Rome reels in big rodeo awards
Published 5:55 pm Sunday, July 9, 2017
It was about 30 minutes into the battle and 16-year-old Peyton Rome had been using all of her strength to bring to the boat what would become the largest fish in this year’s Southwest Louisiana Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo.
The 175-pound blue marlin hit a blue-and-white Islander lure at 12:50 p.m. in blue water about 18 miles off the coast of Venice.
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“It’s was tough,” the Barbe High senior said about her battle. “It takes line, you take it back and then you battle. You fight it and it fights you. But I would never ever think about passing the rod to anyone else.”
At 1:30 p.m. the marlin came alongside, where it was tagged and released giving the young fisherman her prize.
“I knew that I had a lot of work,” she said when she first saw the fish break water. “It was tough and it was exhausting. But it’s a great feeling to get that big one to the boat.”
She gave full credit to the crew who did everything necessary to enable her to bring the fish in.
It was her second year to fish the tournament and she knocked down the most awards. She had grown up fishing for bass on Toledo Bend, but after a few trips out of Cameron catching Jack Cravelle, she made an about-face to salt water angling.
Not only was she named the top tag-and-release angler of the rodeo, but she also garnered top offshore fisherman honors, along with being named the top lady angler.
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Her marlin was first in the tag-and-release division and she also scored first, second and third places in dolphin, second and third in wahoo and third in bonito.
“This was more than I anticipated,” she said of the honors she took home. “This is definitely one of the best fishing trips I have had in my life.”
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“We really had a great trip,” said Rome’s father, Todd. “We caught four or five wahoo (one 61 pounds and another 34 pounds), half a dozen bonito, four or five dolphin and went one for three on marlin.”
Mother Marcie was the second member of the crew to make the boards as she won the wahoo division and was second in bonito.
Todd said the crew began fishing early Friday morning, targeting blue water fish.
“We caught a few wahoo and then some dolphin early and then the marlin was hooked at 12:50 p.m.,” he said. “She caught it on 50-pound line class,” he added, noting that she worked the tackle standing up. No chair was used, giving more meaning to the catch.
His instructions to her as she began the battle that day was to “Let it run and do its thing and once it gets tired down then start cranking.
She was excited. This wasn’t her first marlin as last year she caught a white marlin (about 70 pounds).
“We had one other hookup Friday afternoon, but it didn’t eat all the way. The second came Saturday and it did the same thing. But anytime you can tag and release a blue marlin in the Gulf of Mexico, you feel good about it.”
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One tournament award was not recognized in an early news release, and that was the Red Kohnke Memorial Award to the angler who brings in the redfish with the most spots.
Kohnke was a former American Press outdoors writer.
The award was won by Zack Paul, who hauled in a 25-pound red that counted out 59 spots.
Peyton Rome with three of her trophy catches during the recent Southwest Louisiana Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo.
