Ji Xinhua of the China Sea Wolf Club caught the biggest fish of his life on Thursday afternoon.
Luckily for him, he won’t need to tell any fish stories about it, as two television crews were on hand to document the catch and report on it for the fishing fanatics in his homeland.
Ji reeled in a 664.8-pound blue marlin to help his team surge to the front of the 55th Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament on Thursday.
“I’m very excited. This is the biggest fish I’ve ever caught in my life,” Ji said through interpreter Joanne Zhang of Hilo. “It was very difficult because the fish was huge. It was a strong fish.”
Ji hooked the fish around 3:50 p.m. aboard the High Flier captained by Guy Terwilliger and fought it for the next 70 minutes.
It won’t be long before Ji’s exploits will be available to all of China. De Hu of Beijing state television is following the Chinese teams — in addition to the Sea Wolf Club, the country also has Hui Hai Hong Jin Club, Yi Zhuo Club and Zhou Linhua in the competition — and posting articles and images on the TV station’s blog each day.
“A lot of people will follow the news and make comments,” De said through Zhang. “It’s very popular. There are a lot of people making comments — about 100 today. They just wish Chinese teams well in this tournament.”
When De returns to China he will condense the footage into a special program, but he’s not the only Chinese reporter following the HIBT.
Fan Wong of Hunan Province TV is capturing video of the Chinese teams and sending footage back to her station, which specializes in fishing for country’s state television, for daily reports.
“It’s pretty much live in China,” she said through Zhang. “Every day I will send video footage to my TV station. They will have three minutes of news on this every day, from beginning to end. When I go back to China, I will summarize everything and make everything a show.”
Fan is used to covering fishing, but she said that Big Island waters are not like what she normally captures on video.
“It’s very different from other events in China,” she said. “Here, you have bigger fish like ahi and marlin. In China, there are no marlin. For ahi, they are not so big close to the coastline of China. Here, there are more fish and many countries come here. It is big.”
China Sea Wolf Club leads the tournament with 1,686 points while Olympian Dream Fishing Club is second with 1,129 points. Team Friends of Kenya is third after Mark Allen caught a 394-pound marlin aboard Nasty Habits, captained by David Unger.
China Sea Wolf Club’s lead is not enough for Ji.
“I won’t be satisfied until I catch a bigger one tomorrow!” said Ji, who caught one of his team’s two marlin on the opening day. “But I’m very happy about it now.”
Not every team was happy on Thursday — Japan Game Fishing Association’s Team Bonita battled a marlin for five hours before losing it around 8 p.m. — but the members of the Laguna Billfish Club No. 3 certainly were.
Martin Firestein’s team caught and released two blue marlin, a spearfish and a mahimahi.
“It’s an excellent day for us,” said Firestein, who is from Los Angeles.
Fishing aboard the Lady Dee, captained by Chuck Wigzell, the team first snagged a 25-pound spearfish in the morning and quickly added a mahimahi. Firestein’s team, which caught a 110-pound marlin Tuesday, got another bite around 2:30 p.m. Thursday. Firestein’s son, Mitchell, battled the fish, estimated at 125 pounds, for about 30 minutes before tagging and releasing it.
Just 15 minutes later, Martin Firestein got a bite. He needed a half-hour to pull in the marlin, which was estimated at 225 pounds.
“It’s just been a little slow for us, as it has been for the whole fleet,” Martin Firestein said. “We were lucky enough to be in the right spot at the right time today.”
Martin Firestein is in his fourth year of coming to the tournament and, although Thursday was a good day, it wasn’t his best in Kona.
“We’ve had some really, really good days and we’ve also had some slow days,” he said. “It is fishing, not catching.”