While the United States was busy hosting the World Cup and soccer fans from across the globe were going nuts over Waffle House, Buc-ees, free refills and air-conditioned stadiums, there was another World Cup going on in fishing locales around the globe.
The winner-take-all Blue Marlin World Cup is held each year on July 4. Entrants fish for 8 hours in their chosen time zone and 500 certified pounds is the minimum weight for a fish to qualify. A bonus for our area is that the Gulf Cup coincides with the World Cup. Entrants can win one or both, meaning a boat may have the heaviest fish in the Gulf but still get bested in the World Cup by a heavier fish caught elsewhere.
Tournament manager Robert “Fly” Navarro said 148 boats fished this year chasing top honors and a purse around $575,000. Ten boats also fished the Gulf Cup this year releasing several blues with no qualifiers, meaning the Gulf Cup purse will roll to 2027. The World Cup winner this year was a 653-pound fish caught out of Cape Verde by Bad Company.
I’ve been fortunate the last two years to fish aboard The Edge, a 60-foot Spencer owned by my good friend Trey Brown and captained by Chris Wood. Capt. Ray Peterson and mates Danny Kollwitz and Wes Thompson round out the crew.
Game changer
Not long ago, boats pulled a wide array of lures, teasers and dredges. Structure, current changes, bottom contours, rips, sea temperatures and other factors were figured into the decision on where and how to fish and really still is today. “Hours of boredom, interrupted by minutes of chaos” was a common phrase since that was basically what took place until a fish came into the spread.
Omni-directional sonar (ODS) has since changed the game. ODS is used to find and track fish, enabling the boat to position itself to put a bait “on top of the fish.” Think forward-facing sonar on steroids. It’s so effective that many tournaments now have rules governing its use or have started non-sonar divisions.
Bait and equipment
With Capt. Wood at the helm and Capt. Peterson running the ODS, tuna silhouettes trailed by squid daisy chains as teasers are pulled. Baits are live blackfin tuna “bridled” to 12/0 snelled circle hooks. Tiagra 80s and bent butt rods completed the setups. The tuna are kept in high flow livewells called tuna tubes with individual tunas placed nose down in the vertical tubes. They are deployed when a fish comes up.
In 2025, we fished the Atlantis platform off the mouth of the river in 7,000 feet. Though we didn’t catch a qualifier, we still had a banner day releasing three 500-pound fish before noon. Several other fish were caught in that area. According to Capt. Wood, it and other rigs are billfish hotspots and can get busy during tournament season. Trey Brown and his daughter Emerson brought an over 450-pound fish in from there in 2024.
This year, we fished the Magnolia and Auger platforms southwest of where we fished last year. The conditions looked a little better with less competition. We also heard a blue in the 650-pound range was tagged and released a few days before in the Garden Banks to the north. Bricelynn Faucheux, aboard the Pier Pressure 65 owned by her stepfather, Chris Vincent, was the lucky angler.
The thrill of the chase
Despite our best efforts and great conditions, we just couldn’t pull it all together this year. We marked several fish and had one that whacked the bait pretty hard but avoided the hook. It’s all part of marlin fishing, and there will be plenty of days when it just doesn’t happen. But when it does, it’s a kick. The captain calling out the fish, the whirring of the teaser reels, the whistling of the turbochargers and the reel screaming as the fish makes a run never gets old. Getting soaked backing down on a fish and catching a whiff of the diesel exhaust are all good things, at least to our crew, and I doubt we’re alone.
