ORANGE BEACH — To win the "Super Bowl of sportfishing," you'd certainly need an experienced angler to reel in the championship fish, right? Nick Crovato from It Just Takes Time says no.

The do-it-all man for the boat based out of Orange Beach had never hooked onto a blue marlin before last weekend's Blue Marlin Grand Championship, but hauled in the 120-inch, 568.4-pound fish that ended up winning the tournament for the locals in their last go-around on that boat.

"I'm the handyman, I do a little bit of this and that," Crovato said. "I fish also, I'll do bait; I do everything other than get in the chair. But (captain Chris Hood) tells me to get in the chair, I said, 'Let's rock and roll.'"

About an hour and a half later, the marlin hit the deck and ended up being the measuring stick that no other team could beat.

"We didn't think going into it that it was that big of a fish, but once we saw it jump a couple times, we knew that was the one," owner Nick Pratt said. "We knew going into it that we needed to make sure we coached (Crovato) up very well but it worked out well, he did a great job and the outcome was awesome."

Although It Just Takes Time won the fourth and final billfish competition of a larger tournament, it was another boat with Orange Beach ties, A Work Of Art, that claimed the overall Gulf Coast Triple Crown trophy and celebrated with a champagne shower at The Wharf.

Locals Art Favre (owner) and Jason Buck (captain) held a big lead entering the final leg of the triple crown and benefited from their other catches on the weekend to retain their first-place standing. Of course, the 115-inch, 557.4-pound blue marlin caught by angler Lance Glaser played a big role as well.

Buck is no stranger to hoisting the Gulf Coast Triple Crown trophy as he captained Done Deal to titles in 2012, 2013 and 2018. Now with A Work Of Art, he said he was elated to win this one with Favre.

"One of the things I'm really happy about is to do it with Art," Buck said. "He's such a gentleman, such a positive influence on the community and this industry so that's a big part of it. My crew, of course, loves it and this group of guys – I'm just happy to be with this group to do it because they're really worthy of it so I'm happy to lead the team into this scenario."

Buck and his family recently moved to Orange Beach and are currently building a house in the area and at the end of the night Saturday, he was simply thankful.

"I've got a lot of answered prayers," he said.