DAY 1 RECAP — 2026 Blue Marlin Grand Championship: Gunnslinger's 447-Pound Blue Leads the Scale as It Just Takes Time Tops the Release Board
ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — The finale of the Gulf Coast Triple Crown roared to life Friday as roughly 75 teams and 470 anglers fired out of Perdido Pass for the shotgun start of the 2026 Blue Marlin Grand Championship at The Wharf Marina. By the time the scales opened for the first fan-friendly weigh-in from 5 to 7 p.m., the fleet had already turned in one of the busiest opening days in recent memory.
Only one blue marlin met the minimum to hang on the scale — and it was enough to put Gunnslinger on top of the Weighed Blue Marlin board. Angler Jacob Goodroe brought a 447.6-pound blue measuring 112.5 inches to the dock, giving the team the early lead in the tournament's marquee category. A second boat, A Work of Art, boated a longer fish but did not post a qualifying weight.
The real fireworks came on the release side. Across the fleet, catch teams logged more than 70 billfish on Day 1 — 43 blue marlin, 15 white marlin and 12 sailfish — with the vast majority released and scored on the Catch & Release leaderboard.
It Just Takes Time paced that division with 3,105 points, edging a tight chase pack. A Work of Art and Metal Masher sat tied at 2,004, with Reel Fire (1,503) and Born2Run (1,002) rounding out the early top five. With 37 teams already on the release board, the standings are all but certain to reshuffle when lines hit the water again.
Fishing resumes Saturday, July 18 — the tournament's second and final day — with the closing weigh-in running from 5 to 8 p.m. and awards to follow that evening at The Wharf. With a purse north of $2 million on the line, one more big blue at the scale, or a late run of releases, could rewrite the entire leaderboard.
Standings via CatchStat live scoring for the 2026 Blue Marlin Grand Championship. This is a developing tournament; leaderboard figures are current as of the Day 1 weigh-in.
