Boat captain dies after being impaled by billfish

Sundowner Sports Fishing charter Capt. Randy Llanes was getting ready to go fishing with his wife and son Friday morning when, from the boat’s tower, he saw a swordfish swimming in Honokohau Harbor.

“He yelled, ‘Hey, there’s a marlin in the harbor,’” recalled an adjacent boat neighbor.

With his fins, dive mask and spear, Llanes, 47, jumped into harbor waters to spear the fish. Minutes later, he was fatally impaled by the billfish.

State conservation officials and Hawaii island police were investigating Llanes’ death.

“It was just a freak accident,” said Katie Biermann, a charter desk receptionist at the harbor.

Andrew Peterson, also a charter boat captain, said Llanes was a “legend” in the harbor. “Everybody knows him,” Peterson said.

“He was just a huge inspiration for me. I was a new captain in the harbor. I was able to go to him for anything.”

A witness who declined to be named said he saw the billfish jump out of the water, and that Llanes swam straight to it. “He shot it pretty good, but it took off,” the witness said.

The thrashing fish got entangled in a buoy line and came back at him.

“I heard this scream, then saw huge puddles of blood in the water,” the witness said. “His head was underwater.”

Llanes was reportedly impaled under the right collarbone.

A group on a nearby boat pulled him from the water onto the pier and tried to resuscitate him.

Fire officials said when emergency personnel arrived, Llanes was unresponsive and he never regained consciousness.

An ambulance took Llanes to Kona Community Hospital, where he was pro-nounced dead. The witness said the state

harbor master saw the wounded swordfish swimming in the water and used a gaff to catch it.

The fish measured 3 feet long with a bill length of about 3 feet and weighed 40 pounds, according to the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Honolulu Star-Advertiser “Ocean Watch” columnist Susan Scott said such incidents with billfish are rare but do happen, including a Hawaii angler who died in 1996 when a swordfish struck the man’s right eye with its bill.

Other incidents in Hawaii include a whale researcher in 2003 who suffered a shoulder injury from a 10to 15-foot marlin battling a pod of false killer whales, a 1995 billfish that punctured the thigh of a sport fisherman strapped to his fishing chair, said Scott, author of the book “All Stings Considered.”