2026 Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament
2026 The Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament Recap – This is going to be a long one so bear with me!
What an amazing week Team Free Ranger had fishing the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament this year. We were fortunate enough to weigh two qualifying blue marlin this past week. Below is a THANK YOU to all of those who are part of what we were able to do this week and below that a story about the giant catches that made this week so much fun.
A huge congratulations to all of the winners of this year’s tournament including Captains Cameron, Colin, & Joey and their respective crews and teams. NC is fortunate to have many of the best captains, boats, and crews in the world and those three local captains certainly earned their place in tournament lore with their outstanding catches this week.
What I feel most following this past week is gratitude.
To God above, for the opportunity to do what I do for a living every day and have these incredible experiences, I give thanks. The Bible calls on us to praise him in the highs, and praise him in the lows, and we got to experience some of both this week! But through it all, we are SO fortunate for all of the many blessings in our lives.
To all of our friends and family who have messaged, commented, texted, called, met us at the scales, or said a prayer for us THANK YOU! It absolutely means the world to hear from each of you. More than that, you are the ones that are there for us day in and day out and we are SO appreciative. From Saskatchewan to Guatemala, and everywhere in-between, it was amazing the support and love we felt this week.
To our friends & anglers who put their faith in us and charter us for the Tournament, THANK YOU – JT, Stephen, Joe, Reid, and Bradley we could not do it without you.
To my mates Dylan Esham & Daniel O’Neal – None of this would be possible without their tireless efforts and extremely hard work. My dock partner here in Ocracoke was picking on my mate the week prior to the tournament he said “If you mess with those rods and reels anymore you are going to rub the paint off of them” He was picking on him, but it was a compliment all the same. It is that checking, re-checking, and triple checking of all lines, drags, knots, etc.. that is the different between success and failure in our game. It is not the big moves that win, it is the attention to detail and doing all of the little things that no one notices that makes the difference. On top of that, they are fantastic human beings who I’m lucky enough to get to fish with on a daily basis.
To the great folks of Morehead City who offered us their slips, shore power cords, vehicles, and beds this week, THANK YOU. The hospitality and help that was extended to us was truly humbling. I hope that I am able to repay the favor here in Ocracoke some day.
To the Ocracoke Community – We love you! We could not do what we do without the support of the people and businesses here on the island. It was so neat for the whole world to get to see what we get to witness on a daily basis when so many folks from the island dropped what they were doing, jumped on to boats, and made the trek to meet us at the scales. As the announcer said, NO ONE shows up and shows out more than Ocracoke!
To the folks at the Big Rock Tournament who work so hard year round to put on such a great show, please pat yourselves on the back for a job well done. This is one of the most well run and organized tournaments in the world. Your hard work and hospitality does not go unnoticed.
To my peers in the charter fishing community – It has been truly humbling the captains and mates, many of whom I have looked up to my entire life, who have reached out this week. We have a tight-knit community, and I am so thankful for each and every one of you who help us out and are part of our fleet family each and every day.
To Jerry Stewart and the crew at James River equipment, thank you for providing us with an awesome John Deere motor and always answering the phone whenever we need anything at all.
Triple Crown Bait – Thank you for providing us with the best ballyhoo in the business!
Erick O’Neal & David Scott Esham – For the Spanish mackerel that blue marlins just can’t resist!
To the boatyards & boatbuilders who are always willing to give advice and help keep the Free Ranger in top notch shape, especially Brian at Hatteras Boatyard, Paul Mann of Mann Custom boats, and the folks at Spencer & Bayliss boatyards, Thank you!
To my wife Phoebe who is our biggest cheerleader, I love you! As folks may or may not know, charter fishing is not the easiest life to lead for your family. We are out the door at 4am, lucky to get back by 6pm, salt covered, tired, grumpy if the fish didn’t bite, and in need of food and rest. The next day it repeats itself. When we have a day off, there is oil to change, paint to repair, or any other of endless items that need our attention. In the offseason we travel to far off destinations to find work when it is cold and we don’t have clients in NC. Through it all Phoebe is my rock. She takes care of so much of our lives and all that she asked for in return is the occasional “marlin fishing trip”. Couldn’t do it without you honey!
The Story! I figured I would try to put into words some of our experiences from the week. We are back to charter fishing tomorrow so this might be a two part series, but here is Part 1.
Monday – As a great captain and mentor of mine Mr. Buddy Hooper always says, “don’t over complicate it Rob, just go to where they live”! Where he is referring in this statement is the point where the gulf stream flowing north and the Labrador current flowing south meet right at the tip of Diamond Shoals. Referred to by captains as “Back of the Tower” because it drops off so quickly that you can see the Diamond Shoals light tower from 100 fathoms while marlin fishing. It is a place where countless big marlin have been caught, and produced arguably more Big Rock winning fish than any other single location. The water conditions looked right, so off we went.
The first hour of fishing did not yield much activity for the Free Ranger crew. Around 10am I had a couple of good marks on my Simrad SY50 sonar, and after crossing over one of them we had a small blue marlin crash one of our long rigger lures. We had him on for just a few seconds before pulling the hook. No problem, sure would have liked to have caught him, but not the fish we were looking for this week. A little later in the morning the action had slowed down in the depth we were fishing, and I told a fellow Capt. I was going to go offshore to some deepwater rocks and check around a little bit.
Right as I crossed the first couple spots I had a sonar mark off to my starboard side. It was not a “No brainer” big blue marlin mark, but what the heck, I’ll drive over it anyway. As we crossed the mark my mate started yelling ON YOUR TEASER. I spun around and went to work getting the teaser away. Side note: We pull two “teasers” which are really just baits, in our case real Spanish mackerel, with no hook in them close to the boat to attract the fish. When they come up chasing it, we throw a “pitch bait” to them, which is a Spanish mackerel (big pitch) or ballyhoo (small pitch) with a hook in it to hook the fish. I could tell it was a big one and started to holler for my mate to throw the “Big Pitch”, but when I looked down I noticed he too had noticed the size of the fish and had the big pitch bait on the way out. The blue marlin disappeared for just a second, and then just 15’ behind the boat launched halfway out of the water to eat the bait Dylan was offering; it was a sight to behold. Our angler JT jumped in the fighting chair, and after clearing all of the other lines we went to work gaining back the line the fish had taken. This was a strange fish. It never made any long runs, and we got to the leader (within 30’) very quickly. It wasn’t very happy when Dylan started pulling on the leader, and after making some aggressive jumps towards the boat dove deep on us. Right up to 40lbs of drag we went, and the real work for JT began. He did an awesome job, and 20 mins later had the fish pulled back up. I’ll have to say, this was one of the meanest 400lb fish I have caught. Dylan had it back on the leader, giving her all he had for another 15 mins before he was finally able to pull it up boat side. That’s when the decision had to be made. It was the first day of the tournament. If you bring in a fish that doesn’t meet tournament minimums, your week, entry fees, and tournament is over for all intents and purposes. We have a measuring system, but it is imperfect on a fish in the water, it just gives you a close estimate. After gauging the fish I made the call to boat the blue marlin. Many a Big Rock had been won by fish in the 400lb range. It was the first day of the tournament and there was no telling what the week would bring. It was worth the risk, we needed to boat this fish. While Dylan held onto the leader, Daniel opened our “tuna door” (a door on the transom of our boat for sliding large fish through). I asked them to not gaff the fish, because we knew every lb would count. It was worth the slight risk of losing the fish to not have the weight loss that comes from the bleeding of a gaff hole. One, two, three, four people grabbed ahold of the bill and began to drag this marlin aboard. Once it was safely in the boat and the door closed, I asked them to provide me with an accurate measurement of the fish. While they were doing that I turned to the radio to say the 7 words that I had dreamed about my whole life. “Big Rock Headquarters” the reply came quickly “Big Rock, Go Ahead” and my reply “The Free Ranger has boated a blue marlin”.
Soon after my crew looked up with smiles on their faces and reported the length, 112”. Wheewwwweee a giant sigh of relief. No matter the weight, it would meet tournament minimums, we were safe! You call upon all of your experiences, training, days on the water, and fish caught to make educated estimate of the size of the fish while it is in the water. But until it is laying in the deck with a tape measure on it, there is always a bit of doubt. What a feeling when you know you are heading to Big Rock Landing with a legal fish to try and go win the Big Rock!
One thing about fishing “Behind the Tower” is that it is about the furtherest distance that you can legally fish from Morehead City. When I punched in the coordinates, we were over 85 miles from Big Rock Landing! The Free Ranger is an amazing charter boat. She is a 46’, single engine, wood hulled vessel built by Buddy Cannady. She was built to be exactly what she is, a charter boat. Which means it needs to be seaworthy, comfortable, and efficient. All this to say, she is not a speed demon! But with a big marlin in the deck and a Nor’easter on our stern, we started the long, salty, 20 knot journey to Big Rock Landing. I made a call to my wife, and said pack a bag and head to Morehead if you can get there! Thanks to some great friends they hitched a boat ride from Ocracoke to Wild Wills in Atlantic, where some other amazing friends met then with vehicles and took the rest of the way down to Morehead.
At around 6pm we crossed “The Slot” which is an area of Cape Lookout Shoals where you can cross about 12 miles off of land, and turned her towards Beaufort Inlet. Once we made the turn the wind was on our beam instead of our stern, and the ride was considerably wetter. Saltwater covered the curtains and the mist swirled around the cockpit as we made our final approach. I confirmed that our ETA was 7pm, and received confirmation that they were ready and waiting for us at Big Rock Landing. I’m not going to lie, there were some significant nerves floating around at this moment. I told my mate I would be one happy camper when the boat was in the slip and the fish was hanging from the scales.
The feeling of driving down the Morehead City waterfront with seemingly the whole world cheering for you is one that is hard for me to put into words. We got the boat backed into the slip and tied up, and the veteran weigh master team explained the process to us and helped get the fish hoisted up and on the scales. As they say, the rest is history…. 437 lb marlin, good enough for 2nd place at the time. We were thrilled it was a qualifying fish, and with no telling what the rest of the week had in store, very happy to be on the leaderboard day one.
Little did we know, a Big Rock week for the ages was just getting started… Story To be continued later this week!……….
