3 Weeks Away from the 21st Emerald Coast Blue Marlin Classic

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) - We’re inside of three weeks before the 21st Emerald Coast Blue Marlin Classic. That annual event set for Baytowne Marina at the Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort. It’s a tournament that now averages 80 plus boats, and a prize purse that nears the two-million-dollar mark. All that on track again for this year’s ECBC, which begins on the 21st. Jonathan Boone is in his third year as the Tournament Director.

“We are stoked. We’re extremely excited for this event every single year, building up to it. It’s pretty amazing to see it come together, and we’re just hoping for good weather and big fish. It’s a fun deal, we continue to get some of the same staff and it’s fun to be able to see the people grow throughout the tournament. And the team members be able to accommodate and adapt to what we need to do. It’s always very functional and it’s a fun event”, said Boone.

Those big payouts going out to three teams that hauled in nice sized blue marlins. One at 513 pounds, another at 547 and the overall winner was a blue caught by Christian Fast aboard “A Work of Art” that weighed 638 pounds. Looking ahead, it appears as if the tournament fleet this June will be as big, or bigger, than ever!

“Yeah that’s right Scott, we always try to push that 100 boat mark. Right now we’re sitting at about 80 boats, which is super exciting. It’s June 1st, last year we had 19 boats sign up in June. So if you do the math we’re looking at hopefully, probably above 91 which in 2018, our 91 boats was the tournament record. And we’re always trying to push for a hundred. So being able to fit those big boats in here and accommodate for power and water, it’s definitely a challenge. But we have a good team that puts it all together, so.”

By the way that “A Work of Art” team netted 545 grand for the winning blue last June. The ECBC kicks off Wednesday the 21st with the weigh in nights on the 23rd and 24th.