Big tuna, white marlin land on final day

The lights weren’t out just yet Friday when a boat with a white marlin onboard pulled up to the dock on 14th Street in Ocean City.

The sun was just beginning to set on the final day of the 42nd Annual White Marlin Open, and until that point, on Friday only one white marlin had met the qualifying weight of 70 pounds. That was until Lights Out, a boat out of Ocean Reef, Florida, docked about 6:05 p.m.

The crew knew they had a big fish, and were already celebrating as they pulled up. With Bud Lights in hand, the crew loaded off the white marlin onto the dock and waited for the fish to be weighed.

“That’s a hoss,” one person nearby said.

Bill Haugland, 56, who was born and raised in Long Island, New York, watched as his catch was raised up and weighed. It clocked in at 78 pounds. Good enough for second place in the tournament and a prize of $1,005,872.

“Well it was one of the roughest days out there, and at 3:24 this afternoon, all of a sudden, boom,” Haugland said. “We knew right away. It didn’t take too long (to bring it in). Probably right around six minutes.”

Richard Kornahrens, a crew member of Lights Out, placed in the white marlin category three years ago with a 77-pound white marlin, but the catch fell into a three-way tie for third place.

This year for Lights Out, there was no tie.

“It’s crazy,” Haugland said. “It feels awesome.”

Big tunas weigh in

In the final hours of the tournament, three tunas were weighed in that shook up the leaderboard.

The first boat to come in was MJ’s out of Cape May, New Jersey. Dante Soriente, 30, of Beach Have, New Jersey, caught not one, but two tunas on Friday that were good enough for second and third place at the time of their weigh-ins at about 6:45 p.m.

“We had a bigger fish that we lost. A shark ate it off. We caught that second one right before we were about to leave,” Soriente said.

Soriente’s pair of tunas weighed in at 143.5 and 176 pounds, respectively, and greeting him at the dock was his 8-week-old daughter.

“This is a great feeling,” Soriente said.

But less than 30 minutes after MJ’s left the dock, Miss Annie, a boat from Point Pleasant, New Jersey, pulled in.

The crew from Jupiter, Florida, was joined onboard by a tuna that tipped the scales at 200.5 pounds. That weight was good enough to propel angler Mark Donahue all the way to first place in the tournament, shaking up the tuna leaderboard.

“We’re excited,” Donahue said. “It was our only bite of the day. We cleared the lines and went back after it, and in just under an hour we had it on the boat. It was a crew effort.”

Miss Annie’s crew has competed in the White Marlin Open for nine years and has placed twice before, but never claimed first place. Donahue said that the crew always likes to fish on the final day and set their sights on going after tuna this morning after peaking at the leaderboards.

They determined that it would be tough to top Cheryl McLesky’s 94-pound white marlin, but thought that they could top the tuna chart if they played their cards right.

“That’s a pretty hard white (marlin) to beat. The blue marlin was beatable, but there wasn’t a lot around,” Donahue said. “There was a lot of tunas around, so we just crossed our fingers and put our money on that.”

tnortham@dmg.gannett.com410-845-4643@primetimeMitch