Being unencumbered by much college knowledge and having not lived here long enough to be an expert on pretty much anything, it was a bit of an affirmation when weatherman Guy Hagi concurred the front that created all the wind and rain last week more resembled January weather than that of May.
Yes, the weather has been different compared to years past and so has the fishing. But up until recently the fishing was a type of different that most guys were very happy with. There were lots of big marlin and the guys who target ahi were doing pretty good too, if you found one you could trust to tell the truth.
Kathleen Wyatt still leads the Big Fish List with a 942.5 pound blue marlin she caught from “Sea Genie II” back in early April. Kathleen, husband Jamison, sons Colton and Hudson together fish family style on their boat, with Capt. K.J. Robinson the only pro on board. And they do well! They swept the Lazy Marlin Hunt tournament with that fish and finished 2nd overall in the Hawaii Marlin Tournament Series last season. Family style rocks!
About 95% of the marlin caught in the Hawaii Marlin Tournament Series are tagged and released. Those over 400 pounds can be brought in to weigh. Over the years tag and release has become accepted as the day to day norm and even “trophy sized” marlin are now released when not in a tournament. Standing at the top of the big fish release list is “Pursuit” led by Capt. Jason Holtz and crewman Nick Durham. They’ve posted three blue marlin estimated to have been released at 800 pounds or better, so far in 2022.
While the weather was spazzing out last week, the internet was spazzing out over a huge marlin caught in the eastern Atlantic. Landed in the island country of The Republic of Cape Verde, this giant pulled the scales down to a convincing 1,370 pounds. The actual Atlantic blue marlin World Record is even bigger than that. It bottomed the scales out at 1,402 pounds, and was caught on the opposite side of the Atlantic, in Brazil.
Here in the Pacific, the standing World Record was caught right in front of Honokohau by angler Jay de Beaubien on board the “No Problem” with Capt. Bobby Brown. This behemoth scaled out at 1,376 pounds. A little known fact about this fish is that yours truly was the crewman on “No Problem” at the time, but I was not part of this catch. The crewman on a neighboring boat called in sick that day, so I jumped over to help out. In leaving the “No Problem,” the deck work for the day was up to Doug Haigh, who only just joined the team.
On his first day on the job Doug wired the new World Record. Over on “Humdinger,” we caught 5 blue marlin that day, but all together they still did not weigh 1,376 pounds. Go figure.
Larger marlin than 1,376 pounds have been caught here in Hawaii, but did not qualify as World Records because of rule infractions. The largest was caught out of Kewalo Basin on Oahu and weighed in at 1,805 pounds.
Capt. Bart Miller weighed a monster at 1,656 pounds but it too did not qualify. Fran O’Brien wired that 1,656 pound giant and said that there were a number of rule infractions, but it only takes one to be disqualified. Often teams don’t know they are fighting a World Record, so they do anything just to catch the dang thing.
So what are the rules one must follow to qualify a catch for a World Record? The International Game Fishing Association (IGFA) was founded in 1939 and, among other things, is the keeper of World Records. Records are qualified according to the breaking strength of the fishing line and there are various rules on tackle configuration and hooks. The rule that most often causes a disqualification is simple: only one human can hook fight and bring to “catch” any individual fish. Because most guys are just trying to catch a dang fish, they aren’t worried about rules. Rules? This is my boat. We don’t need no stinkin’ rules! You get the picture.
Years ago IGFA had a presence in Tahiti, and some folks fished “legally” but now, not many. Most only fished to IGFA specs during Clubs tournaments. That passed away when the individuals who promoted IGFA fishing also passed away. Aside from the charter boats SeaWolf and Ultimate Lady, most local fishermen down there seem perfectly happy to just catch a dang fish, as most guys here are too.
Tahiti has more places to land giant fish than there are scales to weigh them. Because of this, many of their Big Mamma are never properly weighed, and they catch their share of giants down there too. An American might say, “Why doesn’t somebody do something so more granders get weighed properly?” That same American may also be puzzled by the answer; pretty much because no one cares. They weigh the bags of meat when they sell it by the kilo. And that’s good enough for them.
If you peruse marlin fishing media of any type, you will often see western pundits say that many believe that the next World Record marlin could come from Tahiti. Technically it could, but because 99.9% of the fishermen down there don’t fish to IGFA rules – the odds are that if a world record size marlin were caught in Tahiti it won’t count, just as the others caught to date have not. And – as with the others – no one will likely care. Songs will be sung, people will dance and life will go on.
If you like to chase records and fish to IGFA specs, SeaWolf or Ultimate Lady provide the best chance to beat the odds in Tahiti. Here in Kona, most all of the charter boats are IGFA ready every day.