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The Road To Hawaii
By CAPTAIN DAN KIPNIS
First in a two-part series
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Getting there was more than half the fun
There were two hours left
before the end of the inaugural
International Game Fish
Association Rolex (IGFA) Invitational
Tournament of Champions in March 2000.
We were in Kona, Hawaii, sitting about 10
miles offshore on a glass slick ocean with
large schools of tuna and bonito breaking
the surface. Our team was tied for second
place on points and only 150 points out of
first. Joey “Tomatoes” Posnick, the team’s
namesake, had just tagged and released a
120 pound striped marlin in less than three
minutes – too bad it wasn’t a blue! On 30-
pound test, the striped marlin is worth only
200 points, but a blue is worth 450 points.
The mate had said the fish was a blue
– our whole team had seen a blue – but the
captain said he knew it was a large striped
marlin even though the biggest stripes in
Hawaii top out at about 65 pounds. It was
hard for me to tell because I don’t catch
that many striped marlin, and this fish was
really lit up. I didn’t fight the call, but I
should have. I guess we’ll never know if
the captain, our team or the mate was right.
We needed another bite if we were going to
win the first IGFA Rolex Invitational and
fulfill a dream that started in Panama more
than a year before. Second place simply
would not do.
It made me ponder the previous year.
In Panama in 1999, Team USA Tomatoes
had embarked on a year-long quest to
first qualify, and then win the IGFA Rolex
Invitational Tournament of Champions.
At the Tropic Star Lodge on the southwest
coast of Panama near the Colombian
border, we competed against nine other
teams to take part in the Presidential
Challenge of Central America. This was
a 20-pound test, trolling dead bait, three
tournament billfish series. The tournament
format was simple like other light tackle
trolling tournaments around the world.
There would be three anglers from three
teams on each boat. Each angler would
change positions every hour starting at
the left outrigger going to the flat line and
then the right outrigger for eight hours of
fishing each day. The angler on the flat line
controlled the teaser and all fish that came
up the middle. Anglers on the outriggers were not allowed
to remove their lines from the rigger pins unless hit by
a fish. Fishing this way makes it hard for one person to
dominate the boat. Many times, however, anglers get hot
and have a great day.
We would fish four days at the Tropic Star Lodge in
Piñas Bay, Panama in March, three days at the Flamingo
Hotel in Playa Flamingo, Guanacaste, Costa Rica, in July,
and three days at Fins and Feathers in Ixtapa, Guatemala
in November: One ocean, three different countries, 10
fishing days, 10 different charter boats, 10 different
captains, 20 different fishing partners, and 80 different
positions on the boats. It doesn’t get much harder. The key
to winning a series of tournaments like this is consistency.
You don’t necessarily have to catch a lot of fish to win,
especially if the fishing is slow in all three locations. I
knew that a 70 percent hook-up rate with the few fish
that were available could put us on the podium in each
tournament.
On the first day of the Presidential Challenge of
Central America in Panama, Bert Davids, fishing on the
Team USA Tomatoes, started out the tournament with
the first sailfish release at 7:04 a.m. This was what we
needed throughout the tournament to stay in front. Fishing
was quite slow in Panama with no angler releasing more
than five sailfish in one day. For those who fish Central
America, five sailfish in one day is not particularly good.
Many boats can average 20 to 30 releases daily. During
four days of the tournament, our 30 anglers amassed a
total of 51 sailfish releases and one black marlin release.
This equates to one billfish every 46 hours an angler trolls.
In Panama this is an unusually low number. Fishing in
such an exotic locale, with so few catches while knowing
the potential, makes staying focused in a tournament of
this length even more difficult. Pressure not to miss a fish
that hits becomes extreme when you know you’ll only get
a few bites and every bite counts. Little did we know, this
would be good practice for the Hawaii tournament.
In the Panama tournament we were allowed to use
J-hooks for the last time in this tournament series. Frozen
ballyhoo was brought from Miami; 50 were issued daily to
each boat. The use of skirts and poppers in front of the bait
was permitted, as well as lead weights in the bait. Davids,
our South African teammate, showed us a trick that would
work very well throughout the year’s tournaments. We
used 12-foot long, 80-pound wind-on leaders with a snap
swivel at the end of the leader and a 2 ½-foot short trace
leader attached to the ballyhoo. Davids placed the weights
above the snapped swivel, allowing the ballyhoo to swim
freely. We used weights anywhere from one to three
ounces depending on the sea conditions and speed of the
troll. This technique was particularly effective when flat
lining in the whitewater off the transom. In the whitewater,
many times you could not see the sailfish come up to the
bait because it was swimming two feet below the surface.
Fishing the flat line necessitated keeping your reel in free
spool and your thumb on the spool ready for a drop back
at anytime. This really is a direct and exciting way to fish
for billfish. At the end of the last day of fishing, Team USA
Tomatoes held on to second place with 1,300 points behind
team Picaflor/Balboa of Panama with 1,500 points. Three
anglers tied for the individual division all with 700 points or
seven sailfish releases. First place went to Paul Pfaff, second
to Billy Pesch, and third to me. Next stop: Costa Rica in July.
On June 12 disaster struck Team USA Tomatoes. The
team’s captain had a heart attack and underwent triple
bypass surgery. I was that captain. Team USA Tomatoes
called upon one of its good friends, Bill Boyce, the noted
fish photographer and tackle builder, to fill in for me in the
Flamingo tournament. I still managed to travel to Costa Rica
30 days later as captain, cheerleader and video photographer.
The Presidential Challenge Tournament of Costa Rica
was the first fishing tournament in the world where the use of
circle hooks was mandatory. Circle hooks were rigged on top
of the ballyhoo’s head by sewing them through the eye sockets
and onto the body. The tournament issued all boats 7/0 Eagle
Claw circle hooks and 50 ballyhoo per day, just as in the last
tournament. The crews in Costa Rica had been practicing
rigging ballyhoo and were ready for the job. Again, Davids’
sinker in front of the swivel worked wonderfully for raising
fish. Boyce proved he was up for the task, releasing 11 sailfish
in three days. He also released an estimated 400 pound blue
marlin on 20-pound line. The fish, however, took five minutes
longer than the 30 minute maximum fight time allowed in
tournament rules and was disqualified.
Fishing was better in Costa Rica with 10 teams releasing
175 billfish in three days of fishing. This turned out to a much
better average with one billfish for every 13 hours of angler
trolling. When the final gun sounded, Team USA Tomatoes
had clinched first-place with 2,500 points. Miami Rod and
Reel Club placed second with 2,300 points and third place,
with 2,100 points, went to Picaflor/Balboa. Top angler went to
Boyce, with 1,100 points, and Team USA Tomatoes was now
in the lead for Grand Champion after two tournaments. More
importantly, the team had qualified with this win to fish the
IGFA Rolex Invitational Tournament of Champions in Hawaii.
In November, the teams headed to Guatemala and
the world-famous Fins and Feathers Lodge for the final
tournament. I was back and Team USA Tomatoes, along
with Joey “Tomatoes” and Davids, held the lead after two
tournaments and never looked back. Fishing improved again
in Guatemala, with nine teams releasing 194 billfish in three
days. The average was 10 angler hours of trolling per billfish
released; however, it was still slow for Guatemala, where the
record is 123 sailfish releases on one boat in a day. Consistency
was the key to winning these tournaments and Team USA
Tomatoes released fish by each of its anglers every day. By the
time the tournament ended Team USA Tomatoes clinched third
place in the Guatemala tournament and won Grand Champions
of the Presidential Challenge of Central America by four fish
over Picaflor/ Balboa. Davids reached the podium as third
place overall angler with 21 sailfish releases on 20-pound test
after the three tournaments.
At the awards banquet at Fins and Feathers, I was asked
how I felt about our team being crowned Grand Champion,
I replied, “We’re not going to Disney World, we’re going to
Hawaii!” That sentiment echoed the team’s feelings after an
exhaustive year of fishing, planning, preparation and execution
in Central America. Thinking ahead to Hawaii, it was hard to
imagine how we would fish there because the style of angling
was so different from the dead bait trolling to which we were
accustomed. The IGFA Rolex Invitational Tournament of
Champions would necessitate a whole new game plan.
In the next issue, Part II, Fullfilling the Dream.
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