TLC had an offshore tournament day for the ages

The second last day of Jimmy Johnson’s Quest for the Ring out of Atlantic City proved to be a fantastic one for the TLC as they not only boated the biggest fish of the contest so far, a 568-pound blue marlin, but also added the first white marlin weigh-in and even a dolphin that moved into third. To top it off, TLC moved to first in the high points boat category with 1048.3.

Capt. John Thompson said the big blue came up on a teaser, allowing them to throw the pitch bait attached to an 80W rig for the hook-up by Devin O’Neill who won the battle in just 45 minutes. He also had the dolphin entry. Jeremy Warner caught the 67.5-pound white marlin , but that first place entry was dropped to second when the Viking 80 factory team arrived with a 69.8-pound white.

There are many other categories which will be settled during today’s final session. For instance, Miss Melanie has been leading Small Boat Tuna since the first day with 57.4 and 55.7-pound yellowfins, but Highly Leveraged is close behind at 96.7pounds. Any boat in that category could win with just one multiple blast.

There are also categories this year for Box Full of Tuna, which MJ’s leads with their 188.8-pound bigeye — and for Box Full of Yellowfins which Too Many Martinis leads with 155 pounds. after one of yesterday’s yellowfins fell just short of the 50-pound minimum.

On this last day, nothing appears to be unbeatable, even that 568-pound blue marlin. The white marlin lead is a target, and n the case of both dolphin and wahoo the leaders are only about half the weight of what the usual winners in large offshore tournaments weigh.

There are 65 boats fishing the last day, and I’ll do another blog with the results after the scales close at 9 p.m.

Calm weather continues over the weekend, with northwest winds at 5-10 knots forecast for Saturday.