HELENA — A Helena fishing crew just made waves in Cabo. Bill Cooper and Team Grey Bull hooked a 398-pound black marlin at Bisbee’s Los Cabos Offshore Tournament, a catch they’ll be talking about for years.
“The fight was insane,” Cooper said.
(WATCH: Helena fishing team wins half a million dollars in Cabo tournament)
Team Grey Bull is a six-man team made up of Jon Hoovestal, Dax Hoovestal, Bill Cooper, Bradley Hutchison, Jim Ferriter, and Steve Robertson.
They placed second overall in earnings, walking away with more than half a million dollars out of a total prize pool of 2.7 million dollars, and they took third out of 139 teams from all over the world in the Billfish division.
“It was just a fun friend trip that we got to go do, something that we all wanted to do, and to finish as well as we did, I mean, it’s just kind of a storybook,” Cooper said.
The team fished from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. three days in a row.
“It’s the craziest thing because you're fishing for 30 hours and the entire time you're just anticipating something catching that reel,” Hutchison said.
That big catch—the almost 400-pound marlin—it came in 50 miles out from shore, just 30 minutes before the cutoff on the final day of fishing.
It took more than an hour to reel in, and netted Team Grey Bull a big payday.
“And for us to win the money is basically surreal,” Jon Hoovestal said. “I mean that night, that afternoon, and that night was surreal for all of us.”
While Bisbee’s Los Cabos Offshore Tournament is the first major one-team Grey Bull has competed in, the six teammates have been fishing together for years.
The team is made up of close friends and family, with four of the men working for Greenway Enterprises here in Helena.
“I mean it means everything, you know it's my father-in-law, my brother-in-law, my best friend since I was two years old, and Whitey and Steve I’ve known for forever,” Cooper said.
The team will use part of the winnings from the tournament for their entry fee for next year's tournament. If this year is any indication, they could have a “reel” chance of landing the top spot.
