Official 2010 HIBT Blog: Marlin Fishing Tournament update from Kona, Hawaii

Hi Jon Schwartz here, welcome to the official blog of the 2010 Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament (HIBT) Blog. Anglers are coming in this weekend from all over the world to Hawaii's Kona Coast,  the "Land of the Giants,  to troll the deep blue waters in hopes of hooking giant marlin that can reach 2000 pounds!

I just flew in to tournament headquarters this afternoon and I'm super excited about being able to witness this historic event, which will actually start Monday morning. I guess last year's event was the historic one, as it was the 50th anniversary, but let's hope this one makes history for big fish mayhem and fun. It sure has the potential! I've covered the HIBT for the last two years and spent many additional weeks on the water with captains and anglers gathering photos and fishing content. Prior to covering the HIBT as a journalist I spent many fishing trips of my own here, learning about what makes this such a special big game fishing destination.

One aspect is that big pelagic game fish seem to like being in clear deep blue water that has lots of bait that they can feed on. Kona has that, for sure. It gets so deep so quick here that you can be 100 feet off the jetty, and be in 250 feet of water or more.

Check out this illustration that I got and put a label on, showing where the Kona Coast is. You can see the steep dropoff points. No need to motor out to where the big ones lie- they are right there within 1/4 mile from shore at times. In addition, this is the leeward side of the Big Island of Hawaii, as opposed to the windward side. I am not going to say that there is no wind because if I do, that might jinx everything and we'll be blown off the water on Monday, but for the most part, let's just say that this is not the windward side...
If you want proof that huge fish can be caught within a stone's throw from shore, check out this picture of a 64.5 pound giant trevally ( Ulua in Hawaiian) that I caught at the mouth of the harbor, about 50 yards off the jetty, about 5 years ago here....on a kayak!

It says "Ulua #3" on it because it was actually the third one that I caught in three days, if that's any indication of how good it can get here. So if you can't tell, I've been sold on this place as a big fish mecca for awhile now.

Now let's talk about the bait. There's tons of it here, and you wouldn't believe the sized of the baits that they use to catch marlins with. They catch tuna that others would be happy to catch for trophies, and then put a hook through them and wait until a monster shows up and engulfs it. I don't have any good pictures of this, but I do know that when a 1800 pound fish was caught on many years ago, it coughed up a 150 pound tuna that it had just eaten. We'll have to do with this picture, which shows a regular sized bait.

                                

Notice that it's been sliced in half? Well what happened is, the aku, or skipjack tuna that had been caught and then thrown out as bait with a hook on it had been sliced clean in half by a wahoo, another fish that lives around here with razor sharp teeth. Wahoo had kept eating all our baits so we put a trap hook- another hook that dangled towards the back of the bait, but the wahoo ( ono in Hawaii) was wily and cunning enough to come in for his attack and take away half of it without getting hooked!

Of course with such big baits, and bigger predators eating them, you need beefy equipment. 

                                  

See that "4/0" reel there on the left? That's actually a very big reel, big enough to catch a 200 pound marlin. I brought it over here on my first trip to Kona and they laughed when they saw it, because they usually use the biggest reels made in the world- 130 pound test reels. They are bigger around than a coffee can and can withstand the torque required to tussle with the beasts that roam these waters.  People in Kona can choose to use lighter tackle, which will be fun for smaller fish in the 20-50 pound range, but if a 500 pound marlin comes along, let alone something three times that size, they are going to get "spooled"- which means that the fish will take all the line off the spool and leave them dry and sorry they had underestimated the potential of this place.

                                         
I'm pretty sure there are 35 or so boats in this year's tournament. Each boat will be manned by one angling team, and the cool thing is that the teams have to rotate among the boats, so no one gets to have their favorite boat the whole time- it's done by random drawing. On Monday just before the tournament starts, the boats will line up at the Kailua pier, collect their anglers, and then at precisely 7:00am  (I think it's 7:00, I'd better check!), they are given the green light, and they scatter in all directions, hoping to be the first to hook up.

I'll be getting in the press boat, hoping to watch other boats as they are battling jumping marlin. I took the above photo from a helicopter last year at the start of the tournament. A really wild thing happened about two minutes after I took this photo. I told you that big fish can be caught close to shore, right? Well while I was in the chopper, we were making our last fly over for photos like the above one. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a boat going backwards. That seemed strange to me, here we are in the first couple of minutes in the tournament, everyone is streaming at full speed for gosh knows where, and one boat is going in reverse. Could it be???
I told the chopper pilot, "Follow that boat!!" and sure enough, this boat- the Marlin Magic, owned by captain Marlin Parker and skippered by Jason Holtz, was indeed hooked up to a big fish and was backing down on it so they could get to it and tag and release it.
Right when we get on top of the boat, the most amazing thing happened: the fish, a marlin, jumped out of the water and started greyhounding off the stern of the boat!

Luckily I was able to catch it all on camera and I got what are probably some of the rarest fishing shots in the world. I say that because I think it would be prohibitively expensive to rent a chopper and hover around until a boat hooks up. It can take two minutes, 4 hours,  or all day with nothing, you know? It was all luck and I'm grateful that I had that opportunity. Within minutes they had the blue marlin o the side of the boat, removed the hooks, revived it and let it go. And that was all in the first 15 minutes of the start of last year's HIBT!

Later on in the month I spent some time accompanying Captain Marlin Parker himself, who granted me an extensive interview about his life and experiences. I'll be writing a series of articles on him for Bluewater Boats magazine about Marlin Parker based on these interviews with the first one coming out soon. Here's a copy of that magazine with a picture I took of a fellow releasing a sailfish in Guatemala:

Check back in a couple of hours; after I get some sleep and have breakfast I'll continue blogging, and soon enough the tournament will be at hand!

Bring on the 2010 Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament (HIBT) !!

This is Jon Schwartz welcoming you to the official blog of the 2010 Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament! The HIBT is one of the oldest, grandest, and most prestigious fishing tournaments in the world. Anglers from all corners of the globe gather on Hawaii's fabled Kona Coast, the "Land of the Giants," to fish for Pacific Blue Marlin that can grow to 2000 pounds. These are the fish of legend, and Kona is the world's ultimate blue marlin battleground.

                             

Captain Marlin Parker, one of the world's top captains and a big game fishing legend who has landed blue marlin over 1400 pounds, fought one in Kona that he estimated well over 1600 pounds for over 23 hours.  I've seen experienced anglers put to the limits of their endurance after 3 and 4 hour fights (see below pic), so I can't imagine what it was like for 23!

Indeed, the potential for hooking massive fish in azure blue, calm waters, sometimes within a mile of shore, is what attracts such an international, faithful contingent of contestants.

There's no guarantee that you'll hook a huge fish, but as soon as you motor offshore and reach deep blue water (which can be a mere several hundred yards from shore!) a monster can strike at any time. Some of the world's best captains, including Parker, Guy Terwilliger, and Gene Vanderhoek, call Kona home, and they've all learned the hard way that they need to be prepared for "Godzilla" every time they leave the harbor.

Thousand pound marlin- known as "granders"- have been landed in almost every month of the year in Kona.

To that end they only use the heaviest tackle, lest they be caught, as Vanderhoek puts it, "with their pants down." In fact, I interviewed Marlin Parker about the 23 hour marathon fight, and he told me that when dawn broke the next morning, he dove in to see if the heavy leader line that was attached to the fish was in danger of breaking. I've dove in with a few marlin myself (for photos like this one below), but nothing nearly as large, so I was curious about his experience with such a leviathan.

"What was the fish doing 18 hours into the fight when you dove in?" I asked.  He replied with a grin, "Pretty much anything it wanted !" What an understatement! I guess it was like putting a lasso on Kong Kong and asking if it cramped his style.

Big game sportfishing finds many of it's roots in Hawaii, and if you want to read about the history of sportfishing and the birth of the HIBT, check out the article I wrote about it here: HIBT: Fishing for Giant Marlin in Kona, Hawaii.  One of the tournament's founders, Peter Fithian, still presides over the HIBT. This will be his 51st year at the tournament's helm , and I look forward to meeting up with him and "talking story", as they say in Hawaii.

Check in in a few hours; I'll be adding a lot of content about last year's HIBT, explaining the significance of the tournament, what it's like for the anglers, what type of equipment they use, the type of fish they hook (blue marlin are the targeted species but there's plenty of other fish that they encounter), how they fight them, how they release most of them and why they keep a few, and what the local scene is like in Kona during the HIBT.
Once I arrive in Kona on Friday, I'll be your on the ground photojournalist, uploading exciting content onto this blog, Jon Schwartz's HIBT Fishing Blog on a daily basis. I'll be in the press boat every day chasing after the boats that are hooked up to fish in hopes of witnessing wild big game fishing action and landing "the shot". After the day is done I'll sit down at my laptop with a plate full of wings and a club soda and enter the day's juiciest tidbits for your reading and viewing pleasure. Don't forget, all along the way you can also catch detailed information about the tournament at the Offical HIBT Website

Here's a shot I got from last year's HIBT:

Hawaii Travel Update: Grand Times on the Island of Oahu!

We just got back from a fabulous trip to Oahu. I was gathering content for an article about an exotic fish that lures well-heeled anglers from all over the world. Along the way I spent time with my family savoring this fantastic vacation destination. Sorry if that sounds like an ad, but there's no other way to describe Oahu. On the South Shore you have Waikiki, which is a busy metropolis, world class shopping hub, and home to some of the world's most famous beaches. On the North Shore, you have a rural, down-home country feel, mixed with some of the most beautiful mist shrouded valleys, sun soaked beaches, and of course, the most famous surf spots in the entire world.

We stayed at some really awesome resorts. One was the Kahala Resort, which is a high-end exclusive resort about 10 minutes out of Waikiki, located just past Diamond Head. In addition to being a travel and fishing writer and photographer, I do a lot of resort photography (you didn't think I just sat around on these trips, did you?) Anyway, I got some neat shots at the Kahala. Here's one I took of the Spa they have:

and here's a shot of my daughters living it up in the pool:

and here they are chilling on the beach:

Maybe I should trade jobs with my kids! At the Kahala, they have this thing called Dolphin Quest, where there's a salt water lagoon and dolphins swimming around in it, and you can swim and interact with them. It's fantastic. I pointed out to my daughters that the girl in this photo below, who I assume is a dolphin trainer, seems to be having the time of her life, and is getting paid for it. So I gave them the "Hey, go to school, get good grades, specialize in marine science, and become a dolphin trainer" speech. I don't know if you can relate but I am getting to the age where I need to start guiding them in life choices, and having a fun job that you like, like this dolphin trainer here, seems like a great thing to strive for. Plus they can do that in Hawaii and I can come visit them!

Anyone who goes to Oahu and doesn't stay for a spell in the heart of Waikiki is really missing out. My wife LOVED it there, because it's like a little mini 5th Avenue, NYC style, right on the prettiest tropical beach you can imagine. It's where surfing took root, and where I first fell in love with the State of Hawaii. Here's my whole family...

Here's what it looked like at night from our hotel room:

After Waikiki we ventured over to the North Shore and stayed at the Turtle Bay Resort. It's a high end resort on the very tip of the island, and it has stunning views, beaches, golf courses, restaurants, and privacy, if you want it- just the place to go to after a stay in busy Waikiki. Here's a shot I took at sunrise our first morning there:

 This is the view from the resort looking out over Turtle Bay itself.

and here's a picture of my own daughter ripping it up on the surf they have right next to the resort!

I've been fortunate to do a lot of traveling and have a lot of exciting personal adventures but watching my daughters enjoy themselves, and photographing them surfing, was a special treat! I was the proudest daddy in the entire world!

Just past the Turtle Bay Resort, there lies an expanse of secluded beaches that are breathtakingly beautiful. I went for a short hike there with my daughters, in part because we wanted to see the rare Hawaiian Monk Seal. I was told that there are very few of them left. I took this shot with my long lens because you're not allowed to get very close to them. I also wondered where her pup was, as I was told that she was spending time on the beach with her pup and waiting until the pup was grown enough to fend for itself. Maybe the pup already flew the coop?

One of the shots I did in my resort photography there was to capture the view that massage clients have when they are in the spa. It's kind of an interesting puzzle to get the shot so that the inside of the spa is lit properly, while the view through the window is not blown out and overexposed. Here's what I got:

My daughter Leilani is a pool freak. She gets a crazed look in her eye when she is playing in the pool and is in a total world of her own, she is having so much fun. It's almost like she doesn't hear you when you talk to her, she's in such a state of bliss. Last year I took a neat picture of her underwater and when she saw me with my camera she told me that she wanted to try for that shot again.

Great kids fishing picture

I frequent fishing chat boards and saw a post that asked readers to submit their favorite kids fishing photos. Because I have three kids of my own and have been a fishing enthusiast and elementary schoolteacher for over a decade, I have had many opportunities to get some great ones. The above is one of my favorites.

Kasey and his grandfather came out with me to kayak fish in Southern CA and we ended up catching a big fat yellowtail. In fact I picked the two of them up at 3:30 in the am and like a true angler, Kasey bounded down the steps barely able to contain his excitement at that early hour. We paddled out in the dark and made squid for bait under the moonlight, and were finally rewarded with this tasty treat.

Kasey was a very advanced student and also knew a lot about the local fishery. In the first week we struck a bond and I ended up going over to his house to meet his family (it was a public school that I taught at on Camp Pendleton). His dad was deployed in Iraq and his grandpa (pictured) was helping to take care of him with his daughter, Kasey's mother. He turned out to be a master angler and was schooling Kasey in all things fishing so we became fast friends. I told them, "Look, when the squid start spawning, I'm going to call you and we'll go out and catch us a big one!" Sure enough I got a call that the fish were biting and so I put the plan into action. You can bet he was stoked to tell his classmates about our adventure!

My Fishing Calendar published by Willow Creek Press

The first official calendar exclusively featuring my photography has just come out and I am excited! It's published by Willow Creek Press. They do all sorts of high interest wall calendars (way more than just fishing calendars) and seem to be a big name in the publishing world so I was honored to have my work selected.

Ironically the image you see here that is on the calendar cover was one of the first shots I ever took from the water. I sent it to my friend who is an editor and he said "Nice shot but you should have shot it vertically so I could have used it as a cover!" Ever since then I have been hyper vigilant about shooting vertically when I am doing these types of shots.

The fish is a striped marlin and it was caught and released off of Cabo San Lucas at the Golden Gate Bank. I've been meaning to do more blogging but I keep getting so caught up in photography and writing for magazines (which is a good thing!) that I haven't had time to log in and blog.

I was recently on assignment on the island of Oahu. I had such a great time there that I can't put it into words. I was like a kid in a candy store. Stay tuned for some really cool pics that I took of the fabulous scene there!

My new article & cover shot in Marlin World

I wrote an article about some of the great fishing adventures I had in Kona, Hawai this past summer for a really cool online magazine called Marlin World. The web has completely changed publishing, and Paul Watson, the editor of Marlin World, may well be onto something we'll see a lot of in the future. One can visit his website or subscribe to the free mailing list, and then you are can view the publication on your computer. The cool thing is that it reads much like a magazine- a virtual magazine. The pages flip with the help of some fancy dancy computer program and you can zoom in and out, and also watch videos imbedded on the page. It's interactive. Videos play as you are reading text above and around it. Pretty wild!

In any case, in the article I talked about the great times and luck I had photographing marlin, sharks, and other big fish from all sorts of vantage points in Hawaii, including face to face underwater (that's how I got the cover shot of the blue marlin that you see on the cover of Marlin World) and even from helicopters. Tell you what, between the pic I took of the marlin for the cover, and the self portrait I took above, I think it's pretty safe to say that I'm uglier than a marlin. Like, way uglier. Is that sad or what? Maybe if I got a hairpiece....

                                      

But I digress. Back to the Kona trip... I got so lucky that on the very first helicopter ride of my life, I witnessed something possibly only a few people have ever seen from above- a marlin jumping out of the water behind a boat!

The bizarre thing is that, as I noted in some hastilly scribbled text on the above photo, this is a photo of a marlin, jumping behind a boat called "Marlin Magic", owned by a famous captain named Marlin Parker! ( That's not something he calls himself, his dad named him that. His dad caught the first recognized blue marlin in the Pacific in, I think, 1954, and then months later had a baby, so naturally he named him Marlin.)  In fact, right now I am penning a series of articles about Captain Marlin Parker and his fishing techniques for a fantastic magazine called Bluewater Boats and Sportfishing. I was lucky to have one of my photos chosen for their cover earlier in the year- a shot I took of a sailfish being released in Guatemala:

The first article I write for Bluewater Boats will be on Captain Marlin Parker's fish fighting tactics. In reviewing the tapes I came upon a story of Marlin's that blew my mind; he and a friend were chasing the world record, day after day, when they hooked into a MONSTER that was "way bigger" than the 1400 pound behemoth he landed at another point in his career. He and his friend fought this fish for 23 hours and, well.... you'll have to find the rest in upcoming issues of Bluewater Boats!

Now if you don't mind I am going to share some photos that I took in Hawaii last summer. My wife and 3 girls were there with me for two of the four weeks I was there, and we had a great time hanging out and sight seeing.  Seems like no matter how far we go from home, all my girls ever want to do is lounge in the pool! Then when I chase after them with the camera they tell me all I ever do is want to take pictures. Below is a picture of them chillin' at one of their favorite places, the Sheraton Keauhou.

Now here's a pic of them at the Hilton Waikola:

One of these days I am going to write a major tome about all of the cool things to do in Hawaii. They have an active volcano and they also have inactive ones. You can take hikes through the tubes that the lava used to flow through. This is one of the pics I took that I like the best from that area

( Hawaii Volcanoes National Park)

They had these awesome flowers there at the Park ( it's a huge place, like Yellowstone, so when you hear 'park' don't think like the postage stamp place down the street from you where the kids play). Anyway I spent hours photographing these flowers. Then the problem is I get hundreds of nearly identical shots and can't help but look at each one carefully to pick the "best". Moreover, I snuck over a rail to get some of the flower shots, my expensive shades fell out, and I immediately stepped on them. The curse of the sunglasses repeated itself at Tropic Star Lodge in Panama not more than 4 months later.

And here's your standard. guy throwing flaming sticks in midair and then catching it in his legs shot.

And then we'll wrap it up with a picture of my youngest daughter at a luau. Her name is Leilani, it's a Hawaiian name and it means flower from heaven:

My new article on fishing and travel in Panama

The editors of Official Guide to Billfishing contacted me recently; they'd read my travel articles on Cabo San Lucas, Nicaragua, Panama, Guatemala, Hawaii, and Costa Rica ( which you can see on my site in the "articles" section) and asked if I could write an article on Panama. I've been there three times in the past year and it's one of my favorite destinations, so I jumped at the chance!

One of the reasons I was excited to do this article is that the editor wanted me to include a lot of travel content. Panama is more than a great fishing destination- it's an incredibly diverse country that plays host to a thriving modern metropolis (Panama City), dense jungles, indigenous tribes, a large amount of retirees from the United States and Europe, and the Canal Zone, which is like a mini Hong Kong because of the Duty Free Zone.

Plus, Panama uses the dollar- did you know that?

It's listed in many travel magazines as one of the best places in the world to retire. Google "Panama" and "Retirement" and you'll see what I mean.

I grew up 45 minutes from New York City, so I am not usually wowed by cities, but Panama's capital is indeed impressive. This waterfront city is mostly comprised of completely new and soon to be finished high rise condominiums, office buildings, fancy malls, and even a John's Hopkins Hospital and Trump Tower (I'm not sure if he actually calls it that, but he owns it and it's a towering building!)

The article gave me a chance to share some of the images that I'd recently taken of the bustling Panamanian skyline, as well as photos of Choco Indians and upscale stores like Tiffany's and Gucci. 

People's eyes always pop when I show them these photos and then tell them where they were all taken in the same country! To read the full article, follow this link:

 Panama Pastimes: Fishing and Travel Article by Jon Schwartz

My New Article in Marlin Magazine: Hawaiian Lure Magic!

I wrote an interesting article on fishing with lures in Hawaii called "Lure Magic" that's in the March 2010 issue of Marlin Magazine. Funny story: I had already penned several features on my trip to Hawaii in various publications, including another article in the February issue of Marlin on fishing for spearfish in Hawaii (see earlier post ), but I couldn't find anyone who was interested in having me write an article on Kona's great blue marlin fishery.

Why? Well, the topic has been covered many times over; writing an average garden-variety article about fishing for blue marlin in Hawaii is like writing an article about the existence of taxicabs and skyscrapers in New York City!

Anyway, I followed Jim Rizzuto's advice (Jim's a legendary writer and expert on all things fishing in Hawaii) and made arrangements to accompany Captain Teddy Hoogs for several days in August.

Teddy ( pictured above) is a young, talented, and very well respected captain on Hawaii's Kona Coast,  and happens to be the son of  Kona Legend Peter Hoogs, who's been operating a charter boat in Kona since the late 60's. Teddy happens to run one of the nicest boats in all of Hawaii, a 53' Merrit called the Kila Kila.

                                            

 During a lull in the action, I decided to pass the time by documenting how they rigged lures. Along with recording the whole process on audiotape, I took about 50 close-up pictures of the lure as it came to form in the boat's salon. Once the lure was completed, Teddy's mate put it into the spread behind the boat and then only half jokingly said, "Now watch that lure get hit."

Within minutes all heck broke loose- a real started screaming, and we all ran to the deck. One of the lures had gotten hit by a nice blue marlin- the very same one that the mate had painstakingly constructed in front of my camera only minutes earlier!!

The fish  flailed wildly in midair, tossing the newly-rigged purple Bomboy Llanes bullet lure like a ragdoll. I got some decent pics of that, and then dove in (Teddy and I had rehearsed a plan well in advance) and I got some really incredible photos of the marlin swimming underwater with the same lure. To finish the release of the fish, the mate grabbed hold of the blue marlin's bill, held the fish's head parallel to the water to run water through it's gills, and they made a pass by me as I lay submerged in the water. Right when they began to pass me, just as planned, the mate released the fish and it went streaming off calmly into the clear blue depths.

If this sounds too good to be true, check the article and the pics out! I have a slew of images documenting the whole episode, and they are all among the best underwater images of blue marlin that I've ever taken.