BIG GAME FISHING: WHERE IS TERRY? 1997 Big Island Invitational Marlin Tournament

2000 Big Island Invitational Marlin Tournament

After a 2-year hiatus, our TTBGFJ team of "Little Bobby Unvert" (LBU) and me once again took a crack at winning the Big Island Invitational Marlin Tournament on the Big Island of Hawaii. This year's edition, sponsored by Maui Jim sunglasses, was held June 14th through June 18th and had the added feature of being filmed for ESPN 2's Athletes in Motion TV show hosted by Paul Higgins. In addition an ambitious pop-up satellite program designed to assess the survivorship and pathway of travel of released Pacific blue marlin was encorporated into the tournament. This program was supervised by Dr. Richard Brill of the National Marine Fisheries Service in Honolulu and was sponsored by NMFS, the Hawaii Conservation Association, Maui Jim, and several of the anglers including LBU and myself. Unfortunately the bite was very slow so that no fish were tagged during the tournament, but one was tagged the day after the competition was completed.

Bobby and I once again were on the Sea Baby III with famed skipper Captain Freddy Rice at the helm. We had won this tournament with Freddy on the Sea Baby III twice before in 1995 and again in 1996. We therefore were excited about our chances. There were 26 boats entered in the tournament with a total purse of nearly $110,000. We felt tournament organizer Captain Jody Bright might as well write us out the check even before the first day of fishing. He was not quite as convinced though and as it turned out he was correct. There were only two qualifying blue marlin caught during the three days of competition as well as two striped marlin that were tagged and released and none of these were on our boat. We caught some mahi mahi and a short-billed spearfish but nothing that came close to getting us in the money. The two blues that were caught were quality fish both weighing over 600 pounds. It was just too bad we couldn't get in on the fun.

We may not have won but like previous trips to Kailua-Kona we had a great time. Jody Bright and his Tropidilla Productions put on a wonderful tournament with many superb functions and an excellent collegial atmosphere. If you can't win you might as well enjoy yourself!


Mate Kaelike Rice (Freddy's grandson)	Marine Biologist and mate Billy	Observor Tim Baker catching spearfish