Hawaii's 2nd Great Marlin Race is now underway

In order to “spice up” the Hawaii International Billfish Tournament’s Golden Anniversary last year, its founder Peter Fithian announced the added attraction of a “Great Marlin Race” to benefit Pacific blue marlin research.

All anglers and teams entered in the HIBT could purchase satellite tags that once attached to any Pacific blue marlin caught during the tournament and then released would measure its mileage away from Hawaii at the end of 180 days.

The winning fish, tagged by California’s Laguna Niguel Billfish Club Team 1, was estimated to have weighed 125 pounds and traveled 2,225 nautical miles from Kailua-Kona over the course of 93 days, with its tag popping off just east of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia.

The 2009 Great Marlin Race was deemed such a success that it was added again to this year’s HIBT and organizers have announced it got off to an exciting start, with several new teams and sponsors participating.

However, even with a large number of boats ready to deploy the tags, unfortunately only three fish were satellite tagged during the five-day tournament.

After consultation between tournament founder and director Peter Fithian and the other HIBT officials, it was decided to allow the Great Marlin Race tags to be deployed on the HIBT fishing grounds during several days immediately following the tournament.

It was felt that because the Race this year is based on the distance covered by the fish during a 120-day deployment period, a few days didn’t put any teams at a disadvantage.

“And as fortune would have it,” organizers reported, “fishing conditions picked up immediately following the tournament and the remaining seven tags were quickly deployed.

“Based on the dates over which the tags were deployed, they are due to come up during the first two weeks in December, ” organizers said. “However, past experience has shown that some tags may come up ahead of schedule; and others may not come up at all.”