Michael Jordan won six NBA championships during his hall of fame basketball career.
The NBA legend isn’t used to finishing in second place but being the runner-up at the prestigious White Marlin Open — what many consider to be the “Super Bowl” of professional tournament fishing — is a nice consolation prize for the greatest basketball player on the planet.
Charleston angler Trey “Cricket” McMillan landed the 71-pound white marlin this past weekend aboard Jordan’s ‘Catch 23’ an 82-foot Bayliss yacht and took home the $400,000 prize for the crew.
Trey McMillan (copy)
Charleston angler Trey "Cricket" McMillan caught a 71-pound white marlin at the White Marlin Open. Provided.
“I’ve been fishing in this tournament for the past 20 years,” said McMillan, who was a successful professional sport fisherman before becoming an oyster farmer. “This is the first time that I have been on a team that has caught a fish that qualified within the tournament’s measurements and weights.
“We’ve caught a lot of fish that were long enough but never made qualifying weight. It’s a very hard tournament to win or even place in because you are fishing against the greatest fishermen in the world.”
Jordan was aboard ‘Catch 23’ when McMillan reeled in the white marlin on the sixth day of the 52-year-old deep-sea fishing tournament held at the Harbour Island Marina in Ocean City, Md.
“I can’t get into all of that, but it was a legendary week,” McMillan said. “I’m just very grateful to be able to do it with such a great team we have.”
Dan Gough of the Billfisher won the estimated $4.27 million first prize with a 72-pound marlin that was caught earlier in the tournament, which featured 282 boats.
A boat can only fish on three of the five days of competition, which this year was extended to seven because of tropical systems that sat off the Maryland shore.
On any given day, no boat can start to fish before 8 a.m., and any fish brought to the scales needs to be on a hook before 3:30 p.m.
“The fishing was pretty chaotic last week,” McMillan said. “The fishing was not great; the weather was really questionable on a lot of the days.”
Catch 23 captain Stetson Turney took the vessel 87 miles offshore, a journey that took more than three hours to complete, to find just the right spot.
About 15 minutes after dropping their first lines in the water, the fish struck. It took another 20 minutes to land the 71-pound trophy.
“Again, fishing conditions were not great, but we caught it first thing that morning,” McMillan said. “Hooked him with a flatline. It was a battle.”
The rules of the tournament demanded that McMillan fight the fish alone.
If any of the nine other anglers on board ‘Catch 23’ so much as touched McMillan — other than to prevent him from falling — during the battle the catch would no longer be eligible to be weighed.
McMillan said he caught another fish later in the day but had to release it because it did not meet tournament qualifications.
“It’s a week I won’t forget for a long, long time,” McMillan said.