Photo courtesy Boom Boom Sportfishing
On June 22, Captain Tony Brown with Boom Boom Sportfishing and his crew caught an impressive 1,040-pound Pacific blue marlin four miles off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii. The experience was especially memorable for Tony and his crew because their deckhand’s family was the charter group that day.
The Old Reliable Crew
By Nick Smith
On July 7, 2013 the Old Reliable raised 103 blue marlin and scored 18 releases on the flyrod. In three days we raised 169 blue marlin and released 37, all on the fly.
The seed was planted for this adventure three years earlier when we saw a blog claiming an astonishing number of blue marlin encounters far off the Pacific Coast of Central America. The area was probably first discovered by someone pulling lures on the long run to Isla de Cocos and the impressive number of blue marlin was probably considered a fluke. But eventually other boats started to experience similar good fishing over the underwater seamounts in the same area and word started to leak out that something special was going on far beyond the established billfish grounds. [Read more…]
Nineteen-year-old Cole Pirrung has, like many anglers before him, been fishing for most of his life. Pirrung says he was always at the river and lake with friends and the first time he ever went offshore was with his grandparents to try bottom fishing when he was around 12 years old. His father, Dave Pirrung, also played a large part in Cole’s interest to go after bigger fish along the Atlantic coastline having fished the Big Rock when his sons were all young.
Also attached is a photo of our Top Boat, Fleur de Lis accepting the C.R. Bob Potter Memorial Trophy for Top Billfish Boat, along with an invitation to fish the Offshore World Championship in 2022. Photo courtesy Cajun Canyons Billfish Tournament
The 17th annual Cajun Canyons Billfish Tournament (June 1-6, 2021), presented by H&E Equipment Services, featured 35 boats fishing for a total purse of $689,500. Hosted by Cypress Cove Lodge & Marina in Venice, Louisiana, the tournament attracted a fleet ranging from 37 to 95 feet in length and represented each of the five Gulf Coast states.
Flamingo, Costa Rica, Wednesday, June 9, 2021—The first leg of the new all-virtual Presidential Challenge of Central America hosted teams fishing from four different nations in the region—Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama—for two days of fishing, with scoring taking place using the popular CaptApp mobile application, which allows teams to shoot video that is automatically time- and date-stamped as well as geo-located.
On the starboard halyard, billfish flags are to be arranged by species significance.
ITB Staff
It was long before social media revealed daily fishing reports that fish flags were used to publicly announce one’s success on the water. History credits The Tuna Club of Santa Catalina for the introduction of fish capture flags that were oversized and colored so nearby boats could be alerted to tuna, swordfish and marlin landings.
By Captain Scott “Fraz” Murie
When I say, “There’s nothing like it,” I’m specifically talking about Bermuda. In my experience, everything about this mid-Atlantic archipelago is great. Exuding elegance and old-world charm, this British overseas territory boasts five-star accommodations of hotels, marinas, golf courses, restaurants and more. The people are friendly, and the atmosphere is virtually crime free. On top of all this, the fishing is decidedly world-class. Every day you have the chance of catching the fish of a lifetime.
Black marlin have wide, powerful bills built for smashing tuna and not breaking.
ITB Staff
They say that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they present themselves. If a guy has teardrops inked beneath his eyes and a “Satan Lives” tattoo on his neck, you might not want to meet him in a dark alley. Or, if your blind date shows up with a deep voice, hands larger than yours and an Adam’s apple to match, you might question her feminine persuasion. A few observations about the anatomy of a fish can just as accurately provide ways to approximate how they behave. There is an adage in biology that form follows function. The way something appears can tell you quite a bit about what it is good at doing.
By Peter B. Wright
The family of “true” billfish includes all the species called marlin, all the sailfish (which are split into the Atlantic and Pacific species with the Pacific sailfish also being found in the Indian Ocean) and several species of spearfish. Swordfish are commonly grouped with these billfish of the Istiophoridae family, but they are technically the sole member of the family Xiphiidae.
All of these fish are part of the teleost group, which are known as bony fishes and are closely related. With the sole exception of the swordfish, billfish vary only slightly in how the different species capture and kill their prey. I am about to explain why the common myth that all billfish use their bill as a sword, or a club, to kill their prey is not correct!
January 7, 2021—It’s with a heavy heart that we announce well-known Hawaii Captain Chris Sheeder has passed away after a battle with pancreatic cancer, according to a public Facebook post from his brother. Sheeder’s love for the water began at the young age of 11 when he took his first offshore trip out of Kona. This eventually led him to become a leader in refining techniques for catching billfish on the fly. He accumulated a career billfish tally of more than 35,000.
Sheeder worked his way up the ladder, from mate and then to captain. And throughout his time in the fishing circuit, Sheeder was always ready to give back to the community and share what he had learned himself.
This is best summed up in his own words when InTheBite interviewed him a few years back.
“I don’t feel like I’m in the sportfishing business, I’m in the dream fulfillment business. It might sound cheesy, but fishing is a great way of enriching other people’s lives. It’s been my avenue to making lifetime memories. How can you touch other people’s lives? Take them fishing. Lots of people think about a day spent together for a long, long time.”
Read more about Captain Chris Sheeder’s career here.
