The Jacksonville-based boat Nikki Bella was trolling for marlin late in the day on May 29 far offshore Venice, Louisiana. They were entered in the Cajun Canyons Billfish Classic, when a large blue marlin took a live 5-pound blackfin tuna they were using for bait.
“The fish was huge, and I fought it for over two hours,” angler and boat owner Mark Padgett tells Outdoor Life. “We got it in about 11 p.m. Then we packed it in ice, roped its mouth shut, and stowed it in an insulated fish bag to preserve its weight.”
The 6-man crew of the Nikki Bella continued fishing for the next few days before returning to Cypress Cove Marina in Venice for the tournament weigh-in.
Two days later, the anglers weighed their almost 10-foot-long marlin on certified scales at Cypress Cove, and claimed $90,000 and second place in the tourney.
“We turned my marlin over to the marina folks, who gave data on the catch to the Billfish Foundation for research,” Padgett explains via StarLink satellite phone while fishing in another billfish tournament 200 miles offshore Venice in 4,500 feet of water. “We never learned about the significance of my marlin until we heard about it this week from the Billfish Foundation.”
The foundation reports that when Padgett’s marlin was inspected by researchers, they discovered a mostly-digested 22-inch juvenile yellowfin tuna that had been tagged and released about a month previously by the University of the Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research Laboratory.
The marlin had eaten the little yellowfin sometime before it struck the hooked small blackfin tuna bait that Padgett and the crew of the Nikki Bella had out in the tournament.
“I guess that marlin really loved eating little tuna,” says Captain Scooter Porto via SkyLink phone. “A Billfish Foundation guy told me they’ve never had a tagged fish returned that had been eaten by another fish – so this is a first, a real once-in-a-lifetime event, they believe.”
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According to Dyan Gibson, a research associate with the Mississippi Gulf Coast Research lab, the team has been measuring growth and migration patterns of sportfish along the Gulf of Mexico coast for two decades. But this is the first recovery of a tagged fish that had been eaten by another fish, which is an example of the important scientific knowledge that can result from marine tagging (and fishing).
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