By Jack Vitek - Marlin Magazine

February 11, 2026

In just one month, Cap Cana’s electrifying blue marlin fishery produced two record-shattering days—proof that the Dominican Republic is currently the most explosive, high-volume blue marlin destination on the planet.

Over the past several months, no destination has captured the attention of big-game anglers quite like the Dominican Republic, where the fleet has been producing jaw-dropping numbers of blue marlin. In the waters off Marina Cap Cana, both Gunpowder and the Viking 68 Demo recently delivered single-day performances that stretch the realm of what’s possible on the water, toppling records along the way.

Gunpowder’s Historic Run

On November 3, 2025, the crew of Gunpowder etched their names into sport-fishing lore with a day that hardly seems real—27 blue marlin released during a 10-and-a-half-hour spree off Cap Cana.

The run began like many Dominican mornings: rough, confused seas, high anticipation, and a quiet confidence as Capt. John Mitchell and his team slipped lines.

“We started the day like any other,” Mitchell recalls. “We had 10 fish by midday, but things had slowed down. There were a lot of boats around the buoy chain, and I just had that gut feeling—it was time to make a move.”

That move—running 8 miles west, away from the fleet—changed everything.

“As soon as we set out, the chain got ripped down before we even had the full spread out,” Mitchell says. “That’s when I knew we’d found them.”

His sonar lit up with wolf packs of blue marlin—six to eight fish at a time, untouched and aggressive. For nearly three hours, the action never let up.

Owner David Machado watched from afar, glued to his phone. “John texted me that they were on 22, and minutes later said they had a triple on. I couldn’t believe it.”

In the cockpit, pit crew Neil Orange, Victor Mara and Jose were flawless. “Neil was unbelievable on the pitch all day long,” Mitchell says. “Victor and Jose never missed a beat.”

Just after 5 p.m., they released number 27. When they returned to the dock, the marina erupted.

“There must have been 150 people waiting,” Mitchell says. “Drones flying, cameras everywhere—it was wild.”

Gunpowder’s record was set. But the 2025 season in Cap Cana had more history in store.

Viking 68 Demo Raises the Bar

Several weeks later, on December 1, 2025, the Viking 68 Demo delivered a performance that pushed the boundaries even further—30 blue marlin releases in a single day, establishing a new unofficial Atlantic daily release record.

For Capt. Sean Dooley and his crew, the day started like any other: a competitive mindset, a proven spread, and the knowledge that the bite was about to go off with the approaching full moon.

“We always go out trying to win the day,” Dooley says. “But nobody expects that kind of fishing. Those days are few and far between.”

By midafternoon, the math started to shift.

“At around 3 o’clock, we released our 20th one,” he recalls. “That’s when it clicked: If we had a good afternoon, we had a real shot at making a run at this thing.”

What followed was a two-hour window of near-perfect execution. Between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., the crew released 10 more fish, finishing at an ­astonishing 30-for-36.

“Our anglers did an amazing job,” Dooley says. “The crew in the cockpit—West Rivers and Thomas Garmany—made my job a whole lot easier. Without them, we wouldn’t have come close.”

The anglers—friends from Half a Buck, a 64-foot Viking out of St. Augustine—rotated through a steady rhythm of bites in pleasant Cap Cana conditions. Relatively calm seas, minimal grass, and fish in the 80- to 150-pound class made for textbook light-tackle fishing.

The timing of the flurry didn’t surprise Dooley.

“Something always happens around the moon,” he says. “Last year, it was on the backside. This year, including [John Mitchell’s record&91; day, it was right before it. You never know exactly when it will break loose—but you know it’s coming.”

This time, unlike past brushes with setting the record number, they didn’t run out of daylight.

“December 1 was the day it all came together,” Dooley says. “Perfect weather, plenty of fish, and flawless execution by the guys in the cockpit.”

When the Viking 68 Demo backed into its slip, the welcome committee was ready.

“Everybody was super excited,” Dooley says. “John Mitchell from Gunpowder called us, Neil was on the dock—it was pretty special. We didn’t celebrate too hard because we had to fish the next day, but we definitely enjoyed the moment.”

The Perfect Storm

Fishing the same fertile Caribbean waters that produced Gunpowder’s generational performance weeks earlier, the Viking 68 Demo proved just how extraordinary this fishery has become. More FADs and improved local efforts, stretches of unseasonably calm weather, and an influx of juvenile blue marlin have created a perfect storm for racking up unbelievable numbers.

In a sport built on stories of “the one that got away,” it’s comforting to know that occasionally, it happens to play out differently.

New name, same fish: Largemouth bass are now Florida bass

Genetics studies confirmed what many anglers and biologists have believed for a long time – Florida bass are special! Florida’s most popular freshwater game fish has a new name. The American Fisheries Society established the Florida bass as a separate species from the largemouth bass. This means that in most of Florida (except the western Panhandle) what was known as a largemouth bass is now called a Florida bass.

This name change will affect how the fish is referred to in regulations and other communications. However, it will not affect anglers fishing for this iconic freshwater sport fish.

According to the recent research publication by Yale University, the study used advanced genetic analysis and determined Florida bass to be its own species. The research also identified the range of Florida bass to be larger than once believed, including not only Florida, but also parts of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.

The scientific names of these two bass also changed. Largemouth bass, previously Micropterus salmoides, is now the scientific name for Florida bass. Largemouth bass are now Micropterus nigricans.

Understanding and conserving fish species is crucial for sustainable recreational fishing and biodiversity preservation. The classification of species plays a key role in these efforts. Black basses (Micropterus spp.) are well-known freshwater fish and highly popular for recreational fishing. This new understanding of black bass diversity, distribution and classification provides a critical foundation for better managing and conserving these important and iconic fish. It will aid in ensuring their continued conservation and sustainable use for future generations.

To learn more about the Florida bass name change go to MyFWC.com, click on “Freshwater Fishing,” select “Black Bass Management” and click on “Florida Bass.”

BY BOB MCNALLY | PUBLISHED MAY 20, 2022 5:56 PMouth African citrus farmer Ben Vorster, 50, was fishing aboard the 37-foot Bertram charter boat Smoker with renowned Capt. Ryan “Roo” Williamson the morning of May 19 when he hooked into one of the biggest Atlantic blue marlin ever caught on a rod and reel. The crew was trolling off Africa’s central-west coast near Mindelo, Cape Verde, when they first saw the fish.

“At 7:30 a.m. Roo noticed a monster marlin rise on a far back trolling lure just 15 minutes after setting up for fishing,” says South African Capt. Steve Andrews, one of Williamson’s best friends and fishing buddies. (Williamson was out marlin fishing when Outdoor Life contacted him for an interview, but he told the story of the fishing adventure to Andrews, who shared with us the tale rom Cape Verde.)

Williamson only trolls a single long-line lure—typically a Pulsator tube of his own design—for giant marlin, Andrews explains. The idea is to tease a big fish up close, drawing it into the transom teasers and dredges. The crew then tries to seal the deal by pitching out a 4-pound tuna bait rigged on a circle hook.

When this particular marlin rose behind the Smoker on Thursday morning, Andrews says the deckhands worked hard and fast to tease the fish within easy pitching distance. It took the bait right away, and Vorster hopped into the fighting chair to do battle, using a stout rod and an 80-pound trolling reel spooled with 130-pound test line—an ideal setup for pitch-fishing to huge marlin.

“After hooking the fish, it never jumped, so they couldn’t confirm how big they believed it to be,” says Andrews. “Ben is a strong, tough farmer, and a big game hunter. [He&91; did an incredible job fighting the fish and getting the marlin to the boat in only 30 minutes.”As the big blue neared the boat, the crew realized just how massive it was. They hit the billfish with flying gaffs while it was still green and plenty strong. The fish bent open one of the gaffs, but the crew was still able to wrestle it into the boat.

Back at the marina, the marlin was placed on a digital scale, where it officially weighed in at 1,370 pounds. It measured 12.6 feet in length with a 6.6-foot girth, and the fish’s tail fin alone was nearly three feet across.

“It’s a dream come true for Ben Voster,” says Andrews. “He’s an avid marlin fisherman and boat owner, just like his brothers Gerhard and Michiel, who were alongside him during the catch.”

The Voster brothers were fishing a six-day charter with Capt. Williamson. Andrews says they enjoyed phenomenal fishing over the course of their trip, catching and releasing 14 blue marlin up to 800 pounds. Virtually all those marlin were caught using the pitch-bait tactic.

“The last morning of the charter trip was when Ben caught his giant marlin,” says Andrews. “The Cape Verde area is just a spectacular blue marlin fishery.”

Williamson would agree. He believes the area might be the best place in the world for catching lots of big blue marlin, Andrews says. And Roo is a pretty good judge of the world’s marlin fisheries. The son of the late but legendary Capt. John Williamson, founder of the famous Williamson Lures company, Roo has fished nearly everywhere the species swims. When he’s not chasing marlin and chartering offshore trips, he produces big game lures for Pulsator Lures, which is based in South Africa.

Putting their catch in perspective, the fish that the Smoker crew landed earlier this week is the second heaviest blue marlin ever caught from the Atlantic. Although plenty of anglers target these giant billfish in deep water, it’s not very often that a fish over 1,000 pounds—also known as a “grander”—is brought into the boat.

The IGFA All-Tackle World Record for Atlantic blue marlin weighed 1,402 pounds, and it was caught off the coast of Brazil in 1992 by angler Paulo Amorim. Portugal has produced at least two Atlantic blues weighing in the 1,100-pound class, with the last one taken in 1993. Each of these fish is an IGFA line-class record for the species. A 1,305 pounder was also caught in 2015 off Ascension Island by Jada Van Mols Holt, and that fish is still the IGFA women’s 130-pound-class world record.

By Sam White, Marlin Magazine

April 13, 2021

Arthur Teriipaia with his 1,106-pound blue marlin from Moorea.  Courtesy Arthur Teriipaia

When Arthur Teriipaia set out for a day of fishing off the French Polynesian island of Moorea in the South Pacific, he probably had no idea he would encounter what most would call the fish of a lifetime: a blue marlin weighing more than 1,000 pounds. It’s Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, writ large and in real life.

Teriipaia, a 67-year-old retired chef-turned-commercial fisherman, was trolling off the southern point of the island in his locally built skiff, Viainapa, powered with a single Volvo Penta inboard/outdrive, and without a top, tower or outriggers, fishing for yellowfin tuna. As is common in the Pacific and elsewhere around the world when the tuna are boat-shy, he chose to run a blue Halco Laser Pro swimming plug some 200 yards behind the boat, fishing it from an Accurate 130 loaded with 80-pound-test line. Teriipaia had already lost a large marlin from bent hooks on this particular lure the previous week, so he had switched to Owner quadruple-strong trebles in case he came across another one. The move proved to be a fortuitous one.

Around midday, a blue marlin ate the lure and came up jumping, but since it was so far from the boat, Teriipaia thought the fish weighed only about 500 pounds. The fish stayed on the surface, nearly spooling him in the process with four strong initial runs. Teriipaia stayed with it, running the small boat while also fighting the marlin, gaining line while also trying not to pull the treble hooks with too much drag pressure. He was also still unable to gauge the true size of the fish because it wasn’t coming out of the water at this point, just lunging on top, as big marlin often do.

Teriipaia displays the Halco Laser Pro lure that produced the giant marlin. Note the quadruple-strong Owner treble hooks  .Courtesy Arthur Teriipaia

After two hours, the fish rolled over and died on the surface. Teriipaia drove up to the marlin, secured its bill with a few half hitches of dock line, and towed it slowly back to port. Once back at the commercial dock in Moorea, a small crowd gathered as the fish was hoisted from the water and weighed. The certified scale read 502 kilograms, or 1,106 pounds. The marlin had a short length of 137 ­inches and a girth of 78 inches, ­representing yet another of many impressive ­catches from those waters. According to ­granderwatch.com, four additional blues over the 1,000-pound mark have been reported from French Polynesia in the past decade: a 1,474-pound fish in 2015 and a 1,301-pounder in 2011, both weighed in Tahiti. More recently, the neighboring island of Raiatea produced a pair of grander blues in 2016, fish weighing 1,128 and 1,034 pounds.

But the story doesn’t end there. It seems that landing big marlin runs in the family: Alfred’s father, Marii Teriipaia, caught the French Polynesian record marlin back in 1965. In its monthly newsletter at the time of the catch, the IGFA reported the weight of that fish as 2,650 pounds after its internal organs had been removed. Teriipaia was fishing with Alfred, who was 11 years old at the time, between Tahiti and Bora Bora when two 50-pound-class yellowfin showed up around the boat; he free-gaffed one and was looking for the second fish when the giant blue marlin charged up from the depths, ­apparently also searching for the second tuna. Using a hand-lined bonito for bait, Marii hooked the big fish and fought it for an hour and a half before subduing it alongside the boat. Back at Raiatea, it took 10 men to carry the fish to the city market, where it had to be cut in half before being weighed—it had bottomed out a 2,000-pound scale. Because of the way the fish was handled, there have been many disputes about the actual size and even the species—whether it was a blue or a black—but there is little doubt in anyone’s mind that it was truly a giant marlin.

Third generation fisherman David Soares landed the biggest tuna caught in Bermuda’s waters on Saturday morning 14 January 2017)  and he did so single-handedly in 15 minutes flat.

The Bermudian, who said he has had it confirmed by the fisheries department that the 1004lb giant bluefin tuna that landed on his boat was the heaviest recorded in the island’s history, was also responsible for the previous record catch — a 1003lb tuna landed in the same fishing grounds in 2013.

He was out fishing alone on Challenger Banks about ten miles southwest of the island on Saturday morning when he felt the tug. It was his first “bite” of the day after just five minutes with the lines out.

He knew he had hold of a large fish right away as its jaws had locked on to two of his five trawling lines. The monster catch was fairly easy to pull up, he said, due to the fact it was attached to two lines.

Mr Soares, a full-time commercial fisherman, told The Royal Gazette: “I was just out trawling for the day — that is how I make my livelihood.

“I was out fishing for wahoo and tuna and I happened to catch the tuna. He bit two lines so two rods were going off at the same time. I had to wind both of the lines back in together. I was by myself but with it being on two rods, it kind of made it easy. It only took about 15 minutes to catch it.”

Once he got the fish to the surface, he had to get it on to his 45-foot commercial fishing boat Kerry D, which he named after his wife. The fish itself was almost ten feet long and needed to be put on ice and returned to shore.

Mr Soares recalled: “It wasn’t thrashing around at all he just came up pretty docile so I harpooned him and then tied some ropes to him and winched him into the boat. As far as my recollection goes, there have been 12 bluefin tunas caught in the history of Bermuda and I have caught seven of the 12 that I know of.”

Asked whether he would share his secret to success, Mr Soares laughed and said: “No.”

He added: “I just fish for them and I fish big rods. They are my passion. It is my goal in life to catch them.

“Lots of friends and family overseas have commented on the pictures; it has been seen around the world. I’m a third generation fisherman — my grandfather fished here, my father fished, it is kind of a family tradition.”

Asked if he may have picked up the knack from his forefathers, he replied: “Sometimes you would rather be lucky than good.”

He sold his catch to MEF which owns Blu, Little Venice, L’Orientel and Harbourfront where the fish has now been distributed.

“They are a good customer of mine and have been loyal to me for the past 20-something years and I have a good relationship with them,” Mr Soares said. “I’m going to Blu Restaurant tonight to try it for the first time.”

While The Royal Gazette was the first media organisation to contact Mr Soares about his latest catch, he is no stranger to publicity having been interviewed about his last record catch in Bermuda in National Fisherman Magazine in the US.

Get your bluefin tuna replica at The Fish Mount Store.

-As reported in The Royal Gazette, Bermuda.

This is some really, really, REALLY good fishing.

Well done guys.....

Need 23 Blue Marlin replicas???

Punta Cana, Dominican Republic – Boats fishing out of Marina Cap Cana have had some of the best fishing this fishery has ever seen over the last week. The Fleet, which has only consisted of three to five (3-5) boats a day released 165 Billfish over the past week. The vast majority (90%) of these have been Blue Marlin, but there has also been good variety with three (3) Grand Slams. Blue Bird released one Grand Slam and Vitamin Sea with two Grand Slams.

While the “season” here is truly year round, the traditional peak season has normally passed by now. Don’t tell the Blue Marlin. We had four (4) boats release double digit Blue Marlin in a day this past week, with Blue Bird setting and then beating their own Marina record releasing sixteen (16) Blue Marlin followed by eighteen (18) the very next day. That put them only two Blue Marlin shy of the Atlantic Record of twenty (20) set by the Hooker in 1997 in the Cape Verdes.

The bite has been good for well over a month now. If you are looking to experienced one of the best Blue Marlin fisheries (not to mention a spectacular setting and Marina) the time is now.

RECENT REPORTS

Vitamin Sea went 6-18 on Blue Marlin.

Dhara went 7-17 on Blue Marlin and 3-3 on White Marlin.

Blue Bird beat their own record, set just yesterday, going 18-25 on Blue Marlin.

Vitamin Sea went 8-9 on Blue Marlin.

Keep Fishing went 7-13 on Blue Marlin.

Blue Bird 16-24 on Blue Marlin, 1-1 on White Marlin and 1-2 on Sailfish.

Dhara went 12-18 on Blue Marlin and 3-6 on Sailfish.

Vitamin Sea went 10-15 on Blue Marlin and 1-1 on White Marlin.

Dhara went 12-18 on Blue Marlin and 3-6 on Sailfish.

Vitamin Sea released a Grand Slam going 5-7 on Blue Marlin, 1-1 on White Marlin and 1-1 on Spearfish

Get your mounts at The Fish Mount Store

Two anglers were left stunned after hooking a NEON pike. Randy Straker, 51, and Craig Thomas, 54, from Yellow Knife in Canada were about to bring their five-hour fishing trip to an end in the Great Slave Lake last Sunday when they grabbed the colourful catch. The fluorescent 40-inch, 14-pound green fish has a bright 'lipstick-like' mouth and a similar tinge to the rest of its fins. 

Randy Straker displays rare neon-green pike. Photo: Craig Thomas/Mercury Press/Caters News

Somewhere in northern Canada’s Great Slave Lake is a fluorescent-green pike that looks as though it’s wearing neon-green lipstick.

The bizarre-looking fish was released after being caught by Yellowknife angler Randy Straker, during a recent outing with Craig Thomas.

Northern pike, also referred to as jackfish, are typically much darker, with a brownish or olive-green complexion, and with yellowish-white bellies.

The 12- to 14-pound pike reeled in by Straker, an avid Great Slave Lake angler, “was totally, head to tail, like nothing we’d ever seen before.”

Photos show normal-colored pike (top) and the light green pike caught by Randy Straker. Photos: Craig Thomas, via CBC

He explained to CBC: “The whole top of the fish had a different green. If you look at the mouth, it looked like green lipstick, it was so bright.”

The anglers set the pike free after taking a few quick photographs, realizing afterward that they should have taken more photos as a means of documenting their odd catch.

“When you put it up against another pike, it’s way lighter,” Straker said. “The fins were kind of a translucent green as opposed to the darker colors of a regular pike.”

On social media, many offered theories, ranging from the fish’s diet, to pollution, and even radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

However, Jeff Goudreau, a Fish and Wildlife technician and Great Slave Lake guide, appears to have solved the mystery.

Randy Straker said the fish looked to be sporting neon-green lipstick. Photo: Craig Thomas, via CBC

Goudreau, who claims to have caught a few pike with similar coloration, said it has to do with cells called chromatophores, which enable fish to change colors when they’re frightened, or become excited while hunting, or to blend in with specific habitats.

The unique coloration of this particular pike, Goudreau told CBC, probably stemmed from its habitat in shallower, algae-rich water of the narrow arm in which Straker and Thomas were fishing.

“They try to blend themselves into that environment to be better hunters,” Goudreau said. “So you’ll see those aquamarine colors, where the throats are very blue and dark green and stuff. That’s pretty much what happened with this one.”

This explanation was echoed by Neville Fickling, a pike expert from England, who said the predatory fish are “always going to be able to determine exactly what their environment is, and adapt chromatophores accordingly.”

Straker and Thomas were exploring a new area in the vast Northern Territories lake, perhaps explaining why they had never seen a pike so uniquely green.

“I was wearing polarized lenses, and I thought maybe that was causing some different coloration in the fish,” Straker said. “I was just about to pull my glasses off to take another look… and then my buddy made a comment about how strange the fish looked.”

The two planned to fish the same area again, to see if they could land another just like it.

We can make your pike just as funky as this real one in Canada.

Check out some of the Funky Fish at The Fish Mount Store

March 10, 2015 by Pete Thomas

Calvin Johnston poses in the snow with his monstrous brown trout; photo via Facebook

An Arkansas angler fishing from shore because his waders were frozen has caught one of the largest brown trout ever landed, a behemoth weighing 38 pounds, 7 ounces.

Calvin Johnston was braving snow and 17-degree temperatures on a recent excursion when the giant trout struck. “I knew immediately when I saw the fish it was a monster,” he told KCTV.

It’s the largest brown trout ever caught from the White River and only a few pounds shy of the world record: a 42-pound, 1-ounce brown trout caught off New Zealand in 2013.

Another look at Calvin Johnston’s linker brown trout; photo via Facebook

Remarkably, it’s only the third-largest brown trout caught in Arkansas, the largest being a 40.4-pounder caught from the Little Red River in 1992.

Johnston, 38, who is from Kansas, had been fishing with his brother and some buddies, with no real luck, earlier the same day. They went back to their hotel rooms to rest, but at about 5 p.m. Johnston went back to the river alone.

His waders were frozen so he merely walked the bank, casting a small trout-imitation lure near a rock outcropping that provided fish protection from the current.

“I threw the bait there once or twice, and all of a sudden she just hit the bait,” Johnston told the Baxter Bulletin. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a good bite.’ ”

When he saw the massive trout swirl, he yelled for assistance. But none came.

“I thought holy cow, this is a monster, I need some help,” Johnston recalled. “So I started calling for my brother. Later I found out he heard me, but he said, ‘I’m not going down there, it’s cold, he ain’t got no fish.’ What a brother, right?”

Johnston, who now displays one of his trout images as his Facebook cover photo, planned to have his prize mounted by a taxidermist.

http://www.whoi.edu/main/remus-sharkcam/

In 2013, a team from the Oceanographic Systems Lab at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution took a specially equipped REMUS “SharkCam” underwater vehicle to Guadalupe Island in Mexico to film great white sharks in the wild. The captured more than they bargained for.

See more video footage from REMUS SharkCam on the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week website (where it is called “Jaws Strikes Back Cam”).

Learn more about the 2013 trip to Guadalupe Island on “Jaws Strikes Back,” on the Discovery Channel, Monday, August 11, 2014, at 9:00 p.m. EDT.

REMUS SharkCam is a specially outfitted REMUS-100 autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) equipped with video cameras and navigational and scientific instrumentation that enable it to locate, track, and film up close a tagged marine animal, such as a North Atlantic white shark (great white). The vehicle is pre-programmed to home in on a signal from a transponder beacon attached to the animal at depths up to 100 meters (330 feet) and in a variety of patterns and configurations.

REMUS SharkCam uses an omni-directional ultra-short baseline (USBL) navigation system to determine the range, bearing, and depth of a tagged animal. It then closes on the animal to a pre-determined stand-off distance and position (left, right, above, or below) and to film it swimming and interacting with its environment with minimal interference with the animal’s behavior. Another system on the vehicle permits it to communicate with scientists on the surface every 10 to 20 seconds and to receive commands from the surface to change speed, depth, or other mission parameters as necessary.

REMUS SharkCam has been tested on white sharks and basking sharks near Cape Cod and on white sharks near Guadalupe Island on the West Coast of Mexico. Plans are currently underway to use the system to follow other large marine animals such as sea turtles. Visual and numerical data from the vehicle promise to open up new ways of studying the behavior of marine animals in the wild interacting with their natural habitat.

• Length: 2.03m (80 in.)
• Diameter: 19cm (7.5 in.)
• Weight: 45kg (100 lbs.)
• Maximum depth: 100m (328 ft.)
• Maximum speed: 5 knots
• Maximum range: 36 nautical miles (at 4.5 knots)
• Mission duration: Up to 8 hours

Instrumentation:

• 6 REMUS GoPro video cameras providing 360° field-of-view
• Omni-directional USBL navigation system
• Acoustic communication system (ACOMMS), modem, and transducer
• Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP)
• GPS/Wi-fi/Iridium antenna
• Conductivity and temperature probe

Check out the Great White Shark Replica from The Fish Mount Store!