Going into the last day we need to get something stuck. We started the last day with Team Lantana of Florida. Because of the action down south on day 4 a bunch of the boats came south. We ran in front of the pack and set the lines and today we took the 500 fathom line that most of the fish were caught on on day 4. We had some wind out of the west and the sky was cloudy. It was a front of some kind that made it tough to see due to the glare on the water. Even though it was tough to see I saw a fish coming to the short bait. We had our good Polu Kai tubulation that we usually only run on 130 on 50 to try to get it the game. The lure has been hot for us all summer and due to its value to us didn’t want to loose it on a big one on 50 pound test. We really need a a fish and went to it in order to get the bite. That she did. After a 50 minute fight in the choppy seas we got the leader on the fish. Matt Bowman grabbed the leader and had to let go a number of times. On our 3rd try the fish neared gaffing. Our second mate gaff man Mike got a good long shot on the fish. Th boys pulled the fish up where I could get the meat hook on him and it was done. The boys did a great job on a tough finish on 50 pound test line. Our anglerette Celeste Moorhouse did a fantastic job on her very first pacific blue marlin.The fish ended weighing 380 pounds and won the Highest Individual Wahine scorer.
Archive for August, 2009
HIBT Day 5
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009HIBT Day 4
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009The Kona Game Fishing Club-Miake fished on the Northern Lights on the 4 the day of the tournament. The bite seemed to be moving south. We trolled our way down the inside combing the shoreline in 300 fathoms. The 300 fathom line is right against the rocks and we looked to shake off the hard luck that we had the last 2 days of the tournament. Boats started to hook up all around us. We left boats behind us as they stopped hooked to fish. It was hard to watch as we headed to the south. 2 really big fish were seen in the area and we hoped for our shot. We got down as far as I wanted inside the B buoy and I turned around to head north. We got back a mile or so and tagged a fish that broke the streak of missing fish that we were on. It kept our team in the hunt. They have caught a fish each day now.
HIBT Day 3
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009Today we had the Pajaro Valley Game Fishing Club Team number 1 on board. This team goes way back in the tournaments history and won the tournament 2 times. At 20 minutes into the second day we hooked up on 50. The fish jumped and jumped as we got the lines clear. We got he fish settled and started to go to work on it. Famous lure maker uncle Joe Yee was in the chair and things were going well until for no reason we pulled the hook again. The bites were really aggressive all day. Fish were crashing the lures and pulling off all day. We finished the day 0 for 5. That really hurt. No one did anything wrong the fish just weren’t getting hooked. Very frustrating at times. We knew that eventually our luck would turn around.
HIBT Day 2
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009
Today we drew the Sports fishing club of the British Isles. We had a great day of fishing but couldn’t hook anything. The fish went wild jumping all over the ocean and would come off. One in particular early in the day jumped 20 times and we still pulled the hook. Some of the teams were having good luck hooking what they saw but we had a hard day hooking anything going 0 for 4.
HIBT DAY 1
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009
Today kicked off the 50th anniversary of the Hawaiian International Bill fish Tournament. We drew the Hilton Grand Vacations Fishing Club- Japan for our first day. The drawing of the teams has all the teams switching boats everyday to keep the field of competition as fair as possible. It allows the charter fleet to connect with the world and provides the opportunity to meet fishermen and women from all over the world. We fished the middle of the coast line most of the first day. The area Kilo was hot and we were there to get in on the action. The boats converged on the area and it made it hard for us watching boats hook up all around us. At 12:00 we tagged a spearfish and we were on the board with our first fish. Our second bite came at 1:00 with a striped marlin that jumped off after 10 jumps. Hard luck. We fished the area we had the shots and hooked a blue marlin at 6 minutes to 4:00 which was stop fishing. We got the tag in the fish on 50 pound test and ended up with 400 points for the day.
