Orange Beach Billfish Classic

Should be a good weigh-in this evening at The Warf. As of now I know of two blues along with a big bluefin on the way in, and yesterday there was a 650 something pound BM weighted. There was around $800,000.00 in the calcutta bet between the forty-eight boats and another quarter million in prize money to put the tournament worth over 1.1 million. One down and fifteen more to go.

I miss being able to fish those big tournaments every summer. thanks for the update though, good to hear some nice fish are being brought in

Someone text me a pic of the 735# bluefin. Crazy

Grade school buddy of mine, Eric Chandler trumped the 735 BFT with an 825. Not worth a lot of money, maybe 75 grand, enough to cover the weekend expenses but this kind of fishing has nothing to do with making money for the most part because nobody ever has.

Saw that on Instagram. Crazier. Heard they caught it at the Ram

75k for weekend expenses? What's cost of entering tournament?

Betting the Calcutta and fuel

Same here. I miss being out there.

Entry fee for this one was $6500 and bet across the board in the calcutta would run around another 45k, but not many people do that. Most try to put their money where the best return is while having a cap on how much they want to put up. For a lot of teams, 20K for each the big five tournaments along with entry fee is what they budget. Got to remember, these are multi millonaires with boats that cost up to $12 million.

Sounds like some boats are hooking up on some big fish.

What. The. Hell? I had no clue that kind of money was involved. And people are saying hunting is expensive?? If I had and extra 55K sitting around, practically every debt my wife and I have would be gone and they are dropping that on a weekend of fishing? I must be doing something wrong!! Lol

Dr. B

Oh yea. You gotta be a road builder or a condo scam artist to be runnin one of those 60’+. Very rich mans game.

Benji, There is a family in Montgomery ( damn fine one too ) that you know of that is in the commercial real estate development business and they fish these type of tournaments. They have a beach home on Gulf Shore drive in Destin and the guest / boat house on the canal. A couple of years ago they upgraded from a 54 foot boat to a 68 foot Hatteras. Problem was the canal was to narrow for Captain Harold to park the yacht in the boat house. So the family bought the vacant lot that was for sale on the other side of the canal directly behind them and the city of Destin then widen that area of the canal so the boat could then make the turn into the boat house. They also have one of the finest hunting properties in this state.

Wynsong

The article said that Pickett Reese caught the biggest yellowfin and I'm not surprised. That joker can fish and loves it! Pickett and Frankie Howell once was partners in the excavating business in Montgomery. Pickett's dad, Marlow Reese was a general contractor there as well. He also loved the blue water and from what I understand fished mostly down in the Keys.

Picket was a little bitty dude growing up...

I've been doing business with a lot of these people for up to thirty years and have become friends with several and close friends with a couple. Here's what some of them do: Several are connected to the oil industry, one is a rig fabricator with over 3000 employees, two have a fleet of tug and crew boats( hundreds), one has a giant shipyard that builds them and another sells every piece of CAT equipment in the state of LA. A couple own multiple auto dealerships or resturant chains, couple are real estate developers with one owning high rise office buildings in Houston, one is a fire truck manufacture, a few are CEO's of corporations including a pharmaceutical giant, a non working trust fund family to one of the worlds largest fertilizer manufactures, couple doctors and lawyers, an inventor that has several patents, one has a chain of collision centers and the list goes on.

Joe Hudson’s boat is nice

The last three boats he had were.

There are some financial heavy hitters in that game. Too rich for me so I’ll be happy with dad’s old johnboat and hope to eventually put some bass, bream, catfish, and crappie in it!!

Dr. B

Like some others have said I really miss fishing out there. Grew up fishing for marlin some with my dad. He loved trolling for whatever would bite. Blessed for the childhood I had to have those experiences. Saw a picture of that big bluefin tuna they caught. That was a hoss