Kona Fishing Headlines for August 4, 2008

[Fishing Hawaii]

This week's Kona Fishing Headlines. For the full stories, visit FishingHawaiiOffshore.com. Each story remains on the site for two weeks before it is removed.

BLACK CAT MAGIC MARLIN. Skipper Marlin Parker says it seems like he always finds a big marlin during the HIBT. Last year he hooked a potential grander on 80 and lost it when the leader broke. The year before, he battled the big one on 50 and broke line. This year, he hooked another giant billfish on 50 but successfully boated this one -- with the help of some black-cat magic.

THE 80-POUND DISADVANTAGE. In the Kona fleet’s daily pursuit of big marlin, the standard is 130-pound-class gear. Even when charter boats gear up with 80-class rods and reels, professional captains often spool them with 100-pound-test line – or even heavier.
Even such heavy gear is not always up to the task, and we regularly hear tales of fish too big to hold on heavy lines.
So imagine what it is like to accept an additional 80-pound handicap by dropping down from 130- to 50-pound line.

FEEDING THE KITTY. Skipper Bomboy Llanes knew his fishing team was drifting into troubled waters.

MEDUSA’S 695 FOR SAME LUCKY BOB. When Bob Dudley boated his 973-pound blue marlin after a ten-year drought in the HIBT, he undoubtedly figured he might have to wait another decade to catch another memorable HIBT fish. Indeed, he might even have hoped for such relief, given the high drama in his historic Tuesday catch.
In fact, he only had to wait another two days.

JOE YEE BACK IN ACTION. Joe Yee has been making tournament-winning lures since the early 1960s. With his 80th birthday coming up in September, however, Joe has long since given up trying to reel any of the many fish that find his lures to be irresistible.
This year, Rocky Franich, Joe’s long-time fishing buddy on the Pajaro Valley fishing team, decided it was time for a change.

SMALL-FISH STRATEGY PREVAILS. Whether or not skipper Neal Isaacs actually had a “small-fish strategy,” his small-fish strategy won the Henry Chee award for Neal’s crew on Anxious.

THE NUMBERS MAKE YOUR HEAD SWIM. As I scanned last week’s catch report, my head started spinning. Literally, I got dizzy scrolling down the very long list of blue marlin, shortbill spearfish and tuna from one of the best weeks of fishing on record.

HIBT KICKS OFF AFTER A GREAT WEEK.To all of you folks getting ready to wet your lines this week, I have just one thing to say: You should have been here last week.
Or the week before. Or maybe even the week before that.
July fishing for blue marlin and yellowfin tuna has been as good as we’ve seen in decades.

SEA GENIE TAGS THE BIGGEST OF THE WEEK. If you catch a grander during the HIBT, check to see whether it is wearing a tag. If so, you may owe Capt. Gene Vander Hoek a drink.
Gene, crew Chris Choy and angler Phil Pollich tagged a marlin Gene conservatively estimated at 850 pounds.

MORE MEASUREMENT MADNESS. We’ve taken a special interest in marlin measurements this year because they seem so crazy. Take three catches in last Saturday’s Huggo’s Na Pua O Ke Kai Wahine Fishing Tournament.
The Lightspeed Lushes on the boat Online weighed a 749-pound blue with a short length of 124 inches. Team Bite Me II also caught a 124-inch short length blue, but theirs weighed 690.5, a full 58 pounds less.

AN HIBT PRANK FROM THE PAST? Call it a prank – or a plank. During some long past HIBT, teams encountered an odd sight offshore. They spotted the dorsal and tail of what appeared to be a swimming marlin.

FIRST YOU HAVE IT AND THEN YOU DON’T. It was an up and down week for young lady angler Hutton Fohey. As we reported last week, the talented 13-year-old boated a 192-pound yellowfin tuna while carefully following all of the strict rules of the International Game Fish Association.
“She did it all by herself,” said skipper Kevin Nakamaru.

TIN-BOATER CATCHES BIG KAWAKAWA. The smallest of the island’s small-boat, big-game fishermen are the guys who launch their light craft from the hoist at the Mahukona pier. Your boat, motor and gear have to be light enough to lift and lower from a small crane with a hand-cranked winch.