Tournaments have been getting all the ink lately, which is normal this time of year. But there are a lot of other interesting things going on along the Kona Coast as well.
Next time you’re feeling pooped from a real busy day, consider the day Ian Keinath had just last Sunday. Ian prefers to work the deck on “Last Chance” and happily leaves the skipper’s duties under the tutelage of Capt. Tracy Epstein. Sunday, Kiwi angler Jesse Dickson joined them for a “relaxing day of fishing” but got more of a work out than a rest.
The team generated a remarkable twelve marlin bites that day, which is an average of about 1.5 bites per hour. That alone will keep the deckhand running and the angler’s chicken at bay, but they actually caught seven of those blue marlin bites, so factor that into how much of an average hour that would leave you for a nap.
Not much.
Add in one striped marlin, and that pushes the catch average up to one marlin an hour. But wait — there’s more. They tossed in a spearfish, and an ono — just to make sure Jesse would sleep well back in the hotel, and not on the boat.
In case he wasn’t tired enough from his relaxing day out fishing, the gang added an ahi to the smorgasbord, and you don’t skip an ahi across the surface like you might a spearfish or an ono. Ahi are bruisers and after playing tug of war with one, many anglers are done for the day.
Ahi are also known to give even the most experienced deck hand “a tour of the cockpit” so keep in mind that Ian managed 17 bites that day and he had to tag and release or leader and gaff 11 fish, plus the physicality of pulling in all the lines at least 13 teams in order to fight fish. And he had to bag and ice all the fish they kept.
Ian mentioned that he also pitched in as an angler where needed as well.
So yeah. That was a busy day….
Only two other boats have caught seven marlin in one day in recent years – Five Star and Pursuit, so this is a fairly rare event.
What is even rarer is an eight marlin day, and interestingly enough, Tracy Epstein was involved two of the three times that happened. Back then, Tracy was in Ian’s shoes, down on the deck, crewing for Capt. Kevin Nakamaru on Northern Lights.
They caught eight marlin on two of three consecutive days, going 8-2-8. On the two days they caught eight, they also added three ahi.
Busy indeed, and was it a coincidence that Tracy would be involved? Maybe, but likely not. The guys who go the most are the guys who get the most chances at days like that.
Capt. Kevin is part and parcel of that theory because he actually has one more eight marlin day notched into his belt. With Matt Bowman on the deck Nakamaru scored eight marlin in one day – and – six ahi!
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In the parlance of those who have either committed their lives work to learning how to locate, hook, fight and ultimately catch BIG marlin, or those who are lucky enough to have learned from the guys who have, it is attractive that the game just changes with fish 800 pounds or better. Sure, some smaller fish act like angry granders, but you just don’t have the same bulk and strength to deal with.
On Aug. 2, Capt. Stymie Epstein was on “Huntress” and they caught, tagged and released a blue he called 800 pounds. Stymie said that this fish was the epitome of those problem types – angry, strong and bulky. It was also a bit of a dirty trickster.
Stymie reported that although the initial part of the fight was unremarkable, it got annoyed after a while and jumped five or six times. Although it never pulled out hundreds of yards of line, it knew many other marlin tricks, switch backing, changing direction and generally causing Stymie to conjure up counter moves based on experience, something he has many years of.
When the leader came up after about an hour and a half, Mitch Lattoff pulled and in response the fish went head down and tail up, one of the very hardest angles for even the most experienced wiremen. Bending over the covering boards is not a good exercise for even the youngest, strongest back, and afterwards Stymie said Mitch was pretty much worn out and that he ransacked the boat searching for Advil.
As they say in Australia, “Ya get that,” and you do, but like swollen hands, sore backs are just one of many party favors you get to take home after it’s all over with a BIG one.
Speaking of Australia, Capt. Laurie Woodbridge on “Sea Baby II” out of Cairns, Queensland is a skipper who could really conjure up counter moves on BIG marlin. After many years of trial and error, he became one of (if not the) first to figure out how to trick even the trickiest dirty trickster marlin, and make it do what he wanted.
It is a fundamental that you can’t catch a fish that is not on the surface, so he figured out ways to make them pop up. Once the fish is up, it is just a matter of closing the gap between the boat and the fish.
Theoretically.
Theory often goes out the window because of a reality in fishing that remains a wonder to even the most experienced: How can an angler wind a 1,200-pound marlin to the boat with just 60 or 70 pounds of drag, only for the deck hand to find that the leader is too tight to pull? Tight as if stretched between box cars tight…
If he could get them to leader but they wouldn’t budge, Woodbridge came up with a way to beat them at this game too. It’s all about with messing with the fish.
He’d teach it a few lessons, and then he would walk it like a stubborn dog, up into the shallows on the outside the Great Barrier Reef.
Like most ingenious ideas, the beauty was in the simplicity – if you have a 30-foot leader to hand but can’t do anything with the bulk or strength of a monster fish, walk it into 20-feet of water and presto — you are 10-feet down the leader!
Around here, if you are out in 1,000 fathoms of water, the shallows can be a long walk, so trying this approach is often just not feasible.
Capt. David Beaudet fished with Wood a number of seasons on the reef. One day back home in Kona, he was fishing by himself and couldn’t do much with a fish at leader, so he pulled a Wood and walked it in to where catching it was a breeze – inside the green buoy at Honokohau!
According to Beaudet, things were going so well, he considered walking it right up to the Fuel Dock. He thought better of this idea when he considered the damage it might do if it got a second wind inside the harbor, so he chose to be prudent over having fun.
Good thinking, 99.
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Back in 1988 and 1989, Jimmie Vaughan and the Fabulous Thunderbirds played in Kona on the heels of their platinum album “Tuff Enuff.” Both of those Kona performances were the Grand Finale’ of the Big Island Marlin Tournament.
Jimmie Vaughan returns Aug. 18 to play the Grand Finale’ of the Big Island Marlin Tournament again, for the first time in 30 years. To enter the BIMT, click here: konatournaments.com
A very limited number of tickets are available to folks not in the BIMT, and proceeds go to raise funds for either of two non-profits – the Hawaii Big Game Fishing Club or Wild Oceans.
Tickets are available online up until the limit is reached – through the Wild Oceans website at this link:wildoceans.orgJimmie+Vaughan+Membership+Special
Members of the Hawaii Big Game Fishing Club are having their reservations converted to tickets at this time. To join The Club, log on: hbgfc.org/join_the_club.html
For more information, email: jody@konatournaments.com.