Small boat leads Big Rock with 495.2-pound marlin

Local favorite jumps to top of Big Rock leaderboard

The PELAGIC HUNTER II, a 35-foot contender based out of Sneads Ferry, N.C. shook up the leaderboard in a major way on Friday, Day Five of the 62nd Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament. The boat is captained by John Cruise III and crewed by Riley Adkins, Norman Bowen, and Kyle Kirkpatrick. The team boated a blue marlin that weighed 495.2 pounds.

The fish moved them into first place in the Heaviest Blue Marlin pool, and has them in position to win a pile of money, if no boat brings a bigger blue marlin in on Saturday. The catch was especially impressive coming from one of the smallest boats in the fleet. The PELAGIC HUNTER II is the only outboard-powered, center console to bring a blue marlin to the scales so far.

APRIL MAE, BILL COLLECTOR, and GAME CHANGER also brought blue marlin to the scale on Friday. None of those fish cracked the Top 3, however.

Teams released 25 billfish on Friday

Total releases for Day Five included 17 blue marlins, five white marlins, and three sailfish. PIRACY won $5000 for releasing the first billfish of the day, which was a sailfish. They released the fish at 9:27 a.m.

No changes took place in the meat fish categories on Friday. CHUNDA brought in the biggest wahoo of the day. The 21.3-pound ‘hoo was good for $3000. SEA I SEA won $2000 for biggest dolphin of the day with a 34.2-pounder.

Saturday, Day Six, is the last competition day of the 62nd Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament, and lines go in at 8 a.m. Of the 205 boats registered for the tournament, 53 have fished all their eligible days. So 153 boats are eligible to fish Saturday.

For the full leaderboard and more information, visit thebigrock.com