biology is really not very far advanced. We are cer- 

 tainly always very grateful for the opportunity to take 

 advantage of a tournament like this, where one can 

 actually see the fish when only a few hours old. This, 

 along with the logbook recording, the cooperative tag- 

 ging programs, and the information from the commer- 

 cial fisheries probably is going to mean that in the next 

 decade we will begin to understand these animals 

 much better. To bring about this understanding will 

 require considerable work on the part of the angler, 

 who will have to be prepared to keep detailed records, 

 and either mail them in or have them delivered at 

 dockside. You will also have to put up with the oc- 

 casional biologist "poking around" your fish. Finally, 

 you should be prepared to change to the metric 

 system of measurements in the very near future and 

 this means you will have to rewrite the International 

 Game Fish Association (IGFA) world records. Thank 

 you very much. 



Panel Presentation (R. S. Shomura, Symposium 

 Cochairman). — I would like to start by stating that 

 we are extremely fortunate — and I think this was ex- 

 cellent planning on our part — in having as Chairman 

 of this morning's Sportsmen-Scientists Panel Session 

 Mr. Dudley Lewis, who took the winning prize in this 

 year's HIBT tournament. It is also fitting that he 

 assumed the post as Session Chairman at this closing 

 meeting, since he is the only sportsman-angler who 

 has participated in all 14 of the HIBT tournaments. 

 Mr. Lewis was born in Hawaii some few years ago and 

 has been fishing all of his life. He is presently a prac- 

 ticing lawyer. It gives me great pleasure to introduce 

 Mr. Dudley Lewis. 



D. Lewis (Chairman) 



Ladies and gentlemen, the format of the Sym- 

 posium this morning is the following. We have with us 

 three sportsmen and three scientists and I will call 

 alternately on each of the scientists and sportsmen to 

 make a short statement. At the conclusion of their 

 remarks we will welcome questions either from the 

 panel or from the audience. First, I will call on Dr. C. 

 Richard Robins, University of Miami Professor, who 

 has done a lot of research on billfishes, to give you 

 some idea of his work and what can be done to further 

 the dialogue between scientists and sportsmen. 



C. R. Robins 



I want to start not with an account of what I or my 

 colleagues have done at the University of Miami, but 

 with some of the problems that we run into in dealing 

 with billfishes and what we need in the way of infor- 

 mation. 



Firstly, we have lost much valuable data from the 

 photographic record that would have otherwise been 

 available to us. If one goes to any of these tour- 



naments, one cannot help but be impressed with the 

 number and quality of the cameras but, from our 

 standpoint, many of the photographs are of poor 

 quality. Of course, we have nothing against the types 

 of photographs that you want for your own records, 

 but Don de Sylva and I very frequently are called 

 upon to identify fish from photographs. It is extremely 

 difficult to do so when the fish is hanging up and the 

 cameraman is very close causing foreshortening, 

 which jeopardizes our obtaining good body propor- 

 tions. Very often the angler, the captain, or mate will 

 have his hand over some very critical character such 

 as the dorsal or pectoral fin. In taking photographs 

 this is really what we need. First of all I think that 

 every photograph should have a small identification 

 tag with it — it can be just a piece of paper like we've 

 had at this tournament — which indicates the locality 

 of capture of the fish, the weight, and the length. 

 Photographs have a habit of going astray for many 

 years and then we get a whole pack from a person say- 

 ing, "I think this is a fish I caught off Malindi, 

 Kenya," when in fact it may have been one that was 

 caught at Bay of Islands, New Zealand. This leads to 

 difficulties, so if you have an identification tag as part 

 of the photograph there is never any question about 

 the origin of the fish. The next thing is to try to take 

 the side view of the fish with as little distortion as 

 possible. It is often very easy to get to the tower on 

 your boat and shoot a picture of the fish in the cockpit 

 with very little distortion. In other cases it is very sim- 

 ple to allow the fish to hang, as you often do here at 

 Kona, then back off and take a telephoto shot of it 

 and this reduces the distortion. 



In addition to the side view, it would be very helpful 

 to take a picture of the underside of the fish, at least 

 from the area of the anus forward. The position of the 

 anus relative to the anal fin is very different in the 

 different kinds of marlins, especially in the Atlantic 

 Ocean. In the spearfish the anus is very far forward, in 

 the white marlin it is very far back, and in this new 

 species we call georgei it is in a sort of in-between 

 position. 



This undershot can also show the very important 

 shape of the pectoral fin. Marlins are wonderful 

 machines, being really well adapted for high-speed 

 swimming in the ocean. The blue marlin, as you 

 know, maintains its depth a long way aft, so if you 

 take the center of gravity of this fish, it is fairly far 

 back. These animals can swim along very efficiently 

 and they keep their pectoral fins pretty much back 

 toward the socket. The black marlin has its weight far 

 forward and really is front heavy. If you could cut the 

 pectoral fins off this fish, it would pitch and go right 

 down toward the bottom. Its pectoral fins are 

 therefore actually stabilizers. If you look at the cross 

 section of the pectoral fin of a black marlin it is very 

 different from that of a blue marlin, being shaped like 

 the cross section of an airplane wing. This fish really 

 flies through the water and gets lift to compensate for 

 pitch. The pectoral fin alone can distinguish the blue 



