Sportfishing Legends: Captain Bobby ’80-Pound’ Brown Marlin Master of Sportfishing

Early Days in Kona: The Beginnings of a Sportfishing Legend

No one expected to catch a headline-making marlin on that January day in 1974. It was winter in Kona, Hawaii, a wonderful time for the British Columbia client who chartered the 41-foot Hatteras, but half a year away from the destination’s hot billfish bite that helped produce sportfishing legends. And it was only a half-day trip. Still, the Kona Seafari was one of the fleet’s few boats with twin screws that could swiftly power it out to the promised fishing grounds.

The Unprecedented Catch: A Record-Breaking Marlin in 1974

The captain, Bobby Brown, unlike others not only in Hawaii but elsewhere, only fished with 80-pound-test line. What’s more, Bobby preferred live baiting to lures, a technique he picked up from the late Bart Miller. Yet it was on this day(January 1974), with Bobby at the helm, that the Kona Seafari chugged back to shore towing a 1,170-pound Pacific blue marlin. Front pages from Hawaii to Florida and beyond called out the catch as the largest ever hooked on rod and reel in Kona waters at that time.

Pioneering Techniques: 80-Pound Line and Live Baiting

“Unfortunately, my mate hooked the fish, so we couldn’t count it as a record,” Brown said. “Since we caught it on 80-pound, it would have been a record for a long time.” He added that his line test preference earned him the nickname “80-pound Brown,” as well as a career-long reputation for innovation.

Rising Through the Ranks: Bobby Brown’s Journey

Born in Hilo, Hawaii, Brown got hooked on the sport at age 12. His parents’ friend owned a Hawaiian sampan and took the teen out fishing. “They made me catch my first blue marlin, a 456-pounder, and you could say that started the whole damn thing,” Brown said. It was another decade before he helmed full-time, but by then his fire for fishing was long lit. In fact, Bobby remembers the thrill of heading offshore in a 14-foot single-outboard skiff with his brother and mother to watch the “big boys” competing in a Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament (HIBT) in the early 1960s. Yet later, Bobby changed direction — briefly. He left the island for three years to pursue a mechanical engineering degree at California Polytechnic State University.

“I’d come home for the summer and work with the phone company doing electrical work and installations,” he said. “One summer, my brother, who was employed at the Kona Inn, talked me into coming over there and working as a deckhand for the summer. That was it. I never went back to school.”

The captain Bobby worked for in that summer of ’67 gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse: “If you get your captain’s license, you can captain this boat because I’ve got another one to run.” Shortly thereafter, ticket in hand and at age 21, Bobby became the youngest sportfishing captain in Hawaii. His first boat was the 38-foot single-screw Mai Tai. It was one of the 12 boats in the Kona charter fleet, most of which were moored out in Kailua and Kahuku bays.

Brown’s fellow captains included George and Phil Parker, Fred Erickson, and Charlie Spinny. The fishermen catered to everyone from tourists to Hollywood celebrities, with a couple of booking offices in town lining up charters. The cost of a full day was $100, $60 bucks for a half-day. “A lot of people showed up in Kona back then like Tug McGraw,” Brown said. “Richard Boone owned charter boats in Kona in the late 60s, and Lee Marvin had his boat there a little bit later. I became good friends with a lot of these folks.”.

Hollywood in Kona: Celebrities and Charter Fishing Tales

After the Mai Tai, Bobby ran his family’s 50-foot Sampan, Aukai. He primarily charter fished, but with the big fish boxes on the boat, he’d also cast off on two-to-three-day commercial fishing trips for yellowfin tuna. He tournament fished too. It was on the Aukai that Bobby earned the Top Captain “Henry Chee Award” in the 1969 HIBT.

Global Pursuits: Record-Setting Adventures Across Oceans

Bobby started making even bigger waves as a captain when he was hired for a short stint aboard the High Flier. He landed his first world-record blue marlin on 12-pound test, followed by the 20-pound record on this 31-foot Bertram.

Innovation and Records: The Era of the High Flier and No Problem

Charting New Waters: The High Flier’s Memorable Voyage

The next chapter of what would become Bobby’s West-East fishing days started when famed giant bluefin tuna fisherman, JoJo del Guercio, chartered the High Flier on his way back from marlin fishing in Cairns, Australia.

A New Challenge: The No Problem and Its Record-Setting Journey

“He (del Guercio) told me his 37-foot Merritt was for sale and I hooked him up with a buyer who purchased it sight unseen,” Brown said. “I went to Florida to pick it up. We shipped it back to Kona, docked it at the new Honokohau Harbor marina and left the name the same, No Problem. We caught a lot of records on that boat.”

California-based charter guest Steve Zuckerman was the angler in the chair for many of these records, including the 20-pound-test blue marlin, and yellowfin tuna records on 16-, 20- and 30-pound line. These were some of the 18 IGFA world records to Bobby’s career credit for marlin, as well as spearfish and yellowfin tuna.

Globetrotting Adventures: From Kona to the Caribbean

Bobby ran the No Problem for five years out of Kona, then continued at the helm of a new 43-foot Merritt, also called the No Problem. They worked their way from the Merritt yard in Florida to Cozumel for a couple of months in January to March, then to the Bahamas, both Cat Cay and Bimini, to fish for giant bluefin tuna, before the boat was shipped back to Kona. Back in the Aloha State, Bobby continued to charter the No Problem.

Pioneering in the Pacific: The Unprecedented 1,376-pound Catch

On May 31, 1982, with angler Jay de Beaubien in the chair, they caught a 1,376-pound Pacific blue marlin, an all-tackle world record that still stands.

“We were live baiting and got chased off by porpoises, so we had to switch to lures,” Brown said. “At first, I estimated the fish at around 750 pounds. Since I only had one mate on that day, I had to run down off the bridge and gaff it myself. We managed to pull it through the transom door, and that’s when we measured it and saw that it was a nice fish.”

In the mid-1980s, Bobby moved to Florida to run the 53’ Rybovich, Pelstar, for two years. It was a grand continuation of an annual traveling schedule that now spanned from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The Pelstar, and its Texas owner, fished the Gulf tournaments in the summer, for marlin in St. Thomas and Venezuela come summer and fall, and then to Isla Mujeres for the spring sailfish bite. Fast forward a decade to 1996 when Bobby got a call from the Pelstar’s owner saying he wanted to fish Isla Mujeres in March.

“I told him it wasn’t the season yet, but he didn’t care,” Brown said. “I leased a 46-foot Merritt called the Nitso. We went fishing and it was slow. So I went way up to the north of Isla Contoy. There were all these frigate birds and fish balling bait. That was March 16. Between 2:30 pm and 4 pm, we caught 42 sailfish. We were the only boat out there. Within two days, the word got out and we saw boats coming over the horizon. Now, it’s the norm to go for that early bite.”

Expanding Horizons: The Pelstar and Beyond

Back in 1986 and after leaving the Pelstar, Bobby returned to Kona. He briefly ran the No Problem again before the owners moved to a 54-foot Bertram. This trade-up made for an epic trip. Bobby cruised the boat on its own bottom from Florida to Panama for a week’s fishing at Tropic Star Lodge, then transited the Panama Canal, fun-fished a few days in Cabo and headed north to Newport Beach, California.

From there, he filled the 1,400-gallon tanks with fuel, deck-loaded another 18 barrels of diesel, and added five fuel bladders on the boat. He chugged at 7 to 8 knots for 11 days and 20 minutes until he docked in Kona. Back in Hawaii, he’d cast off on day trips with longer range and multi day trips during the summer. Globe-trotting fishing continued as the norm in the early 1990s when Bobby captained the 65-foot Merritt, the Miss Guided.

“It was one of the first boats specifically designed for long-range fishing, especially on the Pacific Coast, where we fished in Panama and Costa Rica,” Brown said. “There was double of everything, fuel, generators and watermakers. We also traveled to St. Thomas and Venezuela on that boat.”

In 1995 and 1996, Bobby spent two May-through-August seasons in Madeira, catching several large blues, of which the biggest measured at over 1,100 pounds before its release. The gangbuster grander fishing had been red hot there for a couple of years, made famous by Capt. James Roberts as well as Capt. Barkey Garnsey and Stewart Campbell, whose catch reports read like every marlin fisherman’s dream.

Circle Hooks and Tingums: Advancing Sportfishing Techniques

A call to captain the 53-foot Viking, Fonda Fishing, added to Bobby’s already impressive resume and returned him to record-setting too. With owners Wayne Huizenga Jr. and his wife, Fonda, the Fonda Fishing won several legs of the Bahamas Billfish Championship, plus transited the canal six times to hook big fish and lots of them in Costa Rica and Panama.

“This was when I started experimenting with circle hooks for our pitch bait fishing,” Brown said. “I didn’t tell anybody about it for quite a while because we were so lucky. One day, Wayne had a writer onboard. He wanted to take pictures of the way we were rigging our squids. I wouldn’t let him. After that, I loaded up on 100-count boxes of circle hooks and took them to St. Thomas and Venezuela, and then over to Costa Rica. I gave some to John LaGrone and Bubba Carter, and they started fishing with them. Ronnie Hamlin also did well with them in Guatemala. Now circle hooks have become popular.”

Fonda Huizenga’s talent for light tackle fishing led to a trip to Cape Verde, Africa, in pursuit of 8- and 12-pound records. Bobby worked out a deal with Capt. Jody Whitworth on the French Look to charter and helm the operation’s fishing boat for two weeks. Huizenga caught a 350-pound Atlantic blue marlin for the women’s 12-pound record, but missed a shot at the 8-pound record by three pounds. Not long after, she caught her 8-pound, this time a Pacific blue marlin, off Costa Rica. Bobby sat at the wheel both times.

Next came a nearly decade-long traveling stint on the 58’ Merritt, the Cutnail. The owner, Terry Stiles, liked to have his guests hook their own fish off a teaser. Since inexperienced anglers can have a tough time not backlashing or missing the bite altogether, Bobby produced an answer.

“I started making my tingums,” he explained. “They were little soft-head lures with custom-made extended skirts. There is a piece of cable from the leader to the hook to get the hook as far back as possible. The first year I took them to St. Thomas, we were almost 100 percent on every fish that bit on a pitch bait. Now most captains are using the single hook rig.”

A Legacy Cemented: Awards and Recognition in Sportfishing

Bobby later took charge of the 65-foot Rybovich, the Coral Sea, for three years until 2015, adding the Dominican Republic to his traveling list. Then he ran the 60-foot Rybovich, No Agenda, fishing throughout the Caribbean and finishing with four seasons in Los Sueños, Costa Rica. In 2018, Michael Rybovich finished up a new 73-foot, No Agenda, in which Bobby was given free rein to spec the boat and all its systems. They were going to take it back to the Pacific; however, the owner’s plans changed, and the boat was sold in November 2020.

That’s when Bobby decided to retire. Today, he continues to live in the foothills of northern Georgia with his wife. There are several fellow captains nearby, something the late Capt. Jack Morrow capitalized on to get everyone together regularly for lunch. For many of these, Bobby was there, as was Bouncer Smith, Bark Garnsey and Ray Walters.

In 2021, Bobby earned the Tommy Gifford Award. It was an honor that could have come years before, but as a member of the IGFA Legendary Captains and Crew Committee that made the nominations, Bobby turned it down for many years in favor of other captains.

“What we look at most is a captain’s contribution to the sportfishing industry as a whole, plus sportsmanship, angling skills and boat skills,” he said. “But the main thing is their contributions.” This sums up perfectly what has made him a legendary Old Salt.

Discover more ‘Sportfishing Legends’ in our ‘Old Salts’ series. Click Here for an archive filled with captivating histories of renowned Captains.

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