Fishing tournament season goes into full swing next weekend with the Kona Kick Off Tournament. Aptly named years ago when it was Leg One of the Hawaii Marlin Tournament Series, the Kick Off is now actually Leg Two. The first tournament of the HMT Series each year is now the Lazy Marlin Hunt, which fished in early April.
The Kona Kick Off fishes June 25 and 26, followed by the Firecracker Open July 2 and 3, the Kona Throw Down July 5 through 7, Skins Marlin Derby July 8 through 10 and after a five-day break, the Lure Makers Challenge July 15, 16 and 17.
The 2022 Lazy Marlin Hunt was won by Kathleen Wyatt and her mostly family team on board the 37-foot Rybovich Sea Genie II. Kathleen kicked off the series with a monstrous 942.5-pound blue marlin, a fish that still rests atop the Kona big fish list for 2022.
So what does it take to catch a giant marlin like that, and especially catch one like that in a tournament where it can earn a sizable purse?
Coach Darrel Royal once said “Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.” It could be that Team Sea Genie II caught the fish and won the Lazy Marlin Hunt simply by being well-prepared.
On the other hand, Capt. Peter Wright always said, “I’d rather be lucky than good,” so which is it? Which is the egg and which is the chicken?
To confound things even further, Royal actually misquoted the guy credited with that old adage — a Roman named Seneca. Ol’ Seneca is credited with putting “preparation” first in the proverb, presumably so one is already prepared when an opportunity arises. But history is unclear if Seneca actually even said that, which oddly exposes the real secret to what it takes to be successful — success may come from what you do right, but it may also come from something that you don’t do at all. This is exemplified by the eternal success of Seneca, accredited for something there is no proof he did.
Let’s look at some practical application of this for clarification: Down on the Great Barrier Reef, crews experiencing a string of bad luck know for a fact that the most reliable way to change the trajectory of their fortunes is to stay up into the wee hours of the morning, laying square bears prone post mortem, and tossing messages over the side in likewise expired plonk bottles. These notes usually beseech whoever finds it to help bring them luck, which is needed by then because they’ve become legless stretcher cases. Fair dinkum.
What the blokes are actually doing is the opposite of preparing for an opportunity. Yes, indeed, the nuanced Aussie way of creating the opportunity to catch a giant fish is to show up for work in the most unprepared fashion possible. By doing so, the Aussies are saying that both Coach Royal and Senca have it wrong. One should not try to create luck by being prepared when opportunity knocks. One must first create the opportunity. If things have gone pear shaped and no opportunity is appearing, then what one must do is dare that bludger to show itself. This method has been proven to work far more than any other method ever devised by any crew in any fishing hole anywhere on earth and thus, crews have adopted it universally.
A less painful way to create an opportunity to get lucky is to not have something on board that would enhance your catch experience if it were. Many local skippers carry high-end cameras on board with them. They often capture fantastic images of jumping marlin that can only come from shooting off of a stable platform, which Kona’s calm waters provide. Leave your camera behind and what happens? Just ask Capt Kevin Hibbard.
“My camera was in the shop last week, and of course we caught a real nice fish that we let go at about 750 pounds. Other skippers in witness said I was nuts, it was way bigger than that, and it probably ways, but around here we prefer to under estimate a fish on the odd chance that it is captured and weighed later.” Still yet, Kevin did agree that the fish was plenty long and had the rectangular torso shape that only really large fish obtain. He also mentioned that its belly was bulging, likely from eating palu ahi that were schooled around a floating net. The only photos they got were still frames grabbed from GoPro video, which did not do the fish justice. The lack of photographic evidence was just the price he had to pay for the opportunity to catch that fish to which Hibbard quipped, “When I got home that night, my camera was back. Of course it was.”
Likewise, Capt. Bryan Toney lost his boat generator last week, and thus did not have the electricity needed to power up some of his fish finding technology. Undaunted, BT wrote, “We caught more fish in the last couple of days without it than we did all May with it!”
A few weeks back Capt. BT had something else not working — a crewman — so he told his angler, “Guaranteed we are going to get a big one today since it is just you and me!” Hilariously, they did. After the circus was over, Park Berolzheimer laughingly remarked, “That wasn’t my biggest marlin but it was certainly the most memorable!”
Tournament teams that focus on tangible things like tackle preparation may be concentrating too much on the obvious, instead of concentrating on the less tangible, yet no less fundamental opportunity cost known as irony.
If you want to catch a giant marlin or a tournament winning fish, just dare that bludger to show up. Leave something important behind. Captains Hibbard and Toney are testament that it works. The Aussies have proven it need not be serendipitous. Fair dinkum.