GULF

DAY 2 RECAP — Bay Point Billfish Open: Release Leaderboard Builds With SFC Gulf Teams Stacking Points and Scales Quiet

June 26, 2026

GulfSFC

Science of Fishing Editorial

Aerial drone view of the 2026 Bay Point Billfish Open sportfish fleet running out at speed across the Gulf on Friday June 26 - photo by Dawson Miller / WJHG

This is the Day 2 recap from the 2026 Bay Point Billfish Open in Panama City Beach, Florida, where the release leaderboard kept building on Friday as the 86-boat fleet fished the middle day of the three-day event with the scale still quiet on the billfish side.

The Fleet Goes Back for More

Friday, June 26, was the middle fishing day of the 2026 Bay Point Billfish Open, and the fleet of 86 boats went back to the same shelf edges that produced Thursday's radio-only release reports. Conditions held well enough — the workable Gulf pattern from Day 1 stayed in place — and the catch-and-release billfish bite kept building through the day. Anglers targeted blue marlin, sailfish, and white marlin under the tournament's Gulf of America billfish catch-and-release format, with tuna, wahoo, and dolphinfish available for the weigh-in gamefish jackpots.

Bay Point Billfish Open 2026 Day 1 shotgun start — the fleet running off the Gulf on June 25, 2026 — Instagram reel from @highseakeeper — The 2026 Bay Point Billfish Open fleet firing off the Thursday shotgun start earlier in the week — the same 86-boat pack that would head back to the shelf edges Friday morning for the middle day's release chase. Photo: @highseakeeper via Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/highseakeeper/reel/DaBACOcRSuL/).

SFC Gulf Teams Stack Points

Inside the Bay Point fleet, the six Sport Fishing Championship Gulf Division angling clubs treated Day 2 as a points-accumulation session. Third Coast Renegades, Mississippi Blues, and Gulf Coast Cowboys all ran solid release numbers on Friday, per SFC's post-event totals — a pattern that would carry through to the tournament's final SFC Gulf Division placement:

Third Coast Renegades Angling Club — 2,025 points at Bay Point
Mississippi Blues Angling Club — 1,900 points at Bay Point
Gulf Coast Cowboys Angling Club — 1,350 points at Bay Point
Texas Lone Stars Angling Club — 1,050 points at Bay Point
West Florida Black Flags Angling Club — 375 points at Bay Point
Louisiana Canyons Angling Club — 325 points at Bay Point

Those final placement numbers weren't visible in real time on Friday — the tournament's public-facing scoring portal continued to run dark for much of the middle day, and intermediate release positions were only reconciled once teams returned to Bay Point for awards night on Saturday. The cumulative-leads-daily pattern we've called out across the 2026 SFC events applied cleanly here again: what the fleet knew Friday evening was the running feel of the release bite; what the boards said Saturday night was the reconciled points ledger.

SFC angler at the transom watches a blue marlin jump behind the boat during a Bay Point Billfish Open competition day — The SFC Gulf Division release chase, on-water: an angler at the transom watching a blue marlin jump behind the boat — the kind of catch-and-release scoring event that built the Bay Point release leaderboard through Day 2 while the SFC portal ran dark. Photo: Sport Fishing Championship.

Scale Boards Still Blank

As on Thursday, the evening scale windows at Bay Point drew a big-crowd atmosphere on Friday — but no qualifying blue marlin crossed the official scale during the second weigh-in session. Teams focused on the release scoring were content to add release points and save any weigh-in decisions for the final day. Tournament director Bert Merritt had told WJHG earlier in the week that "people love a blue marlin — people come from everywhere for a blue marlin," and the Friday-night dock crowd matched that read even as the boards stayed clean on the billfish side. Meat-fish action was live too — the tuna scale in particular would go hot in the closing day's session, echoing the kind of headline weigh-in InTheBite had previewed heading into the week.

What's Ahead on Saturday

Heading into Saturday's final day of fishing, the tournament's headline categories were still open:

Heaviest billfish (blue marlin) jackpot: no fish on the boards yet — decisive fish still possible late Saturday.
Catch-and-release division: release leaderboard building rapidly — reconciled positions would land at awards night.
Heaviest tuna, dolphin, wahoo jackpots: gamefish scale still open for Saturday's final weigh-in window.
SFC Gulf Division placement: Third Coast Renegades already trending toward the top of the Bay Point points slot with Mississippi Blues and Gulf Coast Cowboys chasing.

Rising Sons team celebrating a 136.9-lb tuna on the official Bay Point Billfish Open scale — InTheBite countdown-preview archival image of a big-tuna weigh-in at the tournament — A 136.9-lb tuna on the official Bay Point Billfish Open scale — an archival tuna weigh-in from InTheBite's countdown-preview coverage that previews the kind of meat-fish action Saturday's final session at Bay Point 2026 would ultimately deliver, with Set a Course's 199.2-lb tuna record briefly set before C'mon Man broke it with a 236.5-lb fish at the same scale. Photo: InTheBite.

By tournament end the release total would settle at roughly 190 fish caught and released across the three days — a new Bay Point Billfish Open tournament record.