August 5th-7th Big Island Marlin Tournament

Sorry, no pics today!  We fished three day Big Island Marlin Tournament with Steve (owner of the Last Chance) and his friend Bob. Capt. Tim Hicks ran the boat and Ian and I ran the deck.  On the first day we tagged a small blue marlin about 150lbs and missed another.  Other boats faired the same, tagging one blue marlin or not getting a bite all day.  No qualifying blue marlin were caught on day one so all the daily big fish money rolled over to the following day.  On day two, we worked far south off Pebble Beach and beyond.  We would end the day with not a bite.  The day would end with some boats tagging small fish but no qualifying fish (over 300lbs) were landed.  Day 3, we had our strategy to fish south, but closer to town.  Within and hour of lines in, we had a small blue knock down the short rigger and then drop back to the stinger lure.  The fish took out a little line and soon came off.  We worked the area anf 30 minutes later had another fish up on the stinger.  The fish showed its dorsal as it chased the lure but faded away.  We continued our way south.  The swell picked up a bit and Ian and I changed lures to run in the bigger swell.  We had just carnked in the short rigger when the long rigger came down and line peeled off the reel.  Steve jumped in the chair and fought a 410lb blue marlin to the boat in 15 minutes.  This was the first qualifier for the tournament so we were all excited to see what the rest of the day would bring.  A few minutes later the Five Star, captained by Carlton Taniyama boated an estimated 400lb blue marlin.  We thought our fish was just shy of that mark so we ran to the scales to weigh our fish (410lbs).  Near the end of the tournament another boat boated a qualifier estimated at 625lbs.  We were out of first place for sure which would have guaranteed us over $145,000.  At the weigh in, the Five Star’s fish went 525lbs and the winning fish 633lbs!  It was a great tournament and even though we didn’t win we did take third for a $17,800 finish.