Boat owners Dan and Stephanie Braman believe in fishing where the marlin are. Averaging just three months each season, the Parranda team has released 1,000 blue marlin in four years.
In 2014, Parranda, then a 58-foot Merritt, headed to the Dominican Republic for the winter, finishing up its season in the British Virgin Islands that summer with 103 blues released. In 2015, the team fished exclusively in Costa Rica, but didn’t manage a single fishing day in 2016 while they were building today’s Parranda, a 64-foot Bayliss.
The 2017 season was cut short when Hurricane Harvey had the owners’ full attention after a near-direct hit destroyed most of their home in Port Aransas, Texas, but for 2018 there are no signs of stopping. Parranda is scheduled to depart Costa Rica for Panama to fish the remainder of the season this year.
Dan says his wife, Stephanie, has been the angler on at least 600 and possibly closer to 700 of the team’s blue marlin, releasing 131 in just seven trips this season alone. “None of this would have been possible without my captain,” Dan says of Parranda skipper Capt. Andy Flood. “Not only is he a great fisherman, but he is humble and an extremely hard worker. I feel truly blessed and fortunate to have him at the helm.”
What lies ahead for the team? Dan says that since he has fished for numbers, he is now ready for a larger class of marlin. He plans to fish the 2019 season in Panama, eventually moving the boat to Madeira, Portugal, to target extra-large blue marlin.
