Not just your favorite pic of all time but YOUR favorite pic of all time, FREE ROD!

[Troubleshooter]

First big bass for my son Aaron.He was pretty happy that day!

[getreel]

Post # 52 gets my vote...big fish in small boat!

My contribution....

Anglers first billfish on a picture perfect weather window. I love the spreader bars framing the shot. Fish was real green when the leader was first touched and proceeded to take off on an 200 yard tear going airborne for most of it. Got a great HD video of the whole thing taken from the tower. The FAC day was a bonus.

[Mark Ray]

Couple of my favorites. I'm votin for the BIG BLUE in the LITTLE BOAT. That pic tells a story for sure!

[scattered_grass]

Couple of my favorites. I'm votin for the BIG BLUE in the LITTLE BOAT. That pic tells a story for sure!

wow! where did you take those pics?

[Mark Ray]

1st pic - Bahamas
2nd pic - Costa Rica
3rd pic - I believe was St. Thomas by Richard Gibson

The 2nd pic I painted this from it. I thought it was a neat (Luckyy) shot.

[Jon Schwartz]

Mark, incredible work! We're going to have to collaborate one of these days- at least I'd like to.
I am off to Cabo for 10 days this Friday, hoping to get some more shots of striped marlin, though it looks like they are arriving so late I may miss them- at least the swarms that I have grown accustomed to over the past couple of years.

Above is a shot that I just had mounted for Captain Marlin Parker. This was one of the shots I got when I was in the helicopter covering the start of the HIBT.

Amazingly, one of his boats, the 43 ft Custom Allied Marine Marlin Magic, (captained by Jason Holtz) hooked up less than ten minutes after the start of the HIBT, so just as we were about to go back to the chopper pad, we saw that boat hooked up and I got some really lucky shots.

Towards the end of my stay in Kona I ended up accompanying Marlin Parker on his other boat, the Marlin Magic II, a 54 ft Custom Allied Marine, for several days.

He turned out to be a great guy and a fascinating interview, entertaining me with great stories about the birth of sport fishing in Kona, and about his dad, the legendary George Parker, who landed his last big blue marlin as a captain at the age of 87!

He also gave me a great wealth of information on fishing for spearfish, which I need to write up in an article for Marlin Mag. I keep promising myself I am going to hunker down and write it... and then I log on to this website and get lost for another hour or two reading all the posts!
Cheers,
Jon Schwartz
Fishing Articles, Photography, and Travel
http://www.bluewaterjon.com/
Blog:http://bluewaterjon.blogspot.com/

[Mark Ray]

Jon, that is a beautiful shot, I hope you get luck in Cabo. Keep us posted and thanks for the compliments on my artwork.

[Anthony of the ARK]

here's the story. About 60 fathoms in the Washington canyon during the mako mania. Half the crew including myself saw something air out about 200 yards off the stern. we all came to agreement that it was a F***ing sea monster. Later that day our friends on the Non-typical radioed that the were hooked up to sizable mako. After subduing what could have easily been mistaken as a great white from a distance they radioed us and told us they were having trouble getting the fish in the boat. we ended up bringing the fish back to the scales for them.

keep in mind in the first pic the boat is a 34seavee

the rest are in the cockpit of a 56viking

[silenthunter]

love these pictures

[silenthunter]

the shocker all the way