Page 62 - 52nd Annual White Marlin Open

62 | visit us online at www.WhiteMarlinOpen.com

have been fishing since I was 4 years old. It all started in Flor- did quite well right out of the gate, catching a big tuna in the
ida but after college, I got a job with the NTSB which brought OC Tuna Tournament in 2013 and a 276 lb. tuna in the WMO
me to Washington D.C. I can’t stand large cities so as soon as I which won over $500,000 in 2017. Pereira picks up the story
landed in DC, I started asking where I could go to find beaches a few years later. “In 2021, we were in the Norfolk trolling north
and fishing, and was told Ocean City and Hatteras were the and I asked our crew whether we should turn right or left. It
places to go. In the early 90’s, I started to charter boats to was a fateful decision because almost as soon as we turned
fish and then ultimately, I began to mate on boats. In 1993, I left, the big white hit our bait. We got him on board, and he
bought my first boat, a 24’ Hydrosport. I would take it down measured 79” in length. When we looked at our charts for
to Hatteras, catch bluefin tuna and bring it back to DC and sell an approximate weight, 79” wasn’t even listed. This fish was
it to the sushi restaurants. That’s where the boat name Sushi literally off the charts! The celebration started right away.”
came from. It has been that way ever since.”
Pereira called his wife as they headed in and told her to pack
The White Marlin Open entered the equation for Pereira in her bags, grab their daughters and start making her way from
1996 as a mate on the TAG. It was his first WMO and he Raleigh to Ocean City. He explained that they may have a
has fished it every year since. The TAG won a dock Calcutta white marlin worth millions. The others in the crew did the
that year and started Pereira’s quest to win the outright title. same. The Sushi stopped on the way to the scales to pick ev-
Pereira picks it up from here. “We had chances to win in the eryone up and when they got to the scales there were more
late 90’s and early 2000’s but it never quite worked out. In than 20 people on the boat.
2003, I bought a 50’ Scarborough and fished that boat for a
few years.” “By the time we did all of that”, says Pereira, “there was a long
line of boats weighing fish and we were last in line. This actu-
From here the story builds, literally. It seems the White Marlin ally allowed me to calm down a bit. I had time to pray and that
Open became Pereira’s personal Moby Dick. “In 2011, I bought helped me to stop worrying. I felt it was in God’s hands at that
Island Boatworks and they had a 57’ boat already in produc- point and there was nothing I could do. We finally pulled into
tion”, recalls Pereira. “It took me two years to finish that boat. the weigh station around 10 p.m. that night.”
It ended up costing nearly double the initial estimate, and I
sunk almost all of my retirement savings to finish it. People Pereira had been fishing since he was 4 years old. He had
thought I was crazy, but my life goal was to win the White been fishing the White Marlin Open since 1996. He bought a
Marlin Open, and I built this boat to do just that.” company and built a boat specifically to win the White Marlin

Clearly Pereira was a man on a mission. The newly built Sushi

WMO 52 Magazine.indd 62 7/15/25 8:02AM