How do you decide which ten individuals in the world of offshore fishing are the most influential? We asked 45 high-profile and knowledgeable anglers, captains, outdoor writers, fishing-industry leaders, and conservationists, who offered up more than 100 candidates. We boiled down that list to the ten you see here, which includes a scientist, an inventor, an artist, conservationists, captains, and anglers.

STEWART N. CAMPBELL

Stewart Campbell has set 14 marlin records and repeatedly proven himself to be one of the toughest anglers ever to sit in a fighting chair.

During his illustrious fishing career Stewart Campbell set 14
world records for Atlantic blue marlin, plus other records for
spearfish, white marlin, and bigeye tuna. But he may be best
remembered as the angler who was pulled overboard by a
grander-size blue marlin, a moment captured in the film Cockpit
Chaos. Somehow Campbell’s leader line became wrapped around
the rod tip during his battle with the potentially record-setting
fish. The marlin surged, and when the line came tight, he was
pulled right out of the chair and over the transom. Campbell
recovered and was back fishing the next day.

Another of Campbell’s amazing accomplishments took place in
1995 off Hatteras, North Carolina, when he,
as angler, and a crew that included Capt. Peter
B.Wright (also on this list), caught and
released 73 giant bluefin tuna in a single day’s
fishing. Campbell never left the fighting chair.

TIM CHOATE

Sure Tim Choate has a law degree, but he’d much rather fish for black marlin.

Pioneering angler Tim Choate was
hooked on fishing from boyhood.
Following a very brief career as a lawyer, his
wanderlust took him to where the big fish
roamed, including five seasons on the Great
Barrier Reef. In 1982, he and Capt. Peter B.
Wright boated the largest black marlin of the
season. It weighed more than 1,200 pounds.

In the 1980’s, when Venezuela was not a
well-known hot spot, Choate helped put it
on the map. He was part of the Hank and
Gretchen Manley team that caught the first
double super grand slam: a sailfish, blue marlin, white marlin,
and swordfish. Choate was also present during the Manleys’
quest to catch 1,000 billfish in a calendar year. They finished the
1983 season with 1,108.

Choate eventually built a small charter fleet in Costa Rica,
before moving on to help explore Guatemala’s big-game fishery
with his famous Fins & Feathers Resort. He has also developed
charter-fishing operations in Brazil and the Galapagos Islands.

A strong conservationist, Choate helped create, and was the
first director of, The Billfish Foundation. He has also worked
with political leaders in Central and South America to protect
billfish and encourage catch-and-release fishing.

CAPT. RON HAMLIN

Capt. Ron Hamlin was one of the first people to promote the use of injury-reducing circle hooks.

Capt. Ron Hamlin is one of the
most respected names in big-game
fishing. Earlier this year, he logged his
25,000th billfish release, an
unprecedented feat. He has been one
of the The Billfish Foundation’s top
tagging captains in the Pacific for ten
years running, and currently fishes out
of Guatemala, although he’s helped
launch billfish hot spots like
Venezuela, Cozumel, and St. Thomas.

Hamlin’s release statistics are all the
more impressive because many days
his anglers fly-fish, so the numbers
don’t build up as fast as with
conventional tackle. He was also one
of the first captains to develop and
refine the bait-and-switch method of
billfishing.

In the 1990’s Hamlin was disturbed
by the fact that although he had
tagged thousands of billfish, none of the tags had been recovered.
So he pledged to use only circle hooks in order to reduce injuries.
Many thought his catch rate would drop but if anything, it
increased. Soon, most of the boats in Guatemala had converted
to circle hooks, and today the majority of billfish anglers
worldwide use them. This may be Hamlin’s greatest legacy.

This article originally appeared in the October 2009 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.