Phil Heasley with his winning white marlin. Photo courtesy White Marlin Open The 43rd Annual White Marlin Open finished up in Ocean City, MD, on Friday, August 12 after five days of fishing. 329 registered boats caught a record 1,412 billfish, 1,358 of which were white marlin, reinforcing Ocean City's long held title as the "White Marlin Capital of the World." Of the 1,358 that were caught, 1,334 were released in this tournament that promotes billfish conservation. Other Awards:
  • WMO Top Boat Award: Bullwinkle out of Dover, DE, with a three-day total of 1890 points which represented 27 white marlin releases spread between five anglers.
  • WMO Angler of the Year (presented to the individual who caught and released the most billfish in a field of more than 2,500): Marc Verzaleno from Mountain Lakes, NJ, who released 11 white and one blue marlin while fishing aboard the Reel Steel for 945 points.
But the big winner of the day was Phil Heasley with a 76.5-pound White Marlin, winning him a record payout of $2,818,660. According to the White Marlin Open Daily Catch Report:
All the stars had to be aligned for Phil Heasley and the Kallianassa (both from Naples, FL), to win over $2.8 plus million for catching a marlin. First, they would need to enter all of the white marlin divisions including the $5000 and $10,000 winner take all levels. Next, they would have to catch a qualifying white marlin, which they had much less control over but succeeded by Tuesday. Third, they would have to be the ONLY qualifying white marlin which they had absolutely no control over. They covered their part and fate did the rest. No other white marlin qualified so Kallianassa took first, second, and third place money for every white marlin category which equaled more than $2,400,000. But fate had one more surprise. There was one more pool (Level D), that held $460,000 to be divided equally between white marlin and blue marlin winners in Level D. The Get Reel wasn’t entered in the Level D division but the Kallianassa was. So in addition to the ice cream, syrup and whipped cream, the Kallianassa gets the $460,000 cherry on top. " Courtesy White Marlin Open