Swansboro Blue Water 2009
Capt. Adrian Holler, Vince Johnston, and Emery Ivey, aboard the "Sea Striker," won the Swansboro Rotary Blue Water Tournament by weighing in this 645.5 lb. blue marlin.
With stellar blue marlin fishing for the second year in a row, the Swansboro Rotary Blue Water Tournament had a nail biting finish that was ultimately decided when Morehead City’s “Sea Striker” ferried a 645.5 lb. blue marlin to the scales. The tremendous fish earned owner/captain Adrian Holler and his crew almost $40,000.
After fishing south of the Big Rock on Saturday without seeing a marlin, Holler made the call to head far north on Sunday. Holler, mate Vince Johnston, and angler Emery Ivey struck out for the backside of the Rockpile off Hatteras on day two.
It turned into a good decision at 11:15 when a marlin struck a large plug the “Sea Striker” was pulling off the bridge rod.
“He missed it,” Holler explained, “but fortunately there was a lure long behind it and he picked that up. It was actually a pink Braid Swimming Flyer, which was my tuna bait. I never thought we’d get a marlin on it.”
After clearing the lines, Holler began backing down on the fish while Ivey cranked in the chair in what seemed like an endless routine.
“I don’t think I took the boat out of reverse the first hour,” Holler said. “I said the fish was either foul-hooked, tail-wrapped, or way bigger than we though it was. It turned out all three were true.”
The “Sea Striker” continued backing down on their marlin for the better part of two hours before the battle turned into a stalemate.
“I’ve never fought a fish for over an hour and a half,” the captain continued, “but we were on that one for three hours. The last hour was just dead weight, winching it up a bit at a time.”
After the marlin died in the depths, Ivey fought to lift it with 40 lbs. of drag on the reel. Little by little, the marlin came up. When it finally broke the surface, Johnston planted a flying gaff into it and the trio struggled to get the fish through the transom door.
“That was the hardest fight we’ve ever had,” Holler (who has won the Swansboro tournament three times and the Big Rock twice) said. “I’m just glad I had a good angler in the chair.”
The "Reel Love" crew revives one of two blue marlin they released on the first day of the Swansboro Rotary Blue Water Tournament on their way to a second place finish.
After putting the fish in the 61′ Jarrett Bay’s cockpit, the “Sea Striker” crew headed for the scales. When they arrived in Morehead City (the blue water weigh station), the marlin scaled 645.5 lbs. In NC Governor’s Cup Billfish tournaments, a marlin weighing over 600 lbs. earns two points per pound instead of one. The 1,291 points their fish earned propelled them to the top of the pack.
Tallying two blue marlin releases and hauling a 424 lb. marlin to the scales, 2008 winner Jeff Vreugdenhill’s “Reel Love” crew earned 1,024 billfish points and second place.
On Saturday, Clinton, NC’s Vreugdenhill and anglers Mike Butler, Mike Cutler, and Jason Williford pointed their 28′ Privateer center console north, and they fished the waters off Hatteras and Ocracoke with many of the other boats in the marlin fleet.
“I usually go in the direction that’s the easiest ride,” Vreugdenhill explained, “and heading up there put the seas to our side coming and going.”
They earned their first 300 points in the event with a blue marlin estimated at 250 lbs. that Cutler was able to fight to the boat in just 10 minutes. The fish bit a Black Bart trolling lure around midday.
Their number was called again around 2:30, when a slightly larger blue inhaled another Black Bart, and Butler took the rod for the second fish. The second fish was more of a fighter, and it took Butler around 45 minutes to get the leader to the boat. After reviving and releasing the estimated 325 lb. marlin, the anglers had 600 release points, an enviable position with one fishing day remaining.
Returning to the same area to fish day two, the anglers caught some dolphin before their big fish ate a Mold Craft chugger (the exact lure that produced their winning 635 lb. marlin last year).
This time Williford was on the rod. Thinking they had another release fish, they tried to get the leader to the boat fast, but the marlin had other plans.
“I thought it was another release fish,” the captain explained, “which would have put us in third place since Ralph on the ‘Chain Link’ already had three. Then she jumped close to the boat and we decided it was a kill fish. I had the leader four or five times before we actually got her.”
After a 50 minute fight, Cutler was able to sink a flying gaff in the fish.
“It was a great gaff shot,” Vreughdenhill said. “He spined her. After that we just grabbed her by the nose and hoisted her on in.”
The aforementioned three marlin releases earned Goldsboro, NC’s “Chain Link” third place in the billfish competition.
