2. Big Game Fishermen The recreational pursuit of trophy billfish such as marlin, spearfish, sailfish and broadbill swordfish is known as “big game fishing.” This sport was helped in its development around 1900 by the creation of specially built fishing boats with inboard engines. (Holcombe 1923). The social culture of the time embraced big game fishing as an exciting action sport. Anglers used carefully crafted fishing rods and reels with specially made fishing lines and baited hooks to troll for fish behind their boats. Photos of brave anglers standing next to enormous fish caught the world’s imagination. Opinions differ as to when the first marlin was caught by a motor boat. Some say it was in Florida in 1900. However, following the establishment of the Tuna Club of Avalon in California, prominent big game fishermen who knew about the abundance of billfish and tuna in Hawai‘i founded the Hawai‘i Big Game Fishing Club in 1914, the second such club founded globally. The first motorized billfish fishing boat arrived in Hawai‘i in 1916 from San Diego, California. At the heart of this new sport was then and is today the marlin— beautiful fish, distinct in shape and color, that swim at 50 miles an hour or more among tuna schools, feeding off the tuna as they move beneath the surface. The catching of these large blue and black billfish by means of a lure trolled behind a motor boat produces a sense of euphoria that is difficult replicate in other sports pursuits. During the early part of the twentieth century in the U.S. Atlantic, the catch occurred seasonally. Blue marlin were sought from January to April in the southwest Atlantic and from June to October
Fig. 3. A marlin hangs in the window of the McDonald’s in Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and another hangs on the restaurant’s wall. One of the marlin was caught by the chairman of McDonald’s Corporation. Photo: WPRFMC.
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in the Atlantic northwest, as far south as Florida and as far north as New England. However, marlin are found throughout the world’s seas, and the glamour that surrounded their catch spread as fishermen competed to catch the biggest fish and establish a world’s record. The sport was immortalized during the 1920s by celebrity writer Zane Grey, who wrote bestsellers such as Tales of Fishing Virgin Seas (1925) and Tales of Tahitian Waters (1931). Images of the sport became a mainstay of popular culture and were featured in Hollywood movies and sports magazines. Although places such as Key West, Florida, offered at-will shared-cost charters aimed at attracting workingand middle-class participants, the demographics of big game fishing from its start was largely the wealthy and those with high levels of disposable income (Ditton and Stoll 2003). Part of the sport’s appeal was that it
emitted highly visible social signals of exclusivity, wealth and success. Men and women alike enjoyed the status and signature branding that came from being photographed standing, usually well dressed and fishing pole in hand, next to a huge blue marlin hanging from a steel hook, the fish dwarfing them in scale. The sense of accomplishment did not end there. Many of these large trophy fish were cast in sand molds by taxidermists who hand painted them into brilliantly colored lifelike reproductions that could be hung on walls in prominent locations as a tangible symbol of success for everyone to see. This is true even today. Visitors to Saipan who visit the local McDonald’s can admire a 239-pound Pacific blue marlin that was caught by the chairman of the McDonald’s Corporation in August 1977 off Honolulu (Tuten-Puckett et al. 2003). Even after more than 40 years, its shining presence in the store fills visiting customers with awe and demonstrates like a talisman the proud connection between the Saipan McDonald’s and the executive of its parent company. A number of the big game fishermen of the early sports fishing era went on to participate in exclusive fishing tournaments with friends and family.
