Baker County fishermen haul in 150 lb. Washington state record striped marlin
By Logan Bagett on Thursday, August 20th, 2026 in Eastern/Southeast Oregon News Eastern/Southeast Oregon Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News Northeastern Oregon Top Stories
BAKER CITY – A group of Baker City, Oregon fishermen have caught the Washington state record striped marlin while tuna fishing off the coast of Ilwaco. Read that line again, and let the bait soak for a moment…a marlin in Washington? Appearances from striped marlin near Oregon and Washington are considered rare due to the cooler water temperatures, however, they have been observed during strong El Niño years and periods of unusually warm ocean waters. The massive fish caught by Tim Durheim, Drew Osborn, and Mason Van Arsdall measured 9 feet long and weighed in at 150 pounds—a new Washington state record.
Drew Osborn informed our newsroom that a group of fishermen including himself and nine others, all from Baker County, took part in the trip of a lifetime on August 15th with the Four Seas’ons charter vessel in Ilwaco, Washington. The fishermen were cruising for their target species when something struck one of their lures on the top of the water. Drew said, “Right when it hooked itself, it took off and it almost spooled the reel. Then it ran down and under the boat, and the line almost got tangled in the prop and rudder and all that. As soon at that happened, the deckhand was like, ‘That is not a tuna!’”
Once the fish was committed, Baker County Undersheriff Tim Durheim was the first to grab the rod. Drew said Tim fought the fish for about a half-hour, before handing the rod on to Drew, who fought it for another half-hour. Mason Van Arsdall was the third person to battle the lunker and fought for 10 additional minutes before finally wearing it down. The captain and deckhand gaffed and heaved the marlin onto the deck of the Four Sea’sons. Once onboard, they measured it at 9 feet from the tail to the tip of the bill, otherwise known as the rostrum.
The captain and deckhand called ahead to the dock on their way back to shore, and Drew said there were “probably about a hundred people that showed up to come see the fish when it came off the boat.” The crew disembarked near a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife fish check station, where the marlin was carried by forklift to the scales, recording an official weight of 150 pounds exactly. The crew cleaned the catch, which yielded approximately 55 pounds of meat. Drew said, “We tried it on Monday night, and it was significantly better than we were expecting!”
The former (still technically current) Washington state record marlin weighed in at 134 pounds from a 2005 catch. Drew stated, “We’re working on getting it certified with fish and game, but once they do, then it will be a state record.” He said, “We are trying to get all three names in the book, but if we have to do only one, it will be Tim’s name in the book.”
Osborn said he heard another marlin was caught off the coast of Garibaldi, Oregon that same weekend.
