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Kona once again hosted the 2026 Pacific Cup this year, and if you needed proof that a fishing tournament doesn’t need a seven-figure purse to be worth flying across the Pacific for, this was it. No giant payouts (or any for that matter), no fishing so cutthroat it forgets the point. Just five days built on tradition, camaraderie, and a word that’s often forgotten by hard-core tournament participants: fun.
The Marlin Group acquired the Pacific Cup in 2025, and this year marked our first at the helm. We had good company doing it: Murray “The Hammar” Hansen (the Kiwi big-game legend behind a 1,200-plus-pound black marlin and a career’s worth of catches most anglers only dream about) has been a driving force behind the event since its creation and guided us through this first year. Our thanks go to both him and the Royal Kona Resort, which hosted every event of the week right on the water and made the whole thing run without a hitch.
The tournament itself is only five years old, but its roots go back further. When the storied Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament (HIBT) folded after decades anchoring Kona’s calendar, a group of its most devoted anglers weren’t ready to let the legacy die, so they built the Pacific Cup to keep it alive, right there in Kona, where it’s been fished every year since. The tackle and format still show it: 50-pound line class max, teams rotating boats daily, and IGFA rules applied.
“Sure, competing for money is nice, but this tournament is about much more than just a big check. It’s about not letting the legacy die with the legends,” said tournament director Myles Blatt as he kicked off the tournament at the captain’s meeting.
This year’s field was entirely Kiwi: club anglers from the famed Bay of Islands Swordfish Club who fished like it. The tournament’s all-inclusive format took care of the rest: one flat rate covered boats, provisions (alcohol included), and every event on the calendar, from the kick-off party to nightly poo poos, where crews swapped stories over drinks after lines-out.
And there were plenty of stories to swap. Boats found fish every day of the five-day event (20 total catches across the week, including 13 blue marlin, 4 spearfish, and 3 ahi), and every team released at least one blue marlin.
The number that highlighted the tournament was 376: the weight, in pounds, of the blue marlin Robyn Hall boated aboard Cormorant for Team Russell. At 80 years old, Robyn landed the first qualifying blue marlin ever weighed in Pacific Cup history, and it stood as the tournament’s biggest marlin, carrying Team Russell to a comfortable win with 2,056.75 points.
Cormorant, captained by Kai Hoover, backed up that performance with a dominant showing in the Top Boat category, finishing atop that leaderboard with 2,507 points, well clear of Tantrum (Capt. Nick Durham, 1,072) and High Flier (Capt. Simon Brown, 900) in second and third. Team Resolution’s Jeff Douglas backed his team’s push into second (1,322 points) with the tournament’s top ahi at 129 pounds, while teammate Greg Thompson released three blue marlin on the final day alone to help seal the runner-up spot. Lure Legends rounded out the podium in third with 1,200 points.
“The Pacific Cup is a reminder of why most of us fell in love with tournament fishing in the first place,” said David Ritchie, CEO of The Marlin Group. “It’s competitive, but it’s also about camaraderie, tradition and having a great time on the water. We’re proud to carry forward what Murray and the tournament’s founders created, and we see a tremendous opportunity to build on it in the years ahead.”
One year in under new ownership, and the Pacific Cup already looks like exactly what it was built to be. We’re already deep into planning for 2027, with our sights set on building this into something truly special: not bigger for its own sake, just better at the thing it already does best. Kona’s blue water will be waiting, and Team Russell has a target on its back.
