Another Classic Day

September 27, 2007

The Fish and the Furious
Local Sport Boat Captures Largest Payout in History

An old adage of fishing goes something like this, “Hours of tedium for brief moments of exhilaration,” and during the 15th anniversary of the Hatteras Catalina Marlin Classic truer words were never spoken. The slow fishing pushed the two day tournament to a third day and in the final hours the GOOD KARMA, a local yacht based in Newport Beach, CA “hooked up” and brought one of only two qualifying fish caught to the scales, capturing a total of $354,275.00. The purse gave the yacht, captained by Marlon Holden along with winning angler, Robert Lienau the largest single payout for a Striped Marlin tournament in the history of the sport.

The first two regulation days of fishing were slow and unproductive as patience was running thin for all those competing. The annual event which ran from September 23rd -September 26th was plagued with cold and debris littered water from the previous days rains, making the target fish, Striped Marlin, difficult to find.

The first fishing day, Monday September 24th saw only three Striped Marlin caught all day by the fleet of 78 competing boats. All three were released and The FIRE HATT, a 43” Hatteras owned and operated by Captain Chuck Wilson and his wife Linda earned the first days release jackpot of $12,750. The well known SoCal husband and wife team has competed every year the event has taken place and they will be missed as they move their operation from Huntington Harbor to Kona, Hawaii in 2008.

“We were just looking for a hard edge or temperature break.” Chuck replied when asked what his strategy was, “70.8-71 degrees is optimum temperature this time of year.”

I asked what the biggest change in the SoCal tournament fishing scene had been in the fifteen years he and his wife had competed in these events and in this event in particular.

“..speed. The speed of the big boats now are incredible. I’m a Hatteras guy through and through. I love my little 43 footer but some of these 50 and 60 foot yachts do 30 plus knots.” He continued, “the crews now are able to stay on the spot they want to fish longer, hook up later in the day and still get back to the scales in time.”

Day two of the fishing brought fair weather and a flurry of early morning activity with four marlin released by 4 separate yachts. Between the “lines in” call from the control base at 6:30 am and 8:19 am the ERIN MARIE, BREAKWATER, GOOD KARMA and perennial favorite and last years winner of the 3.9 Million Dollar prize at the Bisbee Black and Blue Jackpot, BAD COMPANY all had released a marlin. Unfortunately, no other fish would be released that day. Three boats did bring in fish initially believed to be over the 165lb qualifying weight for the big prize money but were eventually disqualified for various reasons of weight or by not meeting IGFA regulations for tournament fishing.

The final day of scheduled fishing came to a close without any qualifying fish brought in, over $450,000 still for the taking among 78 competing boats and a multitude of second guessing, head scratching and general malaise by captains, anglers and boat owners. The decision was made to take the event into overtime, a third day of fishing Wednesday and not only to hopefully find all that prize money a home.

The Hatteras Classic is the third and final leg of the Offshore Tournaments Inc. run California Billfish Series (CBS) which culminates in a championship event sponsored by MarineMax September 28th-29th. The one day shootout takes points earned in the previous three CBS events and invites the top eight point earning teams to compete for championship hardware, bragging rights and free entry into all three CBS events the following year.

The three CBS events; The Contender Avalon Billfish Classic, Riviera Zane Grey Invitational and Hatteras Catalina Classic make up the series and are the first half of a larger, multi-national championship series organized and run by Bisbee Tournaments. The three Bisbee events take place in Baja, Mexico each October and are produced by Wayne Bisbee who, in coordination with Offshore Tournaments and sponsors has created the Bisbee’s Bluewater Cup Championship in response to the rapidly escalating growth and participation in the sport of offshore angling.

“I’d love to see everything, at some point go to all release events with no killed fish at all.” Bisbee said when asked where he saw the future of the sport. “It’s hard though, we’ve been trying for a few years but there is so much money on the line that compromise is hard… we’ll get there. Everyone knows it will happen at some point and most everyone wants it to.”

Mike “The Beak” Hurt, legendary captain and angler based in San Diego came out of “relative” retirement to compete in the event and added, “ Most of the funding for study and research in the oceans and pelagic fish specifically comes from the angling community. Money from licenses, fuel and sales taxes, donations from tournaments and tournament winners… these fund many of the foundations working towards conservation. That’s why circle hooks are so popular. They make the fish harder to catch for the angler but they also allow you to release it with much less injury to the fish.”

The Bisbee Bluewater Championship takes the points earned by the three California Billfish Series events along with the Bisbee Cup Series events that make up the Baja leg of the journey to pit a 10 team fleet of captain and crew in an All-Release, made for TV Championship. The three events that make up the Bisbee Cup are; Bisbee East Cape Offshore, Bisbee Los Cabos Offshore and Bisbee Black and Blue Marlin Jackpot.

The six events put over 6.5 million dollars in play between July 31st and October 27th and with all that “bait” in the water it stands to reason that all involved in the Hatteras Classic were up early and in the water on the extended third and final day of hopeful fishing.

The anniversary year of the Classic lived up to its name in fine fashion and the day long tension began early with the yacht CHASER bringing in a qualifying 173lb Striped Marlin at 9:13 am. For the first time in this years tournament a “money fish” was on the board and the CHASER crew was within hours of victory. They had only to do what all good anglers do at this point. Sit back, enjoy the day and wait.

There were several releases throughout the day as the fishing improved but at midday there had been no other marlin caught to qualify for the minimum weight. Around 1:30 pm a light westerly wind sprang up and put a light chop on the water combined with hazy visibility. An hour later GOOD KARMA called in on the radio to event control they had boated a fish to qualify and gave an ETA back to the dock for weigh in around 4:30, about a half hour before the event closed at 5pm. Silence prevailed on the normally chatty radio as the rest of the fleet concentrated, for the last few hours, at the task on hand. Squinting against the late day sun for baitfish or birds, looking for a line of clean water or staring with slowly fleeting hope at swimming lures and praying that a fish would rise.

Tournament control called the weight out around 4:50 pm. GOOD KARMA had brought in a qualifying fish, 241 lbs, 41 inches in girth and combined with the CHASER’S earlier catch and the 11 released fish on the day it had by far been the best day of fishing the event had seen this year. Heartbreak for CHASER, elation for GOOD KARMA and a nice check along with some momentum heading into the Cabo events next month.

Hours of tedium for brief moments of exhilaration indeed, I guess that’s why they call it fishing.

For more information on California Billfish Series contact www.catalinaclassic.com/home.htm

For more information regarding Bisbee Cup Series or Bisbee Bluewater Challenge contact www.bisbees.com

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Tags: , bisbee, california, catalina, fishing, freelance, marlin

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