Join the IGFA Today! Your membership supports ethical sport and productive science. Every penny of your membership to the IGFA will support the sport you love - and benefit the fish you target no matter where you are. Join today at www.igfa.org Every penny of your gift to the IGFA will support the sport you love - and benefit the fish you target no matter where you are. STEWART N. CAMPBELL Stewart Campbell was one of the world's greatest big-game anglers. Born in Arkansas, USA, Campbell grew up in a blue-collar Houston, Texas, neighborhood. After graduating from The University of Texas with a mechanical engineering degree, he spent 13 years with the Cooper-Bessemer Corporation before going out on his own, and after many successful years in the natural gas compression business he retired in 1991. Stewart's earliest fishing adventures were in Arkansas' small streams, and later on the Gulf Coast's saltwater flats. A kingfishing trip with a friend introduced him to the offshore world, and he soon purchased a 31' Bertram and a Halter44 -- both of which he operated by himself - and began to fish off the Texas coast. In the late 1960s he traveled to St. Thomas for the first time and in 1973, Australia. As his interest in billfishing increased, so did his desire to fish more than just on weekends. In the mid-1970s Campbell shared with Capt. Bark Garnsey his dream of traveling the world to explore new angling destinations. Convinced that light-tackle proficiency was a logical first step to perfecting heavy-tackle skill, the two headed to Venezuela, where Stewart studied the top anglers' techniques, Bark rode the bridge observing the local captains' boat-handling, and both analyzed hours of video. After one year in Venezuela, Stewart set his first world record -- a white marlin on 4-pound line. Stewart's passion for world-record fishing in the eastern Atlantic began when he first heard stories of phenomenal blue marlin action off Africa's Ivory Coast. He had a boat built and delivered there, then moved it to the Canary Islands, and then to Madeira, for if the fish weren't around, neither was Stewart. In 1994 during Campbell's first season in Madeira, eight fish over 1,000 pounds were landed on the 44' (first) Chunda. Stewart's angling feats are legendary: he set 15 light-tackle world records (more than 20 records overall), and still holds all the Atlantic spearfish records between six and 16 pounds and the 30-pound record for Atlantic bigeye tuna. During the winter of 1995 in Hatteras, North Carolina, Campbell and crew, fishing 130-pound tackle, released in one 12-hour period a record 73 giant Atlantic bluefin tuna weighing from 300 to 800 pounds each, smashing the previous mark of 16. Campbell, Garnsey and Charles Perry spent years together searching for giant fish, becoming one of the most respected, cohesive and productive teams in the big-game angling world. Stewart was a hands-on angler. He took care of his rods, reels and knots, and on off-days analyzed tidal data, water temperatures, current patterns, and more. He kept himself in excellent physical condition, and that surely made a difference in June 1996 when he was pulled over the Chunda's transom in Madeira by a 1,000+ pound blue marlin. Attached to the fish by a kidney harness, he was dragged under, yanked back to the surface, towed a short distance, then pulled back aboard by his stunned crew when the line broke. The next day — stitched up, bandaged, and in a cast — Stewart coached his wife Nickie to her first and only world record, a 708-pound blue on 30-pound tackle. Campbell first became concerned about fishery resources when he witnessed their overharvest and misuse along the Texas coast. This led to the formation, together with friend Walter Fondren, of the Gulf Coast Conservation Association in 1976 (today's Coastal Conservation Association), and Stewart served as one of the early directors. As his concern for all fisheries grew, Campbell and his team made major contributions to scientific knowledge and research by tagging and releasing huge numbers of fish over the next few decades. Stewart became a member of the IGFA Board of Trustees in 1996, and for many years chaired the Rules Committee. Enthusiastic and analytical, Stewart was an exceptional angler who always strove to be better. He was quiet and unassuming, yet he brought to the sport the same dynamic style that made him successful in business. So intent and engaged was he on the mechanics and fundamentals, that when he was pulled back aboard after the incident in Madeira his first words were, "I know what I did wrong." The IGFA Fishing Hall of Fame pays tribute to Stewart Campbell, a remarkable fisherman to whom sporting and ethical angling were paramount.

• published: 22 Nov 2013
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