The White Marlin Open is a deep-sea fishing tournament held every summer in Ocean City, Maryland. It started in 1974 with 57 boats, 150 anglers, and a total purse of $20,000. Since then it has grown into what organizers and the fishing press both call the world's largest and richest billfishing tournament, and the numbers back that up. The tournament has awarded more than $121 million in prize money since it began, to more than 120,000 anglers fishing aboard over 16,000 registered boats.

Anglers target white marlin, blue marlin, tuna, wahoo, and dolphin, all species that migrate up the Gulf Stream through the mid-Atlantic canyons each summer. The main fishing grounds sit off the Washington, Baltimore, Norfolk, and Wilmington canyons, and the position of the Gulf Stream relative to those canyons is usually the biggest factor in how the week plays out.

2026 Dates and the New Six-Day Format

The 53rd Annual White Marlin Open runs August 3 through August 8, 2026, based out of Harbour Island Marina in Ocean City. Registration takes place the weekend before, on August 1 and 2.

For the first time in the tournament's history, the 2026 event has moved to a six-day format. Teams still only fish three of the available days, but now they get to choose those three days out of six instead of the traditional five. Tournament Director Madelyne Motsko explained the reasoning behind the change:

• Unpredictable weather has made it harder for crews to plan around a fixed schedule

• A wider window gives every team a better shot at fishing on a day with favorable conditions

• The extra day was added to the end of the week rather than the front

This is a real quality-of-life change for competitors. Anyone who has watched a tournament get squeezed by a tropical system knows how much a single extra weather window can matter.

Where to Watch and What to Expect on the Docks

The weigh-ins happen daily at Harbour Island Marina, typically starting around 4:00 PM and running into the evening. They are free and open to the public, and the crowd that gathers along the docks each night is part of what makes this event feel like a festival as much as a competition. Marlin Fest, held in the Inlet parking lot, runs alongside the tournament with vendors, live music, and a screen showing the live weigh-in feed for anyone who cannot get right up to the scale.

A few practical notes if you are planning to be there in person:

• Ocean City is about 2.5 hours from Baltimore, 3 hours from Washington D.C., and 3 hours from Philadelphia

• Hotel rooms fill up fast during tournament week, so plan lodging 6 to 12 months ahead if possible

• Parking gets tight near the scales, but the town runs shuttles from the Ocean City Convention Center during peak hours
  
  

Entry Fees and Prize Structure

The White Marlin Open uses an added-entry system. Boats pay a base entry fee, then choose how many additional prize levels they want to buy into. The more levels a team enters, the more money they are eligible to win.

• Base entry starts around $1,500 to $1,700 per boat depending on when a team registers

• Over 45 different added-entry levels are available, ranging from $500 up to $10,000 for the top-level white marlin category

• Tuna-specific added-entry levels exist separately, and tuna winnings alone can exceed $1 million

• A Release Division rewards the top three boats for catch-and-release billfish, with payouts that have topped $100,000

• 2026 introduces a new non-sonar division for boats fishing without that technology

• New for 2025 was an Outboard Division, giving outboard-powered boats their own category to compete in

Organizers are projecting the 2026 payout will exceed $10 million. For context, the 2025 tournament drew 282 boats and over 3,000 anglers, and paid out $7.24 million total.

The Rules That Decide Who Actually Gets Paid

Winning the White Marlin Open is not only about hooking a big fish. There are real qualifying standards and conservation-minded rules built into the tournament:

• Non-offset circle hooks are required for white marlin and blue marlin in federal waters

• Fish are judged by weight at the scale, so the heaviest qualifying catch in each division wins that division

• The tournament actively encourages release over harvest, and most fish caught during the week never come to the scale

• Anglers who do bring in a qualifying fish and choose not to keep the meat can donate it through Catch n' Carry, which processes and freezes the fish before distributing it to local charities including the Maryland Food Bank

That last point matters. The White Marlin Open has built a genuine conservation story around a tournament that also happens to pay out life-changing money, and that combination is part of why it draws so much respect inside the sportfishing community.

The 2025 Champion: Billfisher, Dan Gough, and the One-Pound Margin

Here is the story that makes this tournament worth watching even if you never plan to fish it yourself.

In 2025, angler Dan Gough landed a 72-pound white marlin aboard the Billfisher, a 64-foot Duffie Boatworks sportfishing boat captained by Jon Duffie. That single fish won Gough and his crew $3,928,120, one of the largest checks ever handed out in the tournament's history. Gough had been fishing the White Marlin Open for 36 years before that win, and he told a local news crew afterward how much it meant to finally bring home the title he had watched other anglers win for decades.

What makes the story even better is who finished second. NBA legend Michael Jordan competes in the White Marlin Open aboard his 82-foot Bayliss-built sportfisher, Catch 23, and in 2025 his team came within a single pound of the win. Angler Trey "Cricket" McMillan weighed a 71-pound white marlin aboard Catch 23, good for second place and roughly $400,000. Gough later joked to reporters that beating Jordan by one pound made the win even sweeter, saying he would take on Jordan in fishing, cards, or cornhole any day, just not golf or basketball.

A few more details that add real texture to the story:

• The Billfisher team is not new to winning. They took first place in 2022 with a 77.5-pound white marlin, and finished second the year before their 2025 win

• The Billfisher also holds the Maryland state record for the largest blue marlin ever caught, an enormous 1,135-pound fish

• Catch 23 and Billfisher were the only two boats to weigh in a qualifying white marlin during the entire 2025 tournament, which tells you how difficult it is to land a fish that even meets the minimum standard, let alone wins

The blue marlin division told its own story in 2025. Angler Drew Osmeyer brought a 929.5-pound blue marlin to the scale aboard the Barbara B early in tournament week, and that fish held the lead for the rest of the event, earning the team roughly $1.27 million. Other division winners included a 188-pound tuna aboard Sea Hab worth over $764,000, a 49.5-pound wahoo aboard Shooting Star, and a 32.5-pound dolphin also caught aboard the Barbara B.

You can find the full breakdown of results directly from Marlin magazine's tournament coverage and from local news coverage of Gough's win.

This Tournament Feels More Awesome From the Deck of Your Own Boat

Gough's 36-year chase, the one-pound margin over Michael Jordan, the record blue marlin that held up all week, started the same way every fishing story starts. Someone untied the lines, idled out of the marina, and put in the work before the sun came up. The boat is what makes all of it possible.

That is exactly the feeling behind our current giveaway at Reel Chance. We are giving one angler the chance to win a sick boat along with some cash to cover fuel, tackle, or whatever gets that first trip started. Every purchase earns entries, it is $1 for $1 entry, and part of every purchase also goes toward pulling plastic out of the ocean we are all fishing in.

You do not need three decades on the water to want a boat under you. Check out the current giveaway and see how many entries you can earn before it closes.