The South Carolina Governor’s Cup Billfishing Series is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year by letting people know how well former Gov. Carroll Campbell’s vision of promoting tag-and-release fishing has paid off.
In 1988, Campbell, who kept his 35-foot Bertram, Second Lady, at Georgetown Landing, summoned former S.C. Department of Natural Resources biologist Don Hammond to Columbia to share his vision and tasked Hammond with coming up with a formula. At the time, about 90 percent of South Carolina’s offshore anglers, were bringing all their billfish – blue marlin, white marlin and sailfish – to the dock at the end of the day to weigh them, take photos and show them off.
And many times these fish later ended up in dumpsters.
“Because of my personal commitment to conservation of our resources, I am extremely please to lend my support to this program,” Campbell said in announcing the formation of the Governor’s Cup. “In addition to providing significant economic benefits and increased recreational opportunities, this program will promote conservation and research efforts through the “catch-and-release” concept of fishing tournaments.”
Campbell said the Governor’s Cup was designed to prom0te the state’s billfishing industry, increase coastal tourism and encourage the conservation of ocean resources though the tagging and releasing of billfish caught during the tournaments.
Initially, boats were awarded 200 points for tagging and releasing a billfish, while those that were brought to the dock received one point per pound. Recently enacted federal minimum size limits were the rule: 86 inches for blue marlin, 62 inches for white marlin and 57 inches for sailfish.
The first of five Governor’s Cup tournaments fished under the new guidelines was the 1989 Bohicket Marina Invitational Billfish Tournament. It was won by the boat Spirits with a 231¼-pound blue marlin. Another boat brought in an undersized blue marlin (79⅝ inches) and the angler was charged with a violation which carried a fine of $218. There were seven billfish releases.
The release concept gradually was embraced, and today 99 percent of billfish are released; the few that are brought to the dock are valued by biologists for research purposes. The scoring system has changed and today anglers score 600 points for releasing a blue marlin, 300 points for white marlin or spearfish and 200 points for sailfish.
Released billfish also provide important data. In the early 1990s, a series-tagged blue marlin was recaptured off Brazil after traveling 4,320 nautical miles, the first known evidence of a billfish’s trans-equatorial crossing.
In preparation for the 35th anniversary celebration, the S.C. Governor’s Cup Billfishing Series crew of Amy Dukes, Elizabeth Gooding and Cameron Rhodes has been crunching a lot of numbers from the series.
Over the past 34 years, participants have released 1,160 blue marlin, 369 white marlin, 2,593 sailfish, five roundscale spearfish and one longbill spearfish (these numbers do not reflect what transpired this week at Bohicket). In contrast, the anglers have brought only 130 blue marlin to the dock to be weighed.
Two state record blue marlin have been caught during Governor’s Cup tournaments.
Charleston angler Dixon Pearce, fishing aboard the Risky Business, broke a three-year-old record at the 1993 Bohicket Marina Invitational Billfish Tournament with a 752-pound, 6-ounce catch.
The current state record was set in 2005 when Corky Taylor, fishing aboard the boat Rascal, boated a blue marlin that weighed 881.8 pounds during the Charleston Harbor Marina tournament.
Earlier this week the Governor’s Cup crew released on social media the top nine release boats during Series history. Rascal, owned by Norman Pulliam and Foster McKissick, and Sportin’ Life, owned by Graham Eubank, top the list with 150 releases each. Rascal has released 33 blue marlin, 7 white marlin and 110 sailfish). Sportin’ Life has released 35 blue marlin, 19 white marlin and 96 sailfish).
Following Rascal and Sportin’ Life are: Blue Sky – 101 releases (24 blues, 6 whites, 71 sailfish); Home Run – 95 releases (23 blues, 1 roundscale spearfish, 10 whites, 61 sailfish); Syked Out – 91 releases (20 blues, 1 roundscale spearfish, 5 whites, 65 sailfish); Caramba – 79 releases (20 blues, 8 whites, 51 sailfish; Micabe – 78 releases (9 blues, 4 whites, 65 sailfish); Mister Pete – 77 releases (18 blues, 1 white, 58 sailfish); and Reel Passion – 74 releases (16 blues, 13 whites, 45 sailfish).