On July 4, the Kona charter boat Pacific Blue simultaneously entered the World Cup Blue Marlin Championships and the Maui Jim Series Firecracker Open. Angler Che Garcia boated an 827-pound blue marlin, which was not quite good enough to keep the World Cup in Kona. The big fish, Kona’s best World Cup hope this year, finished second to an 865-pound blue marlin caught off Bermuda earlier in the day. The Bermuda boat Wound Up won the $340,000 World Cup prize, but the Pacific Blue came away with a nice consolation prize. Their 827-pound blue was the biggest in the Firecracker Open. We don’t have final monetary details yet for the Firecracker winners, but we can tell you how the Pacific Blue team caught their big fish. Pacific Blue was trolling off the “First Flow,” a south Kona landmark, when the marlin grabbed an Aloha lure, made by local lure crafter Erik Rusnak, says Pacific Blue skipper Bill Casey. Che fought the fish to the boat in an hour and six minutes, Bill says. In addition to Casey and Garcia, the team consisted of boat owner Rex Crosland and crew Capt. Fran O’Brien. Pacific Blue won the World Cup in 1992 with a 654-pound blue caught by Sue Vermillion.
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