Gulf Power Rankings & Texas Billfish Open Preview

South Texas is red hot in temperature, but also red hot offshore as we touch down for the second half of the Gulf Division regular season. From Corpus Christi, it;s a short drive over to the barrier island and Port Aransas, home to 2025 SFC Champion Spencer Johnson and the Texas Lone Stars, but there’s a storm brewing.

Not a literal storm (thankfully) but there is a challenge for the Lone Stars’ claim to Port A, and their claim as the top club in Texas. There’s another boat in the fleet with Port Aransas written on its transom. A 60’ Spencer named Magnifico, belonging to the division leading Third Coast Renegades. A win this weekend for either Texas club ensures bragging rights for the entire year, but also gives both clubs a big step forward in the hunt for the Zane Grey Championship Playoffs in October. 

The boundary for this tournament is 100 miles from the south jetty in Port Aransas Pass. That range includes several large humps on the seafloor known as the Aransas Bank, North Hospital Bank among others, but absent of the floating oil platforms that the Gulf Division is known to target for blue marlin.

Now that doesn’t mean the billfish are scarce: reports from the past couple of tournaments have shown that there are plenty out there. One tournament out of Port Aransas a couple of weeks ago, The Billfish Pachanga, reported 42 blue marlin, 15 white and 117 sailfish alone.

Meanwhile, Texas Legends just wrapped up this weekend with more than 200 billfish caught. Over the two tournaments, that means there were 75+ Blue marlin, 80+ white marlin and 210+ sailfish.

What it does establish is that the style of fishing may be different than what most of the Gulf Division is used to doing. 

“Dink Bait” fishing or dead bait trolling, instead of live bait. The numbers also tell us that quantity may mean more than quality when it comes to taking the win in Port A. It’s a similar style of fishing to what we will see in Cabo San Lucas during the Zane Grey Championship Playoffs, which is what makes the Texas squads so formidable down in the Baja.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at how I see the fleet playing out in the pre-tournament Power Rankings:

1. Texas Lone Stars
Yes, this is their hometown. Yes, this is their home tournament. All that being said, three factors really stand out to me that I feel work in the Lone Stars’ favor.

This is their bread and butter: The only club that is as well-versed in this style of fishing are their crosstown rivals in Port A, the Third Coast Renegades.

They have the numbers: Numbers in the boat that is. A full crew with everyone on a rod makes for a better chance to land the volume of fish needed to win down there. A crew with as much chemistry as they have, between David Blackbird, Roberto Velazquez, Raul Perez and Bryan Richter, there is no weak link in that cockpit.

They need to win: Sometimes the worst thing someone can do is back their opponent into a corner. Sitting fourth in the divisional standings, the defending champs need a strong finish here to get back in the playoff hunt. 

2. Third Coast Renegades
The Gulf Division leaders are coming in hot to Port Aransas, winning two of the first three tournaments this season. The only reason I don’t have them ahead of the Lone Stars comes down to their roster. The father/son duo of Garrett and Dylan Frazier have been doing all the damage, but with a hot bite, they need more than two anglers in the pit. Their roster lists three more anglers for the weekend in Kevan Billings, Nate Stolley, and Dax Wright, but my only question is how efficient they will be in the delicate ballet around the boat needed with multiple hookups. That’s where I give the Lone Stars the advantage for this week.

3. Gulf Coast Cowboys
It may not be their style of fishing, but I will never count out Captain Blake Bridges. Speaking with him earlier in the week, he mentioned that he’s happy catching anything with a bill, so the need to target smaller species is no chore for him.

4. West Florida Black Flags
Captain Danny Watts and the crew aboard the American Made 54’ Hatteras find themselves in fourth on the list because they’ve hooked and released their fair share of sailfish and white marlin in the past few tournaments. Mate Alex Diaz and his sonar notes on sailfish from Bay Point will come in handy this weekend, as frustrating as it was for him to log in their search for blue marlin.

5. Mississippi Blues
It’s not particularly fair to the club that sits in third right now in the divisional standings to sit fifth. My reasoning is manpower. The Blues are one of the most efficient operations out there, with Captain Adam McGugin, his two mates John Crockard and Garrett Schluter, and Adam Davidson is the Gulf’s leading angler with five blue marlin released this season. Their strength is blue marlin, quality over quantity. Will there be enough rods and hands to go around?  

It’s also the first time this crew has been to Texas, but they will also be prefishing the weekend prior alongside the Gulf Coast Cowboys, so some intelligence will likely be shared between the two boats.

6. Louisiana Canyons
For the club with such an accomplished angler that has caught more than her fair share of billfish species in the Gulf, Atlantic, and off Cabo San Lucas like Jaselyn Berthelot. There’s only one reason why I have the Canyons at the bottom.

They will be the last to arrive in Port Aransas. Their boat has spent a lot of the past month in Grand Isle, Louisiana (spoiler alert: they’re one of my favorites for Hurricane Hole in a couple weeks). But the Canyons are late to arrive in Texas due to some mechanical work needed. there is a chance they may need to charter a local boat in order to avoid a scratch.

The late arrival means less time to get acquainted with the area, which I feel hurts their chances.

Something to note about this tournament that is also unique other than the boundary is the shotgun start. Yes, every Gulf division tournament except for the Gulfport Mississippi Invitational has a shotgun start, but they usually take place in open water. The start of the Bay Point Billfish Open in Panama City Beach for example had the entire field spread out over more than a mile before putting the throttles down to head out. 

In Port Aransas, the start takes place INSIDE the Aransas Pass, so every boat is sending it through the inlet at the same time. Other than creating a lot of wake, the tight confines can also bring up debris in the water. 

It was last season where SFC came to Texas a week after the catastrophic flooding that ravaged central Texas, resulting in trees among other debris to be found floating offshore, brought out to sea by the many rivers that spill out into the Gulf of Mexico. The Texas Lone Stars bent a prop after striking a floating log, forcing them to compete on one engine. 

What is waiting for the fleet in 2026? The light is peeking out the end of the tunnel, with the final sprint of the regular season starting in a couple days’ time.