From billfish to bottom fish, he's caught them all

This story was published in The Destin Log Aug. 19, 2000 as part of a series of captain profiles.

Capt. Bruce Marler, now 64, will always be remembered for a picture he posed for at age 12.

He will also go down in the annals of Destin history for bringing in the first-ever blue marlin to the scales on the docks here.
The photograph at age 12 now adorns the front cover of the “Fifty Years of Fishing the Destin Fishing Rodeo.” The photo shows Capt. Bruce and his father, Howard Marler, holding up the first king mackerel caught in the first Rodeo in 1948.

As for the blue marlin, Capt. Marler was famous for a day in September 1962 when he landed the billfish, the first out of Destin.
Capt. Marler has spent a lifetime fishing.

“I was raised in this business,” said Marler who now captains the Tropical Winds.

“Daddy started in this business in 1935 and as soon as I was big enough to walk, I was on the boat with him,” Marler said.

“It was the only thing here to do back in them days. But I enjoyed it. And I have up to this point.”

His dad’s first boat was the Lollipop.

“I think I was about 2-years-old when I started going with him on the boat. I’ve been doing it for quite a while,” he said.
In the 1940s his dad got a 40-foot boat named the Starling.

“That was a big boat back in them days,” Marler said. “And that’s when I really started deck-handing.”
Marler worked on the deck for a number of years and then he and his dad kind of swapped. His dad deck-handed and “I ran the boat,” he said. “That’s what I’ve done ever since.”

After the Starling, the Marlers moved on to the Mystery.

“It was a mystery how he got it,” Marler chuckled. Although it was his dad’s boat, Capt. Bruce ran it for a good while in the early ‘50s.

In 1955, Capt. Bruce Marler got is first boat, the Wahoo. He fished it for a few years and then sold it and built another Wahoo, which is now tagged the Donna Renee.

It was aboard the Wahoo that Capt. Marler reeled in that first blue marlin. He said they were fishing about three miles off the beach of Destin when they hooked the billfish.

“We broke the scales at 496,” Marler said. “It was so big it just tore the scales out of the wall. So we didn’t know how much it weighed,” Marler said. But after seeing some of the fish caught today, Capt. Marler says his billfish in 1962 must have weighed in the neighborhood of 600 or 700 pounds.

“It was a big fish,” Marler said. “It was 13 1/2 feet long. That was a big fish back in them days. It took us five hours to catch the fish and we got in just before dark.”

When they arrived at the docks, “There were so many people on the dock we couldn’t get the fish off the boat and the people couldn’t either,” Marler said.

He said a sergeant happened up on the scene and offered to organize the people. Marler said the man got everybody organized so they could come by and see the marlin.

“It was quite an ordeal,” Marler said. “It was something else. There were about 1,000 people here just to see that fish. They had never seen anything like it.

“That thing went nationwide,” Marler said, noting it made television, radio and all the newspapers.

The last year Capt. Marler had the second Wahoo, he said they marlin-fished just about every day.

“We were trying to catch 100 billfish in one summer,” he said.

He had made a bet with one of his cousins in the summer of 1974 to see who could catch 100. Capt. Bruce caught 99 and his cousin 97.

“We probably would have made it but the weather got bad in October, so  we didn’t get to go as much,” Marler said. They caught some big blue marlin, but most of the billfish were sails and white marlin.

“We released a bunch of fish back then but about everything we caught that was big, they mounted,” Marler said.

The Wahoo was the last boat Capt. Bruce owned. At that point he began working with his brother, Howard Marler Jr., on the How Nice, which was a 60-foot boat that Jewel Melvin had built.

“I ran the boat for him for a couple of years, then my brother passed away,” he said. Marler continued to run the boat until it was sold.

From there Marler went into the yacht business, selling Bertrams and Hatterases.

“I did that for about 10 years, but I still fished tournaments,” he said.

After the yacht business, Capt. Bruce went to work for cousin Olin Marler and has been running boats with him for the past 13 years.

“I like this better,” Marler said. “There’s not as much pressure on me.”

Olin Marler had the Four Winds built and then the Trade Winds and then the Tropical Winds.

“I’ve ran ‘em all, but I’m on the Tropical Winds now,” Capt. Bruce said.

He said all the boats are about the same, 65-foot Bonner boats that hold about 60 people.

“We try to hold it to 40 or less,” Marler said. “Right now we like to try to hold it around 20. It gives the people more room and they can have fun.”

Now he specializes in bottom-fishing for red snapper and grouper.

“I don’t miss the other at all,” he said.

What does Capt. Bruce like best about the kind of fishing he does now?

“My air conditioning,” he said. “I enjoy the people and watching people fish. But I stay in where it’s cool. I don’t get out much anymore.”

Nevertheless, he has done his time in the sun.

“I won an awful lot of awards in the Rodeo when it first started,” he said. In the first Rodeo in 1948, which lasted only a week in June,

Capt. Marler and his dad landed the first and only king mackerel.

After that first year they moved the Rodeo to the month of October to stretch out the fishing season.

Although he doesn’t fish the Rodeo much anymore, he has won trophies and plaques over the years for big grouper, marlin and sailfish.

During Marler’s 45 years or more of fishing, he has seen a few unusual things on the water. He recalls, at around the age of 15, seeing five sperm whale.

“They were 65 to 70 feet long and they were all together,” he said. “But that’s something I’ve never seen since.”

Another unusual sighting occurred years later when they were fishing White Hill.

“Back then only two or three people knew the place,” Marler said. “We were there ‘jack fishing and had caught several amberjack when they quit biting all of a sudden. Something came up where you could see it. It was about 8- to 10-feet long,” Marler said.

It was squid.

“I didn’t want to tell anybody,” he said, thinking they wouldn’t believe him.

Weeks later when he was telling his story, Reddin Brunson, who had a boat down at the docks, overheard the story and said, “It’s true. I’ve seen them, too.” Brunson had seen them weeks before.

“That’s something I’ve never seen or heard of again here,” Marler said. “It’s a pretty good fish story. The one you had but didn’t want to tell anybody,” he said with a laugh.

Has the fishing in Destin changed over the years?

“I think there are as many fish today as we had 30 to 40 years ago,” he said. The difference is “you got more boats fishing for them,”

Marler said. “Back then there were only seven or 10 boats and they caught a huge pile of fish. But today you’ve got 140 boats out fishing.

“I hear people say, ‘All the fish are gone.’ That’s not true.” he said. “Everything runs in a seven-year cycle, seven years of good and seven years of mediocre. When it’s good it’s good and when it’s bad, it’s still fair. I think we’re in a good cycle right now. Fishing is good and everybody is catching fish.”

Marler said he has often thought that if all the boats on the docks were to put their catch from one day in one pile it would be a mountain of fish.

“It would be unbelievable,” he said. “It would be thousands of pounds of fish. Even with the limits today.”
Marler likes the limits.

“I like the limits they’ve got, it’s a good idea,” he said. However, he says there needs to be a slot limit on snapper.

How long does Marler plan to keep fishing?

“I’m going to fish right on as long as I’m able,” he said. “I’m not going to retire, just semi-retire. I’ll probably cut down to three days later, but I want to stay active and keep fishing.

“I like it enough not to quit.”