The Lahainaluna High School Lady Lunas completed a perfect 12-0 regular season in 2011 Maui Interscholastic League play with a 60-41 victory over the Molokai Lady Farmers on Saturday evening at Lahaina Civic Center. Coached by Todd Rickard, Ian Aotaki, Eddie Pamat and Casey Brummel, the win was the 60th consecutive victory in MIL play for the Lady Lunas, setting a league record for all sports. The LHS players wore pink uniforms, and the game was played with a pink basketball, to promote cancer prevention awareness in the community. Both Lahainaluna, the MIL Division I champions, and Molokai, the D-II winners, will now advance to their respective Hawaii High School Athletic Association (HHSAA) State Tournaments on Feb. 2-4 on Oahu. Photo by Walter Chihara.

Trying to come up with the Top Charter Boat statistics for billfish and ahi for 2010 was like trying to decide who should play in the BCS bowl games. Just looking at total numbers doesn’t reflect all the variables in coming up with the final rankings for the top Lahaina Harbor Charter Sportfishing boats. The majority of the boats were only a few billfish one way or the other for the year.

Obviously, everyone looks at the number of blue marlin caught and total weight as an indicator of the top ranking. Last year, the blue marlin catch was the deciding factor. Last year, the striped marlin were almost nonexistent (five), and the shortnose spearfish made up a very small number of the yearly catch (35). Spearfish are not normally weighed but “guesstimated,” so their total weight numbers are ballpark and lower ranked.

Tagged or released billfish (18 blue marlin) were noted as both a total number and estimated weight, but the weights are “guess-timations,” and you know how fishermen are. These numbers do reflect into the ranking, since some boats tag or release more billfish than others and should get due credit.

I cross-referenced my yearly catches and totals with the boats and captains as close as possible. I look at all the variables in each category, give them a number and try to come up with a fair ranking. Size does matter. I’m not going to please everyone. The final statistics are my own and are open to opinion and interpretation.

The Die Hard had the most total billfish for the year with 14. Six were blue marlin, with two striped marlin, six spearfish and three ahi over 100. The Finest Kind and Start Me Up Too each had 13 total billfish. The Start Me Up Too had 11 blue marlin and two spearfish. The Finest Kind caught eight blue marlin, four spearfish, one sailfish and six ahi over 100.

The Action, Hinatea, Start Me Up and Start Me Up Das It were tied with ten total billfish each. The Hinatea had nine blue marlin and one spearfish. The Start Me Up had eight blue marlin and two spearfish. The Start Me Up Das It had seven blue marlin and three spearfish. The Action had five blue marlin, two striped marlin and three spearfish.

The Ikaika Kai ended up with nine total billfish — seven of them blue marlin and two spearfish. The Start Me Up La Dat had seven total billfish, with four blue marlin, one striped marlin, two spearfish and one ahi over 100. In addition, to round out the top ten boats, the Kai Akua finished with five total billfish — four blue marlin and one spearfish.

Now the ranking, based on six different categories and ten variables for the top five boats.

The 37-foot Bertram Start Me Up Too captured the top Lahaina Harbor Charter Sportfishing boat title among the 16 boats that caught a billfish in 2010.

It weighed nine blue marlin (most among the fleet) totaling 2,330.4 pounds (second highest blue weight), and two spearfish totaling 61.1 pounds. The 11 billfish weighed (tied for most among the fleet) totaled 2391.5 pounds (second highest total weight).

The Start Me Up Too also released two blue marlin estimated at 150 pounds each. This gave them a total of 11 blue marlin captured (highest among the fleet) totaling 2,630.4 pounds (second highest blue marlin capture weight).

The boat’s 13 billfish (tied for second most captured among the fleet) weighed a grand total of 2691.5 pounds (second highest total weight).

Their largest marlin weighed 519.4 pounds (eighth), along with a 470.7-pounder (15th).

Next week, we’ll look at the rest of the top five.