Page 63 - 52nd Annual White Marlin Open

The World’s Largest and Richest Billfish Tournament | 63

Open. It had been quite a journey to this point. What was he The White Marlin Open itself started in 1974 so the Duffie
feeling at this moment when an “off the chart” white marlin family was around the tournament from its early years. “Dad’s
was about to be weighed, on the last night, of the last day, of first WMO was in 1982, fishing on a 34’ Luhrs. On his lay days,
the WMO? he would bring all of us (brothers Jeremy, Johnny and Justin)
to watch the tournament. Once we got to our teen years in the
“Since some early misses in tournaments,” Pereira recounts, “I early-mid nineties, we started joining him on the boat. From
vowed never to look at the scale as they are weighing our fish. that point on, we began to take tournament fishing much more
I stay on the bridge, turn away, pray to God and to my daugh- seriously. We won several categories and Calcutta’s over the
ter Savannah Caroline who passed away in 2010. When the years. In 2018 we were one of the boats that was part of a cra-
weight was announced, the crowd went bonkers, and I knew zy four-way tie for third at 77 lbs. We also won the top release
we had won. For a moment, I just stayed to myself and cried. boat a few times.”
We had been trying to win the WMO for 25 years and the
dream finally came true. It was an emotional time!” Duffie continues, “Finally in 2022, we caught the largest white
marlin, a once in a lifetime kind of feeling. If you are a golf-
Sense of Accomplishment er, you dream of winning the US Open or the Masters. If you
For Jeremy Duffie, and by extension the entire Duffie family, are a competitive fisherman, you dream of winning the White
winning the White Marlin Open in 2022 brought a tremen- Marlin Open.”
dous sense of accomplishment. After all, as Maryland natives
who grew up fishing the local waters and ultimately who built Duffie relates that there was an overall sense of accomplish-
a tournament winning boat, it had been a long journey to that ment in the win. “We set out to do something as a family and
moment on the scales at the White Marlin Open. we did it,” says Duffie. “After years of fishing the WMO, we
decided as a family to go all in. I helped to build the Duffie
Duffie describes the start of the family fishing adventure. “We Boatworks shop and my brother Johnny began building boats
grew up in Bethesda and spent a lot of time in Ocean City. My with the idea of competing with the Vikings, the Bayliss’s and
grandfather Ralph and father John started fishing the Chesa- the Spencers. These were all successful boat builders and
peake Bay in the late 60’s. In 1975, Dad bought a 25’ Bertram fishing teams, and we set out as a family to compete with the
and kept it at Bahia Marina. That’s when the family started to
fish offshore.”

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