Fishing Crew Denied $3.5 Million Prize After Their 619-Pound Marlin Is Bitten By A Shark

CBS Los Angeles

June 20, 2023

Members of a competitive fishing crew are filing a protest after their enormous catch was disqualified from a tournament in North Carolina because of a shark bite. The team, called Sensation, had competed alongside more than 200 other groups in the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament on Sunday, and their catch — a blue marlin weighing 619.4 pounds — would have won prize money totaling about $3.5 million.

Sensation's crew would have received $2.77 million for taking first place and another $739,500 for catching the first fish of the year that weighed more 500 pounds, CBS Sports reported. But the crew did not win the tournament, nor did team members receive any monetary reward, despite the blue marlin's size. Tournament officials said the marlin could not be considered eligible because it appeared that a shark had taken a bite out of the fish before it was caught.

"After careful deliberation and discussions between the Big Rock Rules Committee and Board of Directors with biologists from both NC State CMAST and NC Marine Fisheries biologists as well as an IGFA official, it was determined that Sensation's 619.4 lb. Blue Marlin is disqualified due to mutilation caused by a shark or other marine animal," tournament officials said in a statement shared to Facebook on Sunday. "It was deemed that the fish was mutilated before it was landed or boated and therefore it was disqualified."

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