Welcome to the 38th annual White Marlin Open, the largest bill fish tournament held each year right here in Ocean City, Maryland, the white marlin capital of the world. This is a very serious competition... Forget the fishing derby you won as a kid with an earthworm. These guys are using the fish you caught as bait. Admittedly I kind of wondered what all the hype was about.

Welllll when the first boat pulled into the weigh station yesterday, the "Playmate" from right out of the tournaments hometown, they unloaded a 45-pound tuna. I was duly impressed, but my curiosity was piqued when the fish was disqualified for coming in 5-pounds under the minimum for the entire competition. Slowly I started to get the idea. This fish was kiddie sized.

One of the crew members on the boat said, "This is the baby brother of the other tuna we have on deck." The crowds anticipation came alive as the officials set to work offloading what we were about to find out was a 241-pound behemoth! Just take a moment to consider just how big that is. That fish outweighs me. And tuna is one of the smaller fish that they're actually going for. The record for the competition was a 15 foot blue marlin that weighed in at 1,062-pounds. That's 5 of me!

The angler, Dale Christensen fought that fish for close to an hour armed with a fishing rod and a hook to get it into the boat. Unbelievable! And I wasn't the only one who thought so as the crowd became jubilant. So do yourself a favor. The competition runs through Friday, August 12th. Go down to 14th street in Ocean City on the bay side between 5 & 7 p.m. and see what they caught that day and join the crowd in cheering these guys on. 'Cause you need to see a fish that weighs more than you do too.