2000 Skins Marlin Derby Report

Report by Jody Bright
IHU NUI HANGS ON FOR TWO OF THREE SKINS

Three straight days of giant marlin action off of the Kona Coast came to a screeching halt today, as the third and final day of the 8th Annual Skins Marlin Derby closed out with the final "Skin" rolling back to the largest marlin caught in the tournament. Angler Heath Rosa of Napa, California sweated out 8 hours of fishing on board Ihu Nui on the third and final day on an ocean that had been offering up more large marlin over the past week than anywhere else in the world.
After such a week, it seemed inconceivable that no team would bring in another big fish to the scale, but the fish decided that they were through biting and there was nothing any of the anglers could do about it.  The Skins Marlin Derby splits the total purse into equal amounts, and awards the pot to the largest marlin caught each day over 500 pounds. If no fish that size is caught, the day's purse gets added to that of the next day. At the end, any money unclaimed by a marlin over 500 pounds gets awarded to the most total points.

Rosa topped the tournament with a 771.5 pound blue caught on the second day, and scored 771.5 points. When the third day went blank, Team Ihu Nui automatically earned the third and final Skin, plus the optional daily money from two categories. In addition, Team Ihu Nui with Capt. McGrew Rice picked up optional prize money from two categories reserved for the largest marlin of the tournament. Total winnings for Team Ihu Nui were $34.030.00.

James Karamousis, angling from "Bite Me" with Captain Brian Wargo, fought a 2 1/2 hour battle and ended up landing a 723.5 pound blue marlin on the first day of fishing to claim the first "Skin" of the event. Including winnings from optional categories, the team earned a total of $15,080.00.

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Team Ihu Nui with their 771.5 lb Blue Marlin
All of the tournaments in the 2000 Maui Jim Hawaii Marlin Tournament Series offer anglers a variety of optional entry categories, and often those that don't enter certain ones end up catching fish that would have won (and vice versa). In just this scenario, Mike Vidal started off the scoring process by catching the first marlin of the Derby, a 397 pound blue that was good enough to score, but not large enough for a "Skin".  However, because Vidal was entered in all optional categories but "Bite Me" and "Ihu Nui" were not, team Legend 2 ended up with a larger portion of the purse than the payout for the "Skin" earned on "Bite Me". Capt. Reuben Rubio's team walked off with a total of $18,450.00 for the smallest marlin weighed.

Also scoring but not claiming prize money were Davis Clapp on Capt. Norm Isaac's "Sundowner". Clapp tagged a blue about 150 pounds and implanted a pop up archival tag on the fish that should pop to the surface of the ocean on November 17 and transmit the travel path that the fish took since it was released back to scientists via satellite links.  Richard DeWitt tagged a black marlin on the third day estimated to weigh 250 pounds, but the fish was a bit too wild at the boat to get a satellite tag into, and it threw the hook before it could be settled down enough for deployment. Mike Contreras, fishing on the Eclipse, weighed an Ahi at 143.5 pounds to gather up overall points for the Maui Jim Hawaii Marlin Tournament Series. 

The next stop for the series is the August Moon Billfish Tournament on August 6 -12, at which time the series moves to Oahu for the Ho'ole'a over the labor day weekend. The final stop in the tour is in Maui for the Lahaina Jackpot, held the weekend before Halloween. Kona is not the only place that has produced giant fish, and all of the Hawaiian islands are home to some magnificent fish. Oahu is the island where the largest Marlin ever caught on rod and reel came home at 1,805 pounds, and numerous other "granders" have been caught as well. In 1999, the harbor record for the Oahu charter fleet was 939 pounds, caught on the Wild Bunch.

Maui is the site of the world's largest tournament caught fish (Bruce Matson's Cormorant caught a 1,201 in 1993 to win the Lahaina Jackpot), and the only venue on the planet to date that has ever recorded two fish over 1,100 pounds (1996 saw Honolulu's Magic with an 1106 just barely edging out Kaneohe's Shirley Y who landed an 1101).

The Hawaii Conservation Association has 4 more satellite tags to deploy on marlin this summer, as the first ones start popping off on September 17. The action can be seen on ESPN2's "Athletes in Motion" on July 12 at 11:30 AM Hawaii time and again on Sunday night, July 23 at 8:30 PM Hawaii time.

For more information contact Tropidilla Productions, 808-327-1440, tropdil@aloha.net


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