Having been lulled nearly to sleep by the drone of the two diesel motors pushing the 28 foot Bertram Te Manu Ata, I was sitting on the gunwale staring at the intersection of the cobalt blue water of the South Pacific and the powder blue sky dotted with variegated gray and white clouds contemplating the world's and my own personal problems when POW the center rigger rubberband exploded and the Penn International 80 STW complained loudly as line peeled off at breakneck speed. I jumped up in a heartbeat and ran to the rod when suddenly the reel turned mute. I wound the lure up to its original position and dropped it back repeatedly attempting to tease the small blue marlin and entice it to strike once again.On the third such maneuver I dropped the lure back slightly further and just as I engaged the drag and began to wind the line came tight and I was hooked up! The 80 STW began to sing again, this time in earnest. I jumped into the chair, attached the harness to the lugs on the reel, and prepared to do battle. Jean-Luc Liaut, captain and owner of the vessel, had already set the hook by briefly surging the boat forward and now was slowly idling ahead waiting for the other four lines to be cleared by the two mates Bruno and Poroi. He then intermittently backed down on the fish when the opportunity arose as I winched the marlin to the transom. After a typical ten-minute "pump and grind" fight the 100 kg Pacific blue marlin was boatside. The small male was quickly tagged and released after obtaining the obligatory picture for documentation as required by the tournament rules. Despite our late departure from the dock we had caught the first marlin of the inaugural Raiatea International Billfish Tournament. The semi-annual Tahitian International and Tahitian Inter-Island tournaments had quietly metamorphosed into the new Raitea International Billfish Tournament over the last few years, but this was the first official RIBT. The new tournament is held annually out of Uturoa, Raitea, French Polynesia.

We had only been fishing about 45 minutes when we caught our blue. With such a quick start we thought this was going to be an event-filled day. However we trolled until about two in the afternoon without seeing another fish. Jean-Luc suggested that we change strategy as we came up to the Miri Miri buoy, a new FAD on the south side of the island. He had enjoyed some success with live-baiting at the buoy over the previous weeks. We quickly caught some small skipjack and yellowfin tuna and put them out, one down about 50 feet on a downrigger and the other on the surface. The fish gods weren't smiling on us this day though and we spent the rest of the afternoon getting a sunburn rather than catching fish. There were two fish weighed that evening at the weigh-in, one a nice 373 kg female and the other tipped the scales at 256 kg. There were also 10 fish tagged that day including ours.

The second day of the tournament we managed to get away at 7:30 in the morning with the rest of the 36-boat fleet making up the tournament. We trolled until about two in the afternoon without so much as a marlin strike. We did catch a small barracuda in the channel between Raiatea and Bora Bora. Despite the lack of success the previous afternoon we elected to go back to the buoy and try live-baiting again. We were able to catch four aku fairly easily and put two out and the other two in the tuna tubes. About 4 p.m. I got a strange slow tug on the bait. The fish pulled the bait out of my hand three times before finally swallowing the tuna and getting hooked-up. He was a small 90 kg blue and was wearing a new tag on his left shoulder after a brief 12 minute fight. There were 7 other fish tagged in the tournament that day and two fish weighed, a 248 kg blue that took the jackpot and a 121 kg fish.
 
 

Bruno	Mate Poroi	Jean-Luc Liat
Jean-Luc & Terry	Live-Baiting	Birds On A School Of Tuna
Tournament Headquarters	Te Manu Ata	Hotel Hawaiki Nui

The next day was a lay day and we spent the morning working on tackle and drinking bloody Mary's and the afternoon eating suckling pig cooked in an in-gound Tahitian oven, drinking Hinano beer, and exchanging lies with our fellow competitors at a tournament-sponsored afternoon function on one of the local Motu's ( a small coconut palm covered island inside the island's barrier reef).
 
 

Uturoa Harbor	Lining Up For The Start	Shotgun Start
Typical Motu	Motu Party	My Wife Teresa & A Japanese Angler

The next morning we were ready and quite eager as the tournament director cried out on the radio "start fishing" in French and the fleet powered up there engines in the typical shotgun start of this tournament. We ran directly back to the buoy and tried trolling the area until 10 o'clock with no action. We went back to live-baiting but had absolutely no action all day. A friend of Jean-Luc's caught and tagged a small blue and a nice yellowfin tuna right in front of us fishing with lures. There were two blue marlin weighed and 6 fish tagged by ttournament anglers. One of the two fish weighed was about 150 kg and the other was a large female over 352 kg (about 775 pounds).
 
 

Bora Bora Viewed From Channel	Downrigger for live-bait fishing	Tagged fish ready for release
Tags At The Ready	Another Tagged Fish	Daily Tag Award Ceremony

 
 

Winning Fish Over 352 Kg	Another Nice Fish

The last day of the tournament also proved to be slow. It was a very warm day with a light northeast wind putting a small chop on the water. We trolled all day without so much as a strike. We ran across schools of 20-60 kg yellowfin tuna periodically throughout the day but could not entice them to bite either. We went back to the Miri Miri buoy but there was no bait to be found there so we were unable to even try live-baiting again. There were only 4 fish tagged in the tournament that day and none weighed. We finished the tournament in second place for visiting anglers behind the Japanese team.
 
 

Awards Banquet	Awards Banquet	Awards Banquet

Although we didn't tear up the competition or catch a grander we had our usual wonderful time during this our ninth trip to French Polynesia. The spectacular beauty of these emerald jewels jutting up from the ocean floor is only surpassed by the warm hospitality of their residents. And although the splendor of these islands defies adequate description, I think I will just have to keep coming back until I can find the right words.
 
 

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