Robert Kathary - Angler Profile

MIAMI - Aug. 5, 2013 - PRLog -- Fort Lauderdale, FL-based angler, Robert Kathary, owner of the April 2011-launched 72-foot Jim Smith, Fish On, loves to go offshore big-game fishing. What’s more, Kathary especially enjoys tournament competition. That’s why some of his fondest sports fishing highlights have included winning the 2011 Bermuda Triple Crown and in the same year pocketing $5000 in a winner take all daily during the second day of the USVI Open/Atlantic Blue Marlin or ‘Boy Scout’ Tournament.

Kathary started fishing as a child at the age of 10.

“My father started training me, as I call it, for the business world,” he says. “Everything was incentive-based. He was into offshore fishing, and of course, that’s what I wanted to do too. One week out of the year we would walk the docks at Pier 66 in Ft. Lauderdale or Hurricane Hole in Key West to find a boat to charter for a week.”

Today, Kathary’s favorite big-game species are blue marlin.

“There’s nothing like pitch-baiting,” he says. “Throwing a pitch right of the transom, what could possibly be better than that. You get to see everything!”

Depending on the time of year and location, Kathary will fish with 50- or 80-pound test. His favorite fishing destinations, he says, are where the billfish are and where there is clean warm water with no weeds.

“I prefer to fish with my crew,” he says. “We are a team. Everyone knows what each other is going to do before it happens. It gets very difficult when you mess with the flow.”

Kathary’s best day saw him release six blue marlin. That was while fun fishing.

“I am a natural competitor,” he says. “I like to fish most of the tournaments that I can fit my schedule.”

Personally, Kathary adds, “I like the Custom Boat Shootout best. Every boat there is a work of art.”

In 2011, the same year that Kathary took delivery of Fish On, he enjoyed particularly hot tournament action.

Winning the Bermuda Triple Crown Billfish Championships was definitely a huge feat. Kathary and his team on Fish On competed against over 20 other elite teams in this three tournament series in the waters of grander blue marlin. In the kick-off Bermuda Billfish Blast, Fish On released the first blue of the tournament to take first day honors and earn 500 points. In the next event, the Bermuda Big Game Classic, Fish On picked up another 500 points with a first day blue which put them 1700 points behind the leader going into the Series finale, the Sea Horse Angler's Club Billfish Tournament. In literally down to the wire action, and with a hot blue marlin bite, Fish On anglers Kathary, Parker Stephen and Chuck Warden, with mate Pat Nelson and Capt. Elliot Cline on the helm, released a record six blues for 4,000 points to win the Crown.

On the heels of this impressive win, Kathary and his Fish On team headed for St. Thomas and the ‘Boy Scout’ Tournament, billed as the ‘Super Bowl of Sports Fishing’. On the second day of the tournament, Kathary and fellow anglers John Vance and Greg Newell each released a blue marlin to win the second day’s daily boat pool cash prize.

Kathary is a member of several organizations that work for billfish conservation. Where does he see the sports fishing industry headed?

“Up, up, up,” Kathary says. “The second week of January 2013, in Chub Key, we saw six blue marlin and a white.”

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