“Zzzzzzz, zzzzzzzz,” screamed the Shimano 130 reel as line was stripped off it like sewing thread by an unknown predator deep in the Gulf of Mexico. “It was ‘Game On’ and Nick Stuart grabbed the rod and got up in the fighting chair and the battle began,” said Mike Heard. “You just never know what you’re going to catch when you’re fishing the blue water but it’s usually something big and exciting.”

    Meridian’s own Michael T. Heard and the Sea Hunter fishing team with Captain Ricky McDuffie of Orange Beach at the helm were searching for another monster fish and looking for another win in the recent Memorial Day tourney held out of Orange Beach, Alabama.

    “I’ve been on a lot of boats but nobody has more passion than Captain Ricky,” said Mike Heard. “He wants to see the big fish come over the side of the boat.”

    Tournament sport fishing for big game fish is tough to say the least but McDuffie’s put in his time on the water and is one of the top guides on the Gulf Coast.

    “It’s a very large pond and those types of fish aren’t everywhere,” Heard said. “I mean it can be a real grind starting on Friday night and going through Sunday. Captain Ricky goes up in the tower and scans the water for anything that holds a fish, or signals fish such as birds, bait schools, or deep structure. It’s a long day of tournament fishing and we’ll fish until 11 p.m. and then we’re back up at four a.m.”

    While they’re searching for the big sportfish other opportunities may be present and the team is always on the watch for wahoo, dolphin and blue marlin while they’re looking for the big tuna.

    “We usually catch dolphin while sight fishing with 30 pound line on a spinning reel,” Heard said. “A 40 pound bull dolphin is a handful on that spinning rod and they’re very acrobatic and strong and they have cash rewards on all these divisions.”

    Around nine p.m. on Saturday night they got the bite they’d been waiting for and as Heard advised, “it was game on.”

    In this case the team didn’t know what they had.

    “We knew it was big because we were using a 15 pound Black fin Tuna for bait,” said Heard. “What makes it so exciting is that it could be a shark, blue marlin or tuna and you won’t find out until you get him to the boat. And that could take from 30 minutes to five hours depending on the species and size of the fish.”

    As it turned out Nick Stuart battled a massive fish and landed the biggest yellowfin tuna of the tournament and it weighed in at 170.3 pounds, bringing in another first place win for McDuffie, Heard and the rest of the team and thousands of dollars in the process.

    “I suppose the reason I like this type of big game tournament fishing is that it’s kind of like competitive bass fishing,” Heard said. “You have different strategies, techniques and we’re like go big or go home. We go for big fish and we use heavy line, leaders and big hooks and big baits.”

    It really takes a lot of knowledge and skill to find the sweet spots and big fish and McDuffie usually finds the big fish when the chips are down. Year after year Mike Heard and his local team members have fished the big game tournaments and come out winners.

    “It’s such a thrill and it never gets old fishing for monster game fish and that next Alabama State Record blue marlin,” said Heard. “That’s worth a cool one million dollars when caught during the tournament!”

    Mike Heard and team members won the yellow fin tuna division during the recent Mobile Big Game Tournament with that 170.3 pound yellow fin tuna.

    Contact  Mike Giles at 601-917-3898 or e-mail him at mikegiles18@comcast.net