will be catch and release.  Boats will have to have video verification of the catch for the judges to review.

Land isn’t too sold on the concept.

“I think it is a little soon to have it. They are going to give us the amount of points for a blue marlin release, 600 points if we release a blue marlin. If we fight a blue marlin for four hours and he’s 500 pounds, a boat could catch two smaller ones and get more points than us. The format is new, it may need to be adjusted some, but we’ll work through it and it’s all about the catch and release and protecting the fish,” said Land.

The new format means that the crowd won’t be able to watch a blue marlin being weighed in on the scale, but they can still see the videos.

To watch a video of a marlin, the boats have to catch them, and all crews have different methods of doing so.

“We cover a spread of plastic lures and lure from natural bait. We troll from six and a half knots to seven, eight, or nine knots and cover a large area and when we troll, if we can’t find the water, we’ll try to cover a large area. When we find an area where there is bait or something, we’ll switch it up, go to live bait or change our tactics,” said Land.

While many of the boats will be using different tactics to try and catch the big one, they’ll all be battling the same problem, and no not the currents or the fish, but the price of fuel.

“This boat, I put 14-thousand dollars in fuel two weeks ago and came home and put another 6,000 in it at Treasure Island just to top it off. It holds four thousand gallons of fuel,” Land stated.

“It just cost two thousand dollars to fill the boat up, and we have to go out and come back and pay another two thousand just to go back down to Clearwater when the tournament is done. So it is hefty duty,” said Cabo Loco owner Craig Joy.

The headaches the price of fuel creates for these boat owners doesn’t end at the pump, the effects keep on trickling down.

“With fuel costs we are going to go slower and stay a lot closer this year. Your fuel costs can offset your winnings a lot of the time,” said Land.

“It has played a significant role in it. I don’t fish as many tournaments as I used to. I think you’ll find that there are a lot of boats that aren’t going to fish as many tournaments as they used to fish,” said Joy.

Scales open up for the first session of Weigh-ins Friday night starting at 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. at the Bay Point Marina.

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