The Hawaiian Islands are undoubtedly a special place for many reasons. In the eyes of many anglers, Hawaii is unique for being one of the world’s most iconic marlin fisheries. TBF’s Hawaii Regional Competition recognizes the great fishing, captains, anglers and crews who fish there while encouraging increased participation in TBF’s Tag & Release program.
Only black marlin, blue marlin, striped marlin, and spearfish entries are valid for this regional competition. Anglers, captains and mates MUST be current TBF members to receive an award based on their submitted Tagging Data Report Cards. Regardless of membership, all data from every card is valuable for billfish research, and membership is not required to submit tag data.
Overall tagging categories are calculated as the total number of eligible species reported tagged by a captain or angler.
November 1st – October 31st
All tag reports must be sent to The Billfish Foundation or entered in TBF’s Tag & Release Online Database by November 15th of every year to be eligible. Only black marlin, blue marlin, striped marlin, and spearfish tagged during the dates above are eligible.
* To enter the competition, all youth anglers MUST include their date of birth within their online profile of the tagging database. If submitting physical cards via mail, write in the date of birth in the space provided next to their name. Youth anglers must be active TBF members to win.
Hawaiian waters
TBF recognizes the valuable contribution of mates in the tagging of billfish. In addition to anglers and captains, mates may also be awarded for their level of achievement.
Awards will be given during TBF’s Annual International Tag & Release Award Ceremony.
Every year The Billfish Foundation is proud to recognize all the winners for the past year’s Tag & Release Competition. This ceremony allows us to highlight the captains, anglers, and mates who contributed invaluable catch data towards billfish conservation.
The post-release survival of billfish is vital and TBF urges that proper tagging procedures are used when tagging any billfish to ensure safe, healthy releases (see TBF’s Tag & Release Program brochure for more information). Improper tag placement, ‘speed tagging’ or using too much force when tagging can result in serious injury or death to the fish. For this reason TBF does not encourage tagging during tournaments. However, if a boat chooses to tag any sailfish during a tournament they will be counted toward the TBF Gulf of Mexico Tagging Competition. All participants are encouraged to see TBF’s Tag & Release brochure for information on safe handling and proper tagging procedure.
