First, the fun part.
The Hawaii Big Game Fishing Club held its March Shootout and a mahi and an ono were the big winners. No marlin or ahi were caught. Robert and Teresa Oswald with their team on “Au Struck” split the pot with Jack Sampson, Captain Greg Hopkins and team on board “Nasty Habit.” The Oswalds weighed a mahi in at 22.5 pounds. The ono from “Nasty Habit” weighed 43.5 pounds.
These “Shootout” tournaments are put on by The Club on the third Saturday of each month. Rules, entry forms and other Club information can be found at https://www.hbgfc.org
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The “major league” tournaments of the Hawaii Marlin Tournament Series kick off April 9-12 with the Lazy Marlin Hunt. There is usually a run of big marlin along the Kona Coast during March and April. Adding an exclamation point to that statement, Chad Beaudry caught an 890 pound blue marlin just last Friday. Beaudry was fishing from his boat “Last Chance.”
The Lazy Marlin hunt is so named from the illusion that the big beasts create when they rise slowly from the depths to have a long look at your lure. It can appear as if they are effortlessly swimming behind the boat, just barely paddling along. Of course, when you hook one of these brutes all hell usually breaks loose, and anything lazy about it goes over the side.
To celebrate “the big girls of spring” a team will have to catch the single largest marlin 500 pounds of better to win. The biggest of the tournament will be awarded the base purse “winner take all.”
With two winner take all divisions and a number of other optional categories, organizers have taken the most popular components of the Skins Marlin Derby and merged them with those of the Kona Throw Down, to create the ultimate Big Marlin tournament.
For more info log on to: https://konatournaments.com
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Now, the weird part.
Imagine if you will, a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, fact and fiction. It is an area we call the Twilight Zone, and in this area we find fishery management politics.
Why do I say this? Because it is the only conclusion I can come to after the goings on of last Thursday, when the fishery council released their recommendations on how to rebuild the over-fished and depleted stock of striped marlin. Their strategy appears to have been pulled them from the fifth dimension.
In June of 2020 the council was directed by NMFS to come up with domestic and international recommendations to end overfishing of striped marlin, based on their obligations as outlined in the US Magnusson Act. NMFS determined that existing international measures were not ending overfishing, and they were mandated to tackle it at home.
Here was the goal: “US relative contribution to overfishing will end immediately and catch limits will fall in line with expected WCPFC catch limits.” Staff outlined four alternatives to consider. Two of the options would produce the required result. A third option was to do nothing. Obviously that wouldn’t work.
In drafting the fourth alternative, they seem to have entered the Twilight Zone. There, they reached into the fifth dimension for a document meant to address overfishing stripes, way back in 2010.
These old guidelines required an 80% reduction of catch based on landings from 2000 to 2003. The highest annual catch of striped marlin by the US fleet between 2000 and 2003 was 571 metric tons. 80% of 571 is 457 mt.
Between 2010 and 2019 the US landings never reached 457 mt. This guideline was never adopted, obsolete almost as soon as it was written. Council staff wrote that choosing this option would create this result: “Overfishing would remain to persist..”
Indeed. It’s tried and true!
Thursday, the fishery council voted to adopt this outdated Option 4, which allows a catch limit higher than any of their annual catches over the past 10 years. Read that a couple of times to let it sink in. The solution to end overfishing is to be able to catch more. Only in the fifth dimension could this make sense.
One council member escaped the Twilight Zone and had the presence of mind to vote against this bizarre recommendation. David Sakoda of the State of Hawaii DLNR-Division of Aquatics Resources voted “No.” Unfortunately, he was the only one to escape.
Imagine if you will, that in the Twilight Zone a councilman would vote “yes” to continued over-fishing of a resource upon which his very livelihood depends. Capt. McGrew Rice of Kona is on the council as a representative of the recreational/charter fishing/small boat fleet. Capt. Rice is an affable, soft spoken guy who is pretty well known as being a good marlin fisherman.
However, all the other council members except Sakoda — including Rice — voted to allow continued overfishing of the same marlin that charter patrons pay to catch (and release) and locals in small boats like to catch and eat. Even in the fifth dimension, this makes no sense. Small boaters percentage of the catch has diminished for years, their interests ignored.
Thankfully, the fishery council can only make recommendations to NMFS, They have no en-forcement power. Further, NMFS can reject their recommendations if they do not stand up to scrutiny and the obligations in the Magnusson Act, required by Congress.
Mike Tosatto is the regional representative for NMFS. After he abstained from voting, he went on record at Thursdays meeting and clearly stated to the council, “I have concerns that when we present this to the Agency it will be found lacking and these resources will be imprudently used when we have alternatives before us that are more likely to be successful.”
Let’s hope so.