The 24th annual, July 4th, World Cup Blue Marlin Championship (World Cup) will be recorded as "The year of the big marlin". Huge blue marlin were reported in both the Atlantic and Pacific by tournament anglers fishing around the world in this unique, one day, winner take all competition.
There were 133 teams participating in about a dozen countries. Each team fished for eight hours in their time zone looking for qualifying marlin over 500 lb. There was joy and heart break in Madeira and Bermuda in the Atlantic and Kona in the Pacific as the lead changed hands several times.
The first two big marlin were reported to World Cup headquarters in Ft Lauderdale, Florida from the Portuguese island of Madeira. Both were brought to the dock at about the same time. Spanish anglers fishing aboard the LANIS weighed in a 574 lb blue marlin but were bumped out of the lead by Portuguese anglers aboard the LUNA who weighed in a potential winning blue of 665 lb.
Fishing in a later time zone, a fleet of 46 boats in Bermuda set out to take the lead from Madeira. Fishing turned out to be hot for big fish as American anglers on TENACIOUS weighed in a 556 lb marlin, PARADISE ONE brought a 617 lb marlin to the scale which was topped by MEGA BUCKS with their 651 lb blue marlin. However, it was the team aboard the Que Mas who took the lead with their 718 lb blue. Now only Hawaii stood in the way of Bermuda winning the World Cup for the second straight year.
Seven time zones to the west, 42 Kona boats set out for the difficult task of catching a marlin over 718 lb. Hokulia 1 hooked up early in the day and started a long battle. In the meantime, several other Kona boats hooked smaller fish that would not retire the leading fish. Late in the day IHU NUI hooked a very large blue and in the relatively short time of 45 minutes were able to boat the fish and head to the scales. A large crowd was waiting to see if Kona could take the World Cup Championship as they had done 5 times previously, but not since 2002.
The official weight was 773.5 lb for IHU NUI's marlin. The angler was Michael Corbino of Florida. The captain was McGrew Rice with mates Carlton Arai and Kevin Shikaki. However, before the celebrating could begin, there was still a battle going on aboard the Hokulia 1 with their huge marlin. Their fish had been hooked about 10:30 AM local time and it was now long after the lines out time of 4:30 PM as the fight continued. It was about 9:30 PM that the tired crew of the Hokulia 1 lost their fish and the IHU NUI team could celebrate.
Their 773.5 lb marlin won the 24th annual World Cup Blue Marlin Championship and brought honors back to Kona for the sixth time. Unofficial total winnings are just over $450,000.
The 2009 World Cup will once again be held on the Fourth Of July in blue marlin hot spots around the world. For details visit www.bluemarlinworldcup.com or call Tournament Director Mike Leech at 954 566-2813. | 
