Following a landmark meeting at the headquarters of Bisbee's Tournaments in Plano, Texas between Wayne Bisbee and Paul Watson of Marlin World Magazine, a new partnership between the two brands has been established. Bisbee's events are noted as being the richest fishing tournaments in the world while Marlin World Magazine has been credited with bringing the fishing publication online since introducing a page-flip magazine several years ago which featured videos embedded into the copy. Watson is known as an enthusiastic conservationist promoting catch and release whenever possible, so when he discovered that the Bisbeeʼs events have achieved an impressive overall record of more than 95 percent billfish released in recent years, the alliance was a natural fit.

Bisbee's has been running tournaments in Baja California Sur, Mexico for more than 30 years. The East Cape Offshore is held in Buenavista every July, followed by the Los Cabos Offshore and Black & Blue Marlin Tournament every October in Cabo San Lucas. Started by Bob Bisbee in 1981, the Black & Blue Marlin Tournament has grown from six teams with a purse of $10,000 to more than 150 teams with millions of dollars on the line. In 2006 the Black & Blue had its biggest overall cash payout of $4,165,960. This was, and remains, the largest payout in history for a sport-fishing tournament.

"By combining our resources this new relationship will ensure a continuous media presence for the tournaments and their many sponsors," says Director Wayne Bisbee. "Paul has created one of the most popular online magazines for the sportfishing community and with the publication continuing to develop and cover a broad spectrum of conservation issues and sportfishing news, I can only see upside potential for us both."

The new partnership changes the name of the magazine to Bisbee's Marlin World and will include different language versions of each edition and also offer subscribers the choice of a free online version or a paid-subscription print copy. Apart from the featured content that the magazine and its related website currently produces there will be more detailed information about the Bisbee tournaments and the teams competing. For example, those teams that register early for events will have the opportunity to have their team profile published, creating an exciting build-up among followers similar to other team sporting events.

"Our tournaments are the pinnacle events of the sportfishing world," Bisbee added. "So we want to build upon the multimedia coverage already experienced by our supporters, competitors and sponsors. This will include print and online publications, live event broadcasting across the internet, regular television coverage and a continual social media presence. We want to move away from being in the news for only one part of the year and to develop a true following among aficionados of the sport all year long. By being part of this publication and its subscriber database, we can give far more exposure to the tournaments, their competitors, sponsors and industry participants. Paul's continued use of Marlin World Magazine to promote billfish catch & release and responsible angling has not gone unnoticed by us in the past few years. His dedication to the conservation aspects are in tune with our own development of the catch & release divisions now present in our tournaments and the toning down of the glory aspect of hanging fish that most events are now moving away from. Fishing is still the sport of catching, and just as in hunting where conservation has ensured the creation of a multi-million dollar industry for local regions and species protection, big-game fishing tournaments can and should achieve the same by promoting the importance of species preservation."

In addition to Bisbee tournament coverage, it will continue to provide news about other international fishing tournaments and publish articles submitted by readers and editorial staff on a diverse selection of topics ranging from conservation issues, personal fishing experiences, techniques, tackle, boats, and other subjects that fishing fanatics want to hear and read about.