InTheBite

Kona, Hawaii: Your Next Sportfishing Destination

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billfish jumping off kona hawaii

ITB Staff

Kona, Hawaii is a wonderful place. In terms of distance from a continental landmass, the Hawaiian archipelago is one of the most remote strings of islands in the world. And now that travel to the islands has opened up with a Hawaii’s safe travel program, getting to the Pacific should be back on your list of places to go. Kona sits on the western edge of the Island of Hawaii—the Big Island. Its rocky coastline is the result of millions of years of volcanic deposits piling atop one another. The Hawaiian Islands are mountains that jut from the sea floor, covering thousands of feet beneath the waterline and thousands more above it. The mountainous interior of the Island of Hawaii creates a giant wind block, large enough to create a permanent lee and break apart hurricanes.

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Team Devotion Wins Gulf Coast Triple Crown Championship

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Photo courtesy Gulf Coast Triple Crown

Gulf Coast Triple Crown, July 29, 2021—It wasn’t a ‘wire-to-wire win, but the team that led the Gulf Coast Triple Crown standings after week one ended up being in that same spot eight tournaments later. Team Devotion, a 61′ Viking from Orange Beach, took the lead after winning the Catch and Release division at the Louisiana Billfish Classic back in May and held off fierce competition to claim the 2021 championship.

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July 7, 2013: The Best Blue Marlin Day Ever?

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The Old Reliable Crew

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…]

The Extremes of Tournament Fishing

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boats running

Photo courtesy Elliott Stark

By ITB Staff

The time was, perhaps not too long ago, that tournament time meant rounding up a few friends, grabbing a half-dozen cases of beer, a handful of plugs and taking a boat ride. During some tournaments, the most important thing to remember was that there needed to be at least one person sober enough to gaff the fish. There are some places in the world where camaraderie and alcohol intake still count for something, but on the whole, the modern fishing tournament scene is marked by extremes.

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