Fair Weather And Following Seas

A fishing tournament where a two-minute mistake can erase millions, a one-pound difference can decide a fortune, and the docks feel like the Super Bowl is not a metaphor in Ocean City, Maryland. We dig into the White Marlin Open, the week every August when Harbor Island turns into a live-action scoreboard and the whole town seems to hold its breath waiting for the next boat to clear the bridge and hit the scales. 

We walk through the real story behind the hype: how the tournament started, why transparency and strict enforcement are the backbone of the event, and how the entry tiers and species categories turn offshore skill into a high-stakes gamble. We also get into the parts that surprised us, like how rules and minimum sizes function as conservation tools, how catch-and-release is incentivized, and how partnerships like the Billfish Foundation support serious research into billfish migration. 

Then there’s the community angle that doesn’t get enough attention. Thousands of pounds of fish move from weigh-ins to the Maryland Food Bank and local organizations, plus new charity-focused entries that push money back into the region. Add in celebrity anglers like Michael Jordan showing up with Catch 23, and you’ve got a cultural event, not just sport fishing. We even drop a Gen X diary flashback about seventh grade, the Milky Way, and a falling star, because that’s how this show works. 

Subscribe, share with a friend who loves a good long-shot story, and leave a review if you want more deep dives into the stuff that shaped us. What would you do if your payday came down to one pound?

Transcript

Crafting, Cats, And Missed Fortunes

SPEAKER_03 0:31

Welcome to Like Whatever, a podcast for, by, and about gen X. I'm Nicole, and this is my BFFF, Heather. Hello. Yeah. So, yeah, I know. I was trying to like. I didn't do any. I've been doing my cross stitch. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

That's pretty much it. Yeah. I fucked it up.

SPEAKER_03 0:52

Nice. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to see.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

Okay. I need a lamp. I think I need a lamp. Or then maybe I should invent, like I should look and see. Do they have like an embroidery hoop that's lit? Do you think? And if they don't. That's mine. Don't anybody think that. With like a book light on it or something? Yeah. I guess I'm gonna be inventing things later today.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

You've been trying to invent something the whole time I've known you.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Look, if we had invented the thing I wanted to invent how many 30 fucking years ago, we'd be rich. The beach chair. The beach chair. I know. God damn it. Now they have it. I know. And they have a bed. Mm-hmm. My idea was she was pregnant and whined and cried all the time because she couldn't lay on her stomach. And I said, Well, we should invent a beach chair that has a belly area that you can lay on your belly. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:47

And the spandex that the belly sits in. Yeah. Because your Jessica, your sister, used to dig holes in the sand for me so I could lay on my stomach. And my stomach was in the sand. She loved that. It was so comfortable on my back. Oh my gosh. I bet.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

See, a chair. And then and then what happens? Like 10 years later, somebody invented the chair. They did.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

God damn it.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

I know.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

I'm pretty sure you even ordered like that kit to invent things. I did. Yeah, I thought so. I did. Yeah, that's about as far as we got. Yep. I'd be rich right now.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

So many reasons why I would be rich. So many things. Yeah, yeah, that is true. I didn't do that. Shut up. Yeah. Yeah. I was big into the stock market around the time Amazon was coming up.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

You were. And you cashed in good money. I did, but I bought AOL stock. But you could have cashed in way more. Way more.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

I cashed it in too soon. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

So we're in my life. I mean, I did make $20,000 in a year off that stock. You did. But then it split seven times, and like three years later, what I had would have been worth like seven million dollars. Yes, that is correct. Yeah. Mm-hmm. If I don't have that, nor do I have the $20,000. There's nothing to show for it at all.

SPEAKER_03 3:13

Yeah. I've pretty much just been working. Yeah. Playing with my kitten. Yeah. How's your kitten doing? She's awesome. Yeah. My hands are super scratched out. Of course, kittens are jerks. I know. I feel like I have to tell people all the time that I have a kitten because I look like I came out of a slasher movie.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

Yeah. Kittens are tiny jerks. They are, but they're so cute. No, they're not. They have to be that cute so you don't kill them. She's so cute. She goes to the vet tomorrow. Kittens. I got a cat that just decides that he's gonna scream. Because he doesn't realize I'm in the house. Oh yeah. He sits by the door and waits for me to get home. And then when I take the dog out, when I come, well, he carries the dog's leash around crying, like I'm gonna take him out, which he would hate it out there. But he cries if he doesn't realize I'm there. Like if I go to bed and didn't tell him as if I have to tell him, he just screams at the side until I'm like, oh my god, and I say his name and he's like, What? Oh, there you are. Yeah, it's super annoying. That's precious. It's not, it is I have like a love-hate relationship with cats because I am a sucker for animals, and they just keep finding me and I can't make them not live there. I get it. Yeah, I just have like a okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

We live here together.

unknown 4:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:52

I did celebrate my daughter's birthday on Sunday. Yeah. We went out to dinner. I grabbed. I saw. Show me. I stalked. I stalked you. I was like, what?

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Yeah, it came up that it had you had like a 50-mile or like a 50 minute drive, and I was like, what the hell is she driving 50 minutes for? And then I was like, oh yeah. It's her daughter's birthday.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

Yep. So that was yeah, that was really fun. Good. Next one is my other daughter on Monday.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Oh yeah, Monday.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

And then my son on Thursday.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

You like to cram, you crammed them all in there. I did.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

I did.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Crammed them all in August.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

Yeah. Smart thinking. It's genius to be pregnant, get nine months pregnant on the hottest month of the year. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Three times.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

Yeah. So that was a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

We should get their birthdays all right together.

SPEAKER_04 5:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:52

Uh I don't think I have anything else. Okay. Okay. I guess we'll

Where To Follow And Email Us

SPEAKER_03 5:56

move on then. But before we do, like, share, rate, review.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:01

Find us wherever you listen to podcasts. Yeah. We are on all the socials at like whatever pod. We have a website, likelyverpod.com. We do. And you can email us at uh likwhateverpod at gmail.com. Yes, you can.

Why The White Marlin Open Hooks Us

SPEAKER_03 6:17

All right.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

So this week is um my selfishness. It's not really Gen X. It is. I can shoehorn it in there as Gen X. But um it is I find it fascinating. And none of you else will because it's a local event. And whatever. I don't give a shit. Just turn it off and listen next week. I mean, she does have her little uh I do have the diary today. So you're gonna get a diary entry. I don't know. Who knows when I'm gonna put that in there? So I guess you're gonna have to listen. Or keep shuffling it forward. Uh-huh. But I think you might, if you want to know anything about the area here, if you're ever like, where do they live? What is happening on the East Coast? I'm gonna tell you. So let's walk around and find out about the White Marlin open. God, I was so hoping that's what you were gonna say. Yay! Happening right now.

SPEAKER_03 7:21

I know another year. I'm missing it. I went like five or six years ago. I met one of the guys from Deadliest Catch. I have my picture with him. I just showed it off to somebody recently. Yeah. And and every year, like I follow them on Facebook, so I always know it's coming. And then it's like in the middle of it when I'm like, oh shit, it's happening right now.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Yeah.

Ocean City Origins And Assateague

SPEAKER_02 7:40

There's been like, okay, so if you don't, I'm I'm gonna explain the whole thing, but I my attachment to it is a because it's here. Right. Um, I have never fished the ocean. I've been in the ocean, but I've never fished in the ocean. Um, I used to fish all the time when I was a kid. I know you fished. Um, fishing is kind of a thing here. What happens when you have an ocean and a bay and ponds and streams and my uncle loved to fish. My grandfather loved to fish. Um, I had a lot of very good memories with my grandfather in fishing. We he his boat was like his pride and joy. And he did fish the white marlin oven once. All he wanted to do was catch a marlin. They got it all the way up to the boat, and it broke the line when it got up to the boat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:33

So sad. I'll have to I can't even imagine what that felt like.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

I'll have to send the picture because my dad and my grandpa. It's just my mom has one, my dad has one. Um, like when I was a kid, we used to go down to the you can watch the the docks. You go down to the docks and they bring the fish in and they weigh them, and now it's it's uh a whitemarlinopen.com, I think is they have a marlin can where you can watch the whole thing live, which I have it set right now. I don't have it on, but it's and you might not find it exciting, but I have a fun story later about how it was super exciting. One year, like edge of your seat, exciting. Um, so for more than half a century, the White Mylon Open has drawn anglers, dreamers, and spectators to the sun-bleached docks of Ocean City, Maryland, transforming a small barrier island resort town into the sporting world's most unlikely theater of fortune. Uh the White Drawing on a tournament records, press accounts, and firsthand accounts spanning five decades. It's not merely a fishing contest, but a living cultural institution that binds community commerce, conservation, and the uh the human appetite for one more cast into the deep. And it's currently happening right now. Um, a friend of mine actually, as of today is Wednesday, as of today, which they haven't, they just opened the scale, so I don't know, but he is in first place in the Mahi Mahi category. I grew up with him.

SPEAKER_03 10:16

Ahi Mahi are so crazy looking. They are, they're very pretty. They are, but in real life, like they're so big. They're yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

They're weird, they're weird looking. Um, every great story begins with the act of nature, and the story of Ocean City, Maryland is no different. On a warm August night in 1933, a powerful nor'easter drove a wall of surf across the narrow barrier island that separates the Atlantic Ocean from Cinepux at Bay. By morning, the storm had punched a permanent inlet through the island, and the geography of the Maryland coast was forever changed. What might have seemed like a disaster was in retrospect an act of destiny because that new channel gave fishing boats a protected, navigable passage to the open sea, and it set the stage for everything that followed.

SPEAKER_03 11:04

I did not know that.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Yeah, that's how the inlet in New River became one too. Very cool. Or was that 62? No, I think I'm sorry. Anyway. So if you don't know, a barrier island is an island that sits in front of the mainland and it protects the mainland from storm surge, etc. And the inlet separates now, separates Asteteague Island, which is where the ponies live. And if you ever have never heard of our ponies, one just got hit by a car the other day and died. Yeah, it wasn't the poor. Normally I'm like, these fucking tourists and their fucking cars, but this time it wasn't actually the guy's fault.

SPEAKER_03 11:43

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 11:44

Yeah, he was not even going 25. And it kind of he let one go through and then he let one, he saw one and it passed, and he didn't see the other one, and it came running out and he hit it and killed it. Yeah, and it was one of the younger ones, too. Anyhow. Um, there's Acetague Island, which is in two states, Maryland and Virginia. The Maryland side, their ponies run free, and um they have minimal contact with them. The Virginia side, theirs are um kept on their end and are looked after by the Shinkatig volunteer firemen who last week, I think it was, had the pony swim and they swim them and they auction them off, and then they swim them back over, and they have a whole herd and they take care of the herd and da da da.

SPEAKER_03 12:32

Yep. I was just in acetigue a few years ago.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

I fucking love acetigue.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

It's so cool. Like you're just driving and there's a horse laying on the shoulder, just chilling, taking a nap.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

It's very beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

It is.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Um, it's a beautiful national park and a state park.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

There's two it's a federal park, yep. And state the state. So it costs like 25 bucks to get in there, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

But you can camp right on the beach there.

SPEAKER_03 12:55

I camped in Shinkatig in my 20s.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

Yeah. And Astig, you can you go on the oversand part, and if you go way down, like where the drive on the you go way, way down. They have but they have uh camping there. Oh, okay. But it's it's a very cool island. Um, there is a road on it that is all crumbled up that used to be they were gonna develop it, and then they changed uh a hurricane or something, took it all out, and they were like, never mind. But we have wild ponies, they're pretty cool. They are. Um the promise was apparent almost immediately. A reporter for the Baltimore Sun visiting the fledgling resort town just two years later, surveyed the possibilities with the optimism of someone who could smell salt air and opportunity in equal measure. He predicted in print a rosy future as a center for sport fishing. He was not wrong. What he perhaps could not have predicted was the scale, the millions of dollars, the hundreds of thousands of anglers, the presidential proclamations, and the global television audience that would once one day be drawn to that sliver of Maryland shoreline. The earliest pioneers of ocean city marlin fishing were brothers Jack and Paul Townsend, who had heard rumors of white marlin running just offshore and went looking for them in 1934. Unsatisfied with what they knew, they traveled south to Bimini in the Bahamas, where they the sport had already taken root, and they studied the technique of experienced marlin captains with the seriousness of graduate students. They returned to Ocean City with legendary Captain Bill Hatch, outfitted their cruiser, a boat they had christened the Jackpaw, in combination of their own names, with outriggers and heavy tackle, and in August 1935, they brought four white marlin through the stormborne inlet, four fish, but they might as well have carried back four pieces of the future. What followed those early catchers was a gathering momentum that the Townsends could scarcely have imagined. On July 29th, 1939, they had a fleet of Ocean City captains made history by landing 171 marlin in a single day. The largest single-day billfish catch ever recorded. Word spread, the sporting press took notice, and ten days later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, himself an avid outdoorsman, came to Ocean City after spending a great day of marlin fishing aboard the presidential yacht Potomac. In a gesture as casually as it was consequential, he bestowed upon the town the title that it carries to this day, the White Marlin Capital of the World. That title, born of a president's afternoon on the water, has proven more durable than most political proclamations. It's still painted on signs, menus, repeated in the proud introduction of every captain who's ever pointed a bow towards the Gulf Stream from the Ocean City Inlet. The Ocean City Marlin Club, formed in 1936, began keeping careful catch records that would become the backbone of the sport's local history. By the late 60s, seasonal white marlin captures were routinely topping 2,000 fish, numbers that signaled not just abundant wildlife, but a community increasingly organized around the pursuit of

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Trauma

SPEAKER_02 16:08

it. The opening of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in 1952 changed the math of access, suddenly bringing Ocean City within comfortable driving distance of Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and unleashing a tide of road trippers who would discover the inlet, the charter boats, and the salty romance of offshore fishing, as well as destroying everything in their path on the way here. We call them bridge crossers. And that fucking bridge is awful.

SPEAKER_04 16:42

It's terrible.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

There's even like shows about how awful that bridge is. It's like one of the most feared bridges in the country. And it's not even really that long.

SPEAKER_03 16:52

It's just it's a death trap.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

It's awful.

SPEAKER_03 16:55

I don't understand how it just continues to be like that, and nobody does anything about it. Like I it blows my mind. Did you see the dude jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge last week? Butt naked with a makeshift um parachute. But he survived.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

You will not survive jumping off the Chesapeake paper. It's just a horror. I hate I fucking hate that bridge. Coming back isn't as bad. Of course, this was just when it had the ones band, so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:25

Because the coming back side has railing that could actually protect you from falling off the side.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

The side is not as tall and it doesn't have that huge hair pin turn and the head. Yes. They have a service that you can call and they will drive you over the bridge. That's how fucking bad the thing is. I swear if they just opened a ferry, people would use the fucking ferry.

SPEAKER_03 17:46

Why don't they? I don't know. You build a dock and you buy a boat. Like, how hard is it? What did you do before? You had to have a ferry there. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

I would totally ferry that. I would 100%. I don't care how much the ferry costs. I would take it to avoid that bridge. I don't I don't go to DC. Like, there's so many things cool happening in DC, and I just don't go because of that fucking bridge. I'm like, I'll just go next time when somebody else drives. I hate that thing. And the worst part about here's the worst part about it, guys. So it's two spans. One span is three lanes. The other span is two lanes. So the eastbound span is three lanes. Except sometimes they open one lane to go the other way.

SPEAKER_03 18:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

So one way, no, it's the westbound span. It's westbound. So one t sometimes they have two lanes going westbound and one lane going eastbound.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

So you're driving on a death trap into oncoming traffic.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

There's no no wall, nothing. No, it's just lines and little tiny lights that have an X that say, don't drive on this lane. Yeah. Because cars are coming. Yeah. It's so stupid.

SPEAKER_03 18:55

It is. Tractor trailers just fall off the side on the side.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

All the time. Ugh.

SPEAKER_03 19:00

It's scary.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

There's no, there's no side. I mean, it has sides, but you can see through the sides come up to like my knee.

SPEAKER_03 19:05

Yeah. Like they're not going to stop me going 60 miles an hour in my car.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

They don't stop nothing. No. And it's, I think it's three miles.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

I think so, yeah. Yeah, it isn't very long, but it feels like it takes forever.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

Or on it forever. And then sometimes traffic, there's so much traffic that goes back and forth because it does take people from it's the direct route from Washington, DC. It's Route 50, which Route 50 starts in Ocean City and ends in Sacramento, California. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:35

My scariest well the time I was most fearful, the trauma that I think of when it comes to that bridge.

SPEAKER_04 19:42

Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

When my kids were little, I homeschooled them. And I was, I had created back then, it was the Yahoo Groups, and I created a um field trip group, and all the homeschool moms belonged to the group, and I would plan field trips and we would go. So we had planned a trip over to the Maryland Renaissance fair one year. And you know me in directions. I have no idea how to get anywhere. None whatsoever. So it never occurred to me I had to drive over the bridge to go to that. So we're driving a convoy, like I have like six minivans behind me, and we're all driving, and I start seeing signs, and I'm like, oh dear God. Like, I'm in it now. I have to do this. Like previously, I don't even know if I had ever driven on it. Like I always had whoever I was with drive. So I told my kids they were little, I was like, all right, you guys, I need you to be super quiet. I'm gonna turn the radio up really, really loud and just don't talk until we get off the bridge. And they were all like, okay. And then I got in the middle lane and I just stare at the license plate in front of me. So I have peripheral, no peripheral vision of the death on either side of me. Yeah. And I just focus on that. And when we are not on the bridge anymore, I'm like, okay, we're good.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

It's so scary. It is. Let me tell you my trauma of already revolving the bridge. I was driving over it and they were doing road construction. And I did not know that they had the middling closed. So I oh, I got shifted to the left lane. So I could see over the edge right there. Oh my god. And I was like, the whole time I cried. Yeah. The whole I was like, oh my god, I was I couldn't breathe. I was freaking out. As soon as I got off of it, I got I pulled over and I got out of the car. At one point, oh, and then traffic slowed down in the middle of it, the highest point. Oh, everybody slowed down, and I was like, I'm gonna have a nervous, I'm about to have a nervous breakdown right here. I I was like, I'm gonna get out. I'm just gonna get out. I'm gonna get out. I don't know what I'm gonna do when I get out because I can't get out this door because I'll see it. And then even worse was it was like grady, so it kept. Pulling the wheel. I was like, I can't, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 22:05

Yeah, I mean, it was literal white knuckling. Like, I'm surprised I don't didn't bend my steering wheel. And my hands hurt so bad. I fucking hate that thing.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

And it's the only way, it's not the only way to get to DC, but it is sure a hell of a lot faster.

SPEAKER_03 22:18

It's gonna go much faster.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

The difference with it's like two-hour difference. Yes. You can drive around, but it takes like four hours.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

Yes.

unknown 22:27

Anyway.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

We got a little sidetracked.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Look it up. Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Yeah. Not the tunnel, which is equally scary. It is, but it at least has sides. Yes, it does have sides. Yes. And it's much shorter, which is its own frightening thing. Yeah. If you go over it when it's stormed, we were one time we were the last ones to go over. Was it like the captain? Yes, right over the side. Oh, sweet baby Jesus, no.

SPEAKER_03 22:52

That bridge itself, though, is like 14 miles long. Yes, it is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

And my dad, every time we would go over it, it would be like, oh, we're about to go in the tunnel. Oh, is that water leaking? I see.

SPEAKER_03 23:01

And we're just like, get me out of here. Oh my God. I was always afraid of the bottom part of the boat hitting the tunnel. Tunnel. I won't go.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

I won't go through the tunnel if there's a boat coming over. I'll wait. I'll stop on that little island in the middle. I don't care. No way. Man, we're just trapped here by horrible bridges.

SPEAKER_03 23:23

We are.

Tournament Week Money And Spectacle

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Into this expanding world came Pete Bonus, who arrived in Ocean City in 1963 and recognized a tourism opportunity the others had missed. He eventually created Harbor Island, the marina complex that would become the beating heart of the White Marlin Open, a gathering place where anglers, spectators, sponsors, and dignitaries could mingle in the charged atmosphere of tournament week. Today, thousands of spectators flocked to the inlet in the pre-dawn hour simply to watch the fleet depart. Their running lights cutting the darkness like a small armada headed to war. Thousands more crowd Harbor Island each afternoon for the weigh-ins. The drama of the scale, the roar of the crowd, one angler reflecting, pulling up to the scale with a big fish and thousands of cheering fans felt like being in the Super Bowl. It was a thrill of a lifetime.

SPEAKER_03 24:15

I can't even imagine it feel how it feels to be on the boat doing that. Because on the standing on the dock watching it come in is so exciting.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

I can't, I don't know how they dock those boats under all that pressure. Because it's not a lot of room.

SPEAKER_03 24:28

Decision, there is not a lot of room, and those boats are huge.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

Um the I was gonna have oh, so them heading out is the money. I'm gonna tell you later, but it used to be Monday through Friday was the tournament. You fish three of the five days. They did expand it. Last year they had to expand it two days because we had a tropical storm or something come up. Um now they have permanently added a sixth day. You still can only fish three, but they did add Saturday now. Monday, well, first, Sunday night is the single, the the town of Ocean City, specifically not Harbor Island, but the harbor over there. Now Harbor Island is different from the marina, but the marina specifically has like four restaurants that sit there, and they make the Sunday before White Marlin open, they make enough money that night for the entire year. They bring in special bartenders. The one restaurant specifically brings in and they usually post tabs. And when I tell you tabs, fifty, sixty, hundred thousand dollar tabs in Ocean City, Maryland. They bring in special bartenders just for the event. It's insane the amount of money. That's amazing. Yeah. They make they these they're secrets bartenders that they bring over. Oh well, they know how to hustle. Yeah. They they are they these are be bartenders that spend their lives traveling to different bars. They are here in the summer. Secrets bartenders are here in the summer, and then they go to like Costa Rica or Puerto Rico and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 26:15

Oh, yeah, I was gonna say, I was at um uh North Beach a couple years ago, and the bartender I had, she uh wintered in Puerto Rico and worked there.

SPEAKER_02 26:25

Yeah, they travel, they're like they're like the elite of the elite. And they make so much money. So much money. Like just I mean, a hundred thousand dollar tab. Yeah. Yeah. They're all drunk, they're throwing money away. And you know they're not they're girls with big tits. You just know it. Absolutely. It's a bunch of fishermen, they're bringing in specifically, they're probably getting older now, so they're sure they've had some work done to their boobs, I've no doubt. Anyway, they make enough money in one night the Sunday before, but then Monday morning, typically all the boats go out, and it is really cool. They do a blessing of the fleet, and then they they all go out at the same time. And because it's you know, they've been waiting all year for this, typically first day they all go out. Well, this year they didn't because the weather was so bad on Monday, only 17 boats went out on Monday. Oh, dang. They all went out yesterday. But if you went to the inlet, you did not get a good, very good show. But it is cool to see, and it is cool they the all the boats lit up in the harbor, and it's just it's the amount of money currently is just as owl.

SPEAKER_03 27:39

Yeah, it's just uh unbelievable. It's like thinking about space, it's incomprehensible, it really is.

SPEAKER_02 27:46

And now that they've added Saturday to it, they've added another weekend.

SPEAKER_03 27:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

So now it's two weekends. Ocean City is just like, yes.

SPEAKER_03 27:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:55

And it's so ridiculously expensive to stay. Anyway.

Founding A Tournament Built On Trust

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Anyway, the man who would create the White Marlin Open was not on the water when the idea came to him. He was, of all things, on his honeymoon. In 1973, Jim Motsko, a young, experienced fishing mate from Ocean City, who knew the spot from the working end of a gaffe, was spending his first days of married life on Andros Island in the Bahamas when he found himself watching the conclusion of a local billfish tournament. What he saw troubled him deeply. Money was changing hands in brown paper bags, out of sight and out of accountability, in a backroom arrangement that had the feel of something that belonged nowhere near sport. Matsko hated it. He hated the opacity, the insider dealing, the suggestion that a contest built on skill and luck and the raw beauty of the open ocean could be corrupted by the simple human failing of greed. On that honeymoon, he began to imagine a different kind of tournament. He dreamed of a competition with a fixed entry fee that any team could understand before they signed up, a large guaranteed purse that would be paid out transparently and completely, and an administration honest enough that participants would never have to wonder whether the game was rigged. He returned to Ocean City with his new wife and his cousin, and they set about organizing the first White Marlin Open. The Ocean City Marlin Club had staged its own White Marlin tournament back in 1959, establishing a competitive tradition in the community. And Matsko built on that foundation with the earnest ambition of a man who believed he had a better idea. This is the part that just this is my favorite part. This is why I think I love it so much. The first tournament was held in August of 1974. So technically it is Gen X clowns. It drew 57 boats and 150 anglers. Modest numbers by any lady's later standard, but a genuine beginning. Yeah, that's not bad. The prize money totaled $20,000, which in 1974 was a lot of money. With the top award of $5,000 going to Angler Sorensen for a 68.5 pound white marlin. That Motsko had to take out a personal loan that year to make good on the guaranteed purse is a detail that says everything about the man. He had promised the money, he paid the money. That was the deal. And that deal was kept. It was the founding ethic of an institution that would eventually award more than $121 million in prize money over five decades. That the entry fees were clear, the rules were enforced, and the payouts were real. Speaking of, I didn't put this in here, but speaking of the rules were enforced, a couple years ago, I remember the White Marlin winner got stripped of their money and prizes because they were found to have lied. They do a lie detector test Sunday. Like this year, it's on Sunday. I saw the schedule.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

Integrity is everything with this.

SPEAKER_02 31:12

They said that they put their you can't put your lines in till eight in the morning. They said they put their lines in at eight and they had done it at like, and it was literally like two minutes to eight that they put their lines in. Like, why not wait the two minutes? I don't know if it was like they didn't realize it wasn't. I don't know what happened, but you threw away, and it was like four or five million dollars that they lost. And then they end up what they end up doing is I think I don't know if I say it later, but um then that money all if you don't win the of course the white marlin is the top prize. Yes. If nobody gets a qualifying marlin or something like that happens, then it trickles down to the other. Oh, they give out the money every year. It's not like held over or nothing, but it's it's given out.

SPEAKER_03 31:59

So bad luck for those guys, but everybody else everybody else.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

Everybody else got the money. Um, the tournament grew with remarkable speed. Word I said that, did I not? Yes. That's right. Okay.

Entry Fees, Categories, And Big Payouts

SPEAKER_02 32:12

Boats and teams multiplied year after year. The prize structure evolved into a sophisticated added entry level system, offering more than 45 different tiers of participation. Under this model, a team can enter at the base level, set at $1,500 per boat for the for this year, the 2026 edition, and complete for a guarantee compete for a guaranteed purse, or they can invest progressively more in optional prize categories, laying their potential winnings with each additional entry.

SPEAKER_03 32:40

Surprised the entry fee is only $1,500.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

That sounds so yeah, especially because you get enough. I mean when you consider how much money is involved. Yeah. At the upper end of the spectrum, teams willing to invest over $100,000 in entries can compete for prizes that have exceeded $10 million in total. So it's it's a bunch of different Calcutta's um small boat, inboard, outboard. Uh you can enter, there's you can just and the $1,500 just gets you the white marlin. Yeah. Okay. So it's that's you're just competing for the white marlin. Okay. You there's fish of the day. There's the highest weight. There's like uh well, I think uh did I just say 45 different categories 45 different categories that you can.

SPEAKER_03 33:28

Yeah, because they have what like they get tuna, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:31

Tuna, tuna tuna, shark, mahi mahi. Blue marlin. Blue. Um swordfish? No, there's another one. Swordfish is technically goes into the marlin category.

SPEAKER_03 33:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:47

Oh, um, there's another one. Tuna. Mahi Mahi. I don't know. Okay. Maybe I'll come to you. Yeah. You don't win as much. The Mahi Mahi currently, right now, is worth $209,000. That's if no if they get a white Marlin. Which has happened that they did not bring in a winning Marlin. That nobody brought in a qualifying Marlin. So it gets trickled. Anyhow. Gotcha. $100,000 gets you the full Monty.

SPEAKER_03 34:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

The Matsko family has directed the tournament for its entire history, over 50 years of stewardship, that itself it is itself a remarkable achievement in an industry where tournaments rise and fall with startling regularity. Today, Madeline Motz Motzko Wayne Glass serves as tournament director, carrying forward her family's founding vision with an eye both on tradition and the need for thoughtful evolution. We're always listening to our participants and looking for ways to evolve while staying true to what makes the tournament so special, she said. Words that could serve as the institutional motto of the organization her family built. They have, they give out gift bags to all the anglers. And I was watching, you know, if you put if you put the website on, they have a Marlin Cam and all that. But before the Marlin Cam opens at like three, but before that, they give you like a little history of it and they show them getting ready for it. And starting back in like, I think it's like January or so, they turn literally their garage still at this point. They turn their garage into like a gift bag making machine where they the family still personally put stuff in these gift bags. And it's like, you know, from all their sponsors and you know, shit like that that they put in these like Yetis and you know, I mean it's big stuff, but they make their own.

SPEAKER_03 35:46

That's so cool.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

It is it, and that's why I love it, I think, so much. Like we'll see how big it has gotten now, but I mean, for fuck's sake, Michael Jordan is here. It's and came in second last year.

SPEAKER_03 36:00

Um yeah, and last year I asked my youngest and her boyfriend to take me to the White Marlin, and the day I wanted to go.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

Was the day he brought his in? Yes. Damn. Mm-hmm. He came.

unknown 36:11

I know.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

I know they have a rule.

SPEAKER_03 36:13

So you can go let them live it down.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

You can go out anywhere. They expanded their harbors too. So you can go anywhere from somewhere in New Jersey down to somewhere in North Carolina. You can go out of any of the any port. You have to bring the fish back to Ocean City.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

And his boat docks in Ocean City. His docks in West Ocean City.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

Yeah, it's hard for his boat to get in there. So what happens is because it's a small, it is a small area for them to get in, and his boat's so big. You you can get it there, you can drive it, you can boat it, you can wheel, they every year they you can wheelbarrow it. And a lot of boats don't try and get in there, they bring them in. Um they drive them in and bring it to the scales. Um, you have to have it. The fish has to be there by nine o'clock and it has to come to Ocean City. Um I've seen them drive it. They had a couple yesterday that they drove on. Um so that, and then they did have this one kid, and it was so fucking cute. Like two years ago, I think it was. They came, they were in the little harbor on a kayak, and it was a little kid or a rowboat, the little kid, and he had a stuffed Marlin, and they let him pull up to the dock, and they took the stuffed Marlin and they waited. I know it was really cute.

SPEAKER_03 37:27

Oh, that is precious. It is precious. And see, Michael Jordan is genetics, also. So that's true. There we go. There.

SPEAKER_02 37:33

Yeah, she horned it in there. Um, let's go to your thing. Okay. Hold on.

Diary Throwback And Shooting Stars

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Because very cute, we're like and through her teenage life.

SPEAKER_03 37:55

All right, so it's been a minute. It has been a minute. So we are now on September 3rd of 85. Okay. And did I do the quick three entries where I started seventh grade? I don't think so. All right, so September 3rd, I started seventh grade. Ugh. That was the entry for the day. Yeah. And September 3rd, when we used to go to school like normal people after Labor Day was over. Um my um daughter told me today, a friend of hers, I think Tennessee or something. Her kids start their kids started today. Florida goes back early too. Arizona does. I'm sure Arizona's already in.

unknown 38:38

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 38:38

Yeah. It's too fucking hot. I know. But I think the year ends before the summer gets real hot. I don't know. Um either way, it's summer at some point. Yeah, and it's Arizona, so it's hot.

SPEAKER_04 38:50

Always hot.

SPEAKER_03 38:50

Yeah. Um, so I'm gonna do all three of these because they're short. So September 16th, so 13 days later, today I saw the Milky Way. Oh, yes, you can. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That was very exciting. And I still very much don't enjoy seeing it when we can. Very cool thing to see. Uh-huh. And then September 18th, so just two days later, uh-huh. Tonight, when I was practicing my flute, I saw a falling star. Get out. And I actually remember that. I remember sitting in my bedroom practicing my flute because I lived out in bum fuck nowhere, so there was no light pollution. Right. And I just looked out my window and there it was. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

So I'll never forget. Mom and I were coming home from an Eagles game and it was a meteor shower. Ugh. And the whole way, because you have to go through, like it takes it would take three hours to get home from an Eagles game. And it was like a Monday night game, so it was in the middle of the night, and there's no lights, some parts of it. And I mean, I I'm driving and I can see them all over everywhere. And one, I'm not kidding, you streaked all the way across the windshield. And I was like, wow. I don't know what happened, but she couldn't see any of them. And she was getting so pissed off. Every time I was like, Wow, did you see that one? No, where was that one? I was like, like, lit, like, when I tell you went from one side of the windshield to the other in like a fireball, as if it was about to land in front of us. It would have been impossible to miss. And she was like, No, I didn't. Oh, if you ask her still to this day, she gets pissed off about how she did not see a single one. And I was just like, Oh, look at that one. Oh, look at it. And then she just was like, Stop telling me. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 40:32

Be excited in silence. I'm so sorry, Al.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

Keep my shooting stars to a minimum. They're literally everywhere. The sky is literally falling right now. I'm starting to become concerned. That's how many that there are. Like maybe we've passed into a place we shouldn't be with this many of them happening.

SPEAKER_03 40:55

Speaking of space, did you see that um SpaceX crashed into the moon? I heard it was going to. I didn't watch it. Yeah. I didn't see it. They said it probably made us 16 mile wide, or maybe it was deep. Yeah. I don't know. Some kind of huge crater. Musk destroying stuff. Yeah. NASA said they didn't mean for that to happen. Oops. But they said it gives them it's the silver lining is they get to learn so much more now.

SPEAKER_02 41:21

Well, yeah, they busted a piece of it off. They broke her open. Now it's gonna come hurtling towards us. Great. Mom might see that. I don't know. Probably not. No.

Rules, Minimums, And Razor-Thin Wins

SPEAKER_02 41:32

All right. To understand the white marlin open is in part to understand a financial architecture, unlike anything else in recreational sport. The tournament fishes six species: white marlin, blue marlin, swordfish. Oh swordfish, yellow fin tuna, dolphin, known more commonly as mahi mahi, and wahoo.

SPEAKER_03 41:49

Wahoo is the one I can. They wait a wahoo when I was down there. That's like a little bitty fish compared to all the other ones.

SPEAKER_02 41:56

Each species has its own prize categories, and the totals that accumulate across all of them can reach figures that strain ordinary comprehension. Since the inaugural event in 1974, the White Marlin Open has awarded more than $121 million in prize money across more than 16,000 registered votes and more than 120,000 individual anglers. The cumulative figure is not merely impressive. It is, by the official record, the largest prize money payout in the history of any type of fishing tournament on earth. Wow. The rules governing which fish qualify for the scales are precise and unsparing. White marlin must weigh at least 70 pounds and measure a minimum of 70 inches from the tip of the lower jaw to the fork of the tail. Blue marlin must measure at least 114 inches. These thresholds exist not as arbitrary gatekeeping, but as a meaningful conservation tools. They ensure that the fish brought to scale represent genuinely large, mature specimens, while smaller fish are encouraged to be released alive. The system you get there's a big point system for how many you catch and release, also. Okay. Because uh when you watch them come in, they'll have like the whole they have flags that they fly, what fish they've caught, and they'll have like a whole line of blue, and then and it's they're upside down because they they released them. The system is designed so that catching a marlin is not enough. What matters is the size of the fish and the weight on the scale, a standard that simultaneously drives competition and protects the broader population population. The 2025 edition of the tournament offered a vivid illustration of both the scale and the drama of modern White Marlin Open. With 282 boats and more than 3,000 contestants, the event paid out a total of $7.24 million in prize money. The top individual prize, $3.914 million, went to Dan Goff, fishing aboard the Bill Fisher out of Ocean City for a 72 pound white marlin that edged out the field by the slimmest of margins. Just one pound away. From matching that winning fish was a 71-pound white marlin caught by Trey Cricket McMillan aboard Michael Jordan's famous yacht catch 23. For that single pound of difference, McMillan's team collected $389,000 rather than the nearly $4 million. Not that Michael Jordan really needed. Uh gap. Oh, okay. A gap of extraordinary proportions, determined by a number that could fit in the palm of your hand. The tuna category also has also produced life-altering payouts in recent years. In 2025, Jonathan Kinkele, fishing aboard the Sea Hab, landed a 188-pound yellow fin that earned $764,000, a sum that would take the most working Americans several years to accumulate, delivered in a single afternoon at the Harbor Island scales. These are numbers that illustrate why the White Marlin Open has come to occupy a singular place in the sporting imagination. It's simultaneously a test of seamanship, patience, knowledge, and luck, and a lottery with odds that can be calculated, but never quite tamed. Yesterday, the guy that brought in the so far winning tuna fought it for four hours. Four hours.

SPEAKER_03 45:22

But yeah. I mean, I couldn't at this point in my life. No. My arms would just fall off my body. But it looks like it would be fun. Just like I always wish I would have ridden a bull. I wouldn't want to do that, but I would want to. I love bull riding. I love to watch it. I don't think it's fighting.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

Eight seconds of excitement. Unless we went like head to head. I could punch it. Yeah. You can't though. It's frowned upon. That's what you're supposed to do with sharks. Punch them, yes.

Weigh-Ins, Bridge Lines, And Blue Marlin

SPEAKER_02 45:50

The way Marlin Open is far more than a fishing tournament. It's for one week, every August, the most important thing happening in Ocean City, Maryland. Not a joke either. And arguably on the entire East Coast sport fishing circuit. The tournament week draws an estimated 75,000 visitors to Harbor Island and the surrounding Marlin Fest venues, an influx that transforms the already busy resort town into something closer to a festival city. Ocean City's economy is built on the twin pillars of the beach and the boardwalk. But the White Marlin Open is the crown jewel, the event that draws visitors who might not otherwise come, media attention that no advertising budget could replicate, and a kind of communal pride that a town tends to accumulate only around its greatest traditions. Marlin Fest, which runs concurrently with the tournament, is free to attend and open to everyone. It offers live entertainment, food and drink, vendors, interactive exhibits, and a front row view of the fishing fleet returning each afternoon with their flags flying, upright flags for fish aboard, inverted flags for catch and release. The spectacle of watching those boats come in, each one carrying a day's worth of hope and effort and sometimes extraordinary news, is one of the genuine pleasures of the Eastern Seaboard summer. Local radio stations broadcast live from the ri restaurant at Harbor Island during tournament week, filling the airwaves with coverage, commentary, and the kind of relaxed, sunwarmed enthusiasm that the setting naturally produces. They have a song I they were playing and it's just got awful. That's just terrible. The way in itself is theater of the highest order. Fish are brought to the scale between the late afternoon and the early evening hours. In this year, the official window is 4 p.m. and to 9 15. And each qualifying fish that makes the bridge and heads for the docks electrifies the crowd in ways that defy easy description. The announcement of a wait, the roar of thousands of spectators, the mix of elation and heartbreak on the faces of competing crews, these are the moments that people come to Harbor Island to witness. And they are moments that those who see them rarely forget. Tournament director Madeline Motsko Winglass has described the ongoing challenge of running the event with an apt simplicity. The goal is always to listen, evolve, and stay true to what makes it special. The excitement also is because typically they all come back right around the six o'clock. That's when it's really busy, like six, seven o'clock. The bridge only opens twice an hour. So they line up on the other side of the bridge to get through. And it's pretty fucking cool to watch them like all lined up waiting to get through. And then they let them through and they only let so many through. Yep. Because they have to, they don't want to back up the scales. But the other exciting part is is the the fishermen are radioing in some of the stuff. So they'll catch wind because the blue marlin is it is the white marlin capital, but the blue marlin is what brings the big they are big fish.

SPEAKER_03 48:51

Yeah, I was gonna say because they're that's the excitement.

SPEAKER_02 48:53

So they'll say, We have heard that there is a blue coming up. The blue marlin has very different rules than any of the other fish, also because it takes them so long to get them in to the boat. Um I think three o'clock is the cutoff time where they have to start heading in. But if you have a blue, they will keep the scales open until you bring it in. Wow. As long as it was caught, as long as it was hooked by three o'clock. Yeah, they will wait until the scale all night if they have to for you to bring it in. Yeah. Because it's that unique. They special. Yeah, and they they fight them for six, seven hours long. They fight these fish. The history of the White Marlin Open, this is gonna go on forever.

Record Fish And Last-Minute Heartbreak

SPEAKER_02 49:42

I just know it. Um history of records, records set, records broken, and records that seem unbreakable. The story begins humbly with Vince Sornson's 68.5 pound white marlin in 1974. Nearly 50 years later, the numbers have grown. Uh, the modern era of landmark payouts began in earnest in 2022 when angler Jeremy Duffy brought a 77.5 pound white marlin to the Harbor Island scale and walked with four and a half million dollars.

SPEAKER_03 50:09

I remember that one too.

SPEAKER_02 50:10

A figure that set what was then a world record for the largest prize ever awarded for the catch of a single fish. It was a record that stood for exactly one year. The 50th anniversary, held in 2023, produced a moment so dramatic. And it was I know all you out here who don't fish are just like this is the lamest thing ever. It was so fucking exciting. And it received the examination in the section that but for purposes uh uh the final day, it was so the final day. Last day. Angler John Owles fishing aboard the floor reel out of Ocean City brought a 640 640 and a half pound blue marlin measuring 118 inches to the scales and collected 6.2 million. Instantly becoming the world record holder for the largest prize ever awarded for a single fish caught in any fishing competition anywhere on earth. It was a record that obliterated the one that had stood for barely 12 months. The years that follow, oh no, that was so it was the next year, that was the big blue. The next year was the really exciting, where the very last boat, the very last fish weighed, won by like a tenth of a pound or something. It was like razor thin. And these people who had spent it was like 9.15 at night, 9.30, something they got it in, it must have been nine, and it was like this they had a shark on board too, and it was just like they raised that thing, and it was just, I mean, somebody had gone all fucking week thinking they were gonna win four million dollars.

SPEAKER_03 52:02

Yeah, at that point, you're like, I got those. I mean, who's nobody's gonna show up now? Very last boat.

SPEAKER_02 52:10

Crazy. Um, the years that followed have continued to produce extraordinary stories. In 2024, Lance Blakemore, a dairy farmer from Horsehead, New York, a man whose dairy daily life involves more holsteen cattle than offshore waters, came to the White Marlin Open aboard the Stone Cutter and caught an 897.5 pound blue marlin. It was his first billfish ever. He won $520,000. In 2025, Drew Osimer, fishing aboard the Barber B with only one previous billfish to his credit, caught a 929.5 pound blue marlin in his first white marlin open appearance and earned 1.2 million.

SPEAKER_03 52:52

I bet that makes those other anglers salty when somebody comes in that first time. It's like when you go to Old Lady Bingo and you totally don't belong there and you only want to yell bingo when you got it because you know you're gonna get attacked.

SPEAKER_02 53:08

Man. Um so in 74, Vince Swanson won a white marlin six sixty-eight and a half pounds, five thousand dollars. 2022, 4.4 million for the white marlin at 77 and a half pounds. My dad actually, when he caught his, was in first place for like three days. Oh man. In 2023 was the 640 and a half, six point two million dollar blue marlin. Uh blue marlin, white marlin, last year's winner. No, I don't have that one, but it was like four million, I think. Oh, that if the White Marlin Open had a script writer, the 2023 edition would be the script writer's masterpiece. A five-act drama played out over five fishing days. Well, that was it. Well, the climax so perfectly calibrated to the requirements of narrative tension that no fiction editor would have dared to approve it for fearing of restraining credibility. 400 boats set a record purse of 10.5 million and delivered a story that would be told at docks and dinner tables for as long as anyone in Ocean City. For the first four fishing days, not a single qualifying billfish. Dollar values grew, accumulated. The final day approached the crew of the Rochambeau out of Ocean City, found themselves in a position of almost surreal potential. Their angle Rusty Shriver held the heaviest tuna in the $50,000 winner-take all entry level. A formidable 215-pound big eye. If no qualifying Lamar appeared, the rules would redirect the accumulated Marlin money their way, and Rochambeau crew stood to collect a staggering $7.1 million. The hours of the final day must have passed very slowly aboard the Rochambeau. The drama intensified as the afternoon weigh-in opened. The boats, two boats arrived with potential billfish before the floor reel and both fell short. The skirt chaser out of North Carolina brought in a white marlin that measured the required 70 inches but weighed only 67 and a half. The No Limit out of Indian River arrived with a blue marlin that fell two inches short of the 114-inch length minimum that was turned away from the scale. The clock was running, the prize money hung in the air, the Roe Chambeau crew was presumably counting every minute. And then late in the final afternoon, the floor reel made the 6 p.m. bridge to point past which boats are officially admitted to compete in that day's weigh-in and headed towards Harbor Island with a fish the captain and crew already knew it was large enough to qualify. That was the Blue Marlin, had measured in 118 inches in the boat. When it reached the harbor scales, the crowd already knew something because they had been talking about it all fucking day. 640 pounds, the only qualifying billfish of the entire tournament. 6.2 million dollars.

SPEAKER_04 56:06

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 56:16

But man, can you imagine? So sick. I'd already had that money spent. Oh fuck yeah.

Michael Jordan And Other Famous Anglers

SPEAKER_02 56:23

There's something about the White Marlin Open that has always drawn people who are famous for other things, athletes, musicians, chefs, and entertainers who have leave their unusual world behind for a week and go looking for billfish off the Maryland coast. Their presence is what part is part of what makes the tournament a cultural event rather than a simple sporting one. And it has a way of introducing the world to offshore fishing to audiences who might not have ever encountered it. No celebrity participant has done more to raise the public profile than Michael Jordan, six-time NBA champion and global basketball icon, has made his 82-foot Bayless sport fishing yacht named Catch 23 a play on both his Jersey number and the classic novel, a regular and increasingly formidable president's president presence at the tournament since 2019. Jordan is a genuinely serious angler, not a casual dabbler, and his boat has consistently competed in the heaviest entry levels. Jim Motsko, the founder, speaking about Jordan's participation, captured the Americ the phenomenon with characteristic directness. It gets us attention. There's no question about that. You'd be surprised at how many people are asking me if Michael Jordan is coming back this year. People who are not fishermen, they're just curious. In 2025, catch 23's angler Trey Cricket. McMillan caught a 71-pound white Marlin, one pound from matching the tournament winner, and nearly $4 million. The boat is registered and is here for the 2026 edition as well. They knew they had a Marlin because it was radio that they knew the catch 23 had a Marlin. And so everybody was like at the scales, like, oh my god, because they'd had caught before, but but they trucked it over. So when it showed up and Michael Jordan was on there, I mean the crowd went insane. And to his credit, he did the there's a set team that weighs it, and they have been there for fucking ever. And he did go and shake all of their hands and talk to them. And you could see, like, can you imagine the pressure? I mean, there's a lot of pressure to begin with, because these are four million dollar fish that they're pulling off and whatever. But the pressure of having Michael Jordan sitting there while you're trying to pull this fish.

SPEAKER_03 58:38

And then having to be the guy who told him he's a pound short for winning. I'm not gonna tell him.

SPEAKER_02 58:48

Wade Boggs, the 12-time Major League Baseball All-Star and Hall of Fame third baseman, whose career span the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, and Tampa Bay Rays, was a White Marlin Open competitor as recent as 2015, part of a long tradition of professional athletes who find in offshore fishing the particular combination of skill, patience, and unpredictability. The country music legend Roy Clark, a beloved figure whose guitar playing was as natural to him as breathing, was an avid fisherman and a White Marlin Open participant before his passing in 2018. And in 2019, the same year Jordan made his tournament debut, celebrity chef Emerald Legossi brought his considerable personality to the competition, visiting local restaurants, including Crab Alley and Sunset Grill. Sunset Grill is the one that has the big tabs. Sunset Grill is the big money. They bring in special liquor just for this. And when I tell, I mean, I'm not kidding. I've seen the tabs, a hundred thousand dollar tab for one night for just one dinner. Them sitting there drinking all night. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:52

Thousand dollar bottles of champagne. Um perhaps the most compelling celebrity story are not the ones involving famous names, but the, you know, 897-pound fish.

Conservation, Tagging, And Food Bank Donations

SPEAKER_02 1:00:08

So what I really want all this to say, not just about fishing. That is the exciting part. It would be a significant omission to discuss the White Marlin open solely in terms of prize money and competitive drama without acknowledging the conservation ethic that has always been woven into its identity. I don't want y'all to think that I'm just callous and we're out here killing fucking fish for no reason. From its earliest years, the tournament has operated with the understanding that the resources it celebrates, the white marlin, the blue marlin, and the billfish of the Atlantic, is finite and deserving of stewardship. The rules reflect this understanding in practical ways. The use of live bait and live bait teasers in pursuant of billfish is prohibited. A restriction designed to promote both sportsmanship and conservation by ensuring that the angling method employed are those of skilled practitioners rather than those who would simply put a living creature in harm's ways to maximize their catch. The number that result from the culture of conservation are striking. In 2023 tournament, the same edition that produced the world record $6.2 million payout, 6 605 billfish were caught during the course of the week. Of those, 602 were released alive. That is a release rate of more than 99%. Achieved not through compulsion, but through the tournament's prize structure, which rewards the landing of a single qualifying fish far more than it rewards the indiscriminating killing of many smaller ones. Quality, not quantity. Yes. The result is a competition in which conservation and competition reinforce rather than undermine each other. The White Marlin Opens partnership with the Billfish Foundation has deepened the tournament's conservation credentials considerably. The Billfish Foundation has issued more than 250,000 tags and recorded more than 50,000 releases globally as part of its ongoing effort to understand and protect Billfish population. In 2024, the Billfish Foundation launched what it called the Skilly Project, its largest ever white marlin satellite tagging mission based out of Nantucket, which uses cutting-edge satellite tags to track white marlin migration patterns in partnership with the University of Maine's Blegic Fishing Lab and a roster of sponsors, including Viking, Valhalla, Costa, and Yeti. The data gathered through these efforts has the potential to inform fisheries management decision for years to come. The charitable dimension of the tournament extends beyond the ocean and into the community in ways that are easily overlooked amid the drama of the competition. Each year during tournament week, between 1,500 and 3,000 pounds of fish are donated to the Maryland Food Bank and local organizations, including Diacanea, a community service organization on the Eastern Shore. I cannot stress enough that the majority of the fish are donated.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:03

Yeah, I learned that from you a couple years ago. And I was really happy to hear that.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:07

And it gets distributed out to the local community and then onward. But like yesterday, the guy that got the the really big tuna was like a hundred and some pounds, donated it. So in the food bank right now, there is a hundred and eight pounds of prime tuna. Mahi Mahi. So it is it is yeah, and they they the lady does it right at the dock. She's she you watch her cut it down and break it down, and she's fucking amazing. Butch Longenfelder of the Maryland Food Bank has described the impact which features the figures that they put generosity in context. The donation from the anglers during the course of one week is the largest fish donation the Maryland Food Bank gets every year. The fish move from the docks to local food pantries within 24 hours of weigh-ins, a logistical achievement that speaks to the organizational capacity and community commitment of the tournament's administration.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:10

Yeah, that's wild. The logistics of it are wild.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:14

For the 2026 season, a new daily big fish charity added entry level has been introduced, directing a portion of proceeds to Coastal Hospice, the Seaside Atlantic Center, and the Believe in Tomorrow Foundation.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:29

I love the science part of it. Like that's really cool that they're using it for that. And obviously the food bank stuff, but yeah, that's it's cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:40

It is. It's a lot of a lot goes to charity. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:44

It's not just uh and that's one of it's not just a bunch of rich people going out and catching fish.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:48

Exactly. Yeah. And most of them, because they're here for the week, they're in staying in hotels or they're staying on their boat. Oh, yeah. They're not gonna eat these fish. No, they want to keep them because it's a 4.2 million dollar fish, so they want to keep they want to mount them. But what are they doing? That shit would just all go rot. Exactly. And now it goes into the food bank and 3,000 pounds of fish. Healthy protein. Protein. Omega yes, it goes into the community.

2026 Changes And New Divisions

SPEAKER_02 1:05:19

Um this year it runs from August 3rd to the 8th at Harbor Island. Uh really not. There's 334 boats today that registered, up considerably from the 282 that competed in 2025. It's among the largest. Uh projected prize money sits in the range of 9.9 to $10 million, which would place the 2026 edition among the top payouts in the tournament's history. The stakes have never been higher. The most significant Structure of innovation of the 2026 edition is the introduction of the Fish Three of Six format, which allows participants' teams to choose any three of the tournament six days. Usually it was three of five, rather than committing to a fixed schedule. This change was inspired by the difficult offshore conditions that forced weather extensions in both 2024 and 2025. Although I was surprised how many went out today because it rained this morning. But and Monday was, they said, brutal out on. But a lot of people went, 17 boats went out Monday because you can still get the daily fish. Right. But some of them, one of them came in with a little boat, and they were like, that was just not okay. It was not okay. We were not okay. One year um one of the boats sank. Yeah, out there they had an issue, and um fishermen came from all over to help them and pulled the fish in and took the guy who caught it in and had it weighed for him. Yeah. But the boat, can you imagine watching your whole I mean not just and it was like in the beginning of the tournament too. So it was like you had the whole, I mean, all these people pay money into it. Yeah, it's fifteen hundred dollars is the lowest, but most of them pay well.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:13

Not only that, a day of fishing is incredibly expensive. Even if you're just going out on a little boat, fishing.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:19

Typically, what they do is they'll they'll charter. So the rich people charter these local boats, and that's when they make all their money too. You know, they get they book them a year in advance, if not two years in advance. Some of these I'm sure they have regulars that especially boats that won in the past. Yeah. Because what actually happens is so everybody pays in. Um, so if you have four anglers or six anglers or however, I think it's typically like between four and six, they all pay a price to the boat. The boat pays the entry. Okay. So they pay, they are chartering the boat. Then what happens is the boat wins the money. Right. So everybody on the boat gets a piece of that. Then the boat takes what they need out and they get, you know, whatever. And then the anglers all split the rest. So if you're the angler that caught it, you're splitting your money, but still four million dollars. Well, it's like bartending with six bartenders.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:12

You pull your tips.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:13

Yeah. That's and that's what it is, you know. So you're all excited. You can't, my mom got disqualified because nobody else can touch the rod.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:21

I was gonna say, don't you have to be the only one to really the only one that touches the rod. And that's why I wouldn't even want to attempt at this point. Because I would like to get out there and catch one and then reel for like a minute and be like, okay, now somebody take over. And not just in the white marlin, but I kind of feel like that's um etiquette in that sort of fishing anyway. Like if you can't, like if you can't bait your own hook and you don't need to be fishing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:49

It it is, it's um there's a and like that their their rules are no joke. Like you my mom was disqualified because my dad had to help her. He and he didn't even touch the rod, he grabbed her arm and was moving her arm, and he he was so she was disqualified. He was in first place for like three days, but this was like in the early 80s. Yeah. Um there also introduced a new no non-sonar division designed for boats that do not use omnidirectional sonar technology. This division acknowledges the growing gap in technology capability between the most sophisticated sports fishing vessels and those that rely on more traditional navigation and fish finding methods.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:33

I wouldn't have guessed that there was anyone that didn't use that.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:36

It creates a level competitive feel for anglers who prefer or can only afford the older ways of doing things. The small boat division has also been updated, now encompassing vessels, vessels 40 feet and under, broadening access to the competition for a wider range of boats and their crews. Uh no. Uh among the 334, Michael Jordan's catch 23. Is there he also has his private plane is in Salisbury. Everybody has photos of that coming in. Um anyway. Yeah.

Childhood Memories And How To Watch

SPEAKER_02 1:10:18

When I was a kid, we would go down and watch, and it was not, of course, not quite that exciting because it wasn't millions of dollars, but it's always been my um my favorite thing to do. I haven't been down there in decades. Mostly. Like maybe you could get away with going like tomorrow, probably won't be so bad.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:46

I think I went on like a Wednesday.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:49

Midweek's probably not bad because typically they all go out on Monday. Then they scatter in through the midweek, and then they when it was five days, then they would all go out on Friday. This year they'll probably all go out on Saturday. I don't know. I don't know what the weather is gonna be like this year either. Um I don't know. I've always been partial to it because it happens here. Yeah, it's exciting. I love fishing. I haven't been fishing in a very long time. Um, my uncle liked to do it. I don't think I don't think he ever went out for the white marlin. But my grandfather did, he got they got it right up to the boat and it broke the line. It's very heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:31

Makes me so sick every time you see it.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:32

And he died the next year, so he couldn't go again. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:36

I mean, I was surf fishing once and brought in a flounder that I knew was gonna be big enough. And when it fell off right at the edge, I jumped in the water and threw that fish up in the sand. So I I can't even fathom losing that.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:55

Yeah. And they fight these things. Um the the biggest blue that they ever bought in was over a thousand pounds. And that guy fought that thing for like six hours.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:07

How does one human being fight a thousand-pound beasts? And this was in six hours.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:12

This was in the I want to say it was the nineties too. It was a long time ago. So they didn't have less fancy equipment. Less fancy equipment. They didn't have the big, the big, big boats. They had to end up dragging it in because it wouldn't even fit in the boat. That's how big it was. Which the problem with that is now you're dragging a dead bleeding giant fish behind a boat and they're out like a hundred miles. So you're every shark and their brother.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:39

I'm surprised it wasn't like a V of just hundreds of sharks.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:46

You're calling sharks from like uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:49

That was the safest time to swim at the beach ever because all the sharks were finished following that boat.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:55

What is this guy doing? Holy shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:01

Yeah, I I it's it is a cool thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:07

It's very, very cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:08

It really is. It's fun to watch. I know a lot of people are like fishing is boring, but if you watch some of these where they show you them fighting white marlin jump the whole time. Yes. So you're why when they're fighting gravity, yeah, they are jumping straight out of the water, and then they said to tuna, tuna dives straight down.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:31

So they're fighting to get it up. Yes, and basically it's who gets tired first. Yeah, is exactly how it goes. It's just a lot of fun to watch. It is anyway. So the last thing I'll say is tight lines, fair winds, and following seas to all the fishermen who go out and do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:49

Thank you so much. That was super fun. I'm really glad that we now I want to go. I'm like, well, I did do an event last night, so I could leave work early on Friday and I could head down. That's why I want to know if y'all could get you to go, but I don't think I can.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:07

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:08

Okay. Well, I'll get back to you on that. Okay. It's just so crowded down there. It is.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:17

If we had a boat, yeah. I don't have a boat anymore. Yeah, in my dreams. Yeah. We could go, but anyway. That's a piece of my childhood. Yes. That continues on. And I, once we get done here, I'm gonna load the camera up so we can see if anything exciting has happened. Yes. And sometime check it out, whitemarlinopen.com, I think is what it is. It's Marlin Cam. And it's really cool because then you can actually see kind of like what it looks like here if you're not from here. Yeah. And yeah, you can see like the they'll have they'll show them coming through the bridge. And if you're ever curious about what we talk about, you can see the cams and all that. And they have the boardwalk in the view, and you can see acetigue, and maybe a little pony will be over there. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:03

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:04

Anyway. Anyway, thanks for listening. Thank you. Thanks for indulging me. Uh you can find us wherever you find podcasts. You can find us on all the socials. So like whatever pod. You can find our website, likwhateverpod.com. You can send us an email about how boring you think fishing is, and how you cannot possibly imagine that people would be on the edge of their seats for a fucking fish. To like whatever pod at gmail.com or don't like whatever. Whatever. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:50

Okay, you bet like whatever.