Kona Fishing Headlines for July 21, 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.

COME TO “PAPA.” Terry Fohey took a page out of the Ernest Hemingway big-game playbook and boated the biggest yellowfin tuna of the year. See how at www.FishingHawaiiOffshore.com.

ROD BENDER GRABS MAHIMAHI LEADER. While fishing in a tournament where it didn’t count, the charter boat Rod Bender hooked the year’s biggest mahimahi.
Skipper Kirwin Masunaga, angler Steve Spina, and crew Brent Masunaga were entered in the three-day Maui Jim Series Championships – a marlin-only tournament.

HAPA LAKA FIGHTS ONE BLUE AND SEVEN WHITE-TIPS. Captain Alan Borowski might have wished he had one of Hemingway’s submachine guns mounted on the bow of his 25-foot boat Hapa Laka last Thursday when confronted by an enormous marlin and a school of sharks.
Instead, he took an extreme and unusual measure of his own.

AHI UP AND DOWN. The most dangerous time to get a strike from a strong gamefish is when you are still holding the line in your hands. If you still have all of your fingers, you have already learned this.
J. D. Hudson still has all of his, despite several recent surprise strikes.

$83,500 BIG-GAME TOURNEY DECIDED BY 3 POUNDS AND 8 OUNCES. With a total payout of $83,500 at stake, the Hawaii Big Game Fishing Club Rock ‘N Reel Fishing Tournament was decided by two close calls.

TOURNAMENT WINNING BLUE SQUARES OFF AGAINST BOAT. Team Sea Genie II won the Maui Jim 2008 Firecracker Open with a 638-lb, red-hot-and-blue marlin and a 145-lb yellowfin tuna. The total winnings for the two gamefish put $54,000 in the kitty for angler Mike Stewart, skipper Gene Vander Hoek and crew Chris Choy.

WEIRD MARLIN MORPHOMETRICS. We are going to do a little marlin math. But don’t be frightened off and turn to the funnies – this will be funny enough by itself. Rest assured that we are not actually going to make you do any arithmetic.
At some point, we’ll ask you to make an educated guess but don’t even fret over that. Chances are you are going to guess wrong, anyway.

INTREPID WEIGHS BIGGEST MARLIN OF THE WEEK. Capt. Jeff Rogers is best known for a mixed bag of tactics that produce a mixed menu of fish. His daily catch report is full of amberjack, giant trevally and an assortment of other deep-hunting fish. He’s so successful at catching bottom-feeding gamefish that he even offers a $100 rebate if his parties don’t catch anything.
So what is he doing weighing the biggest marlin of last week?

NORTHERN LIGHTS LEADS AHI ONSLAUGHT. The summer tuna run has spread out along the coastline, which is a blessing for fishermen on boats of all sizes.
“It means we can all spread out and give each other room,” says Kevin Nakamaru, skipper of Northern Lights.

VOODO MAN’S MAGICAL DAY. When Voodoo Man comes back to Kona every summer to fish on Long Ranger, he brings his bag of strange magical objects. A turkey claw, lock of hair, parrot feather, giant gator tooth, boar tooth, a dried hunk of umbilical cord from his son’s birth – all help him conjure up big-fish luck. For many years, his bag brought increasing good fortune with bigger and bigger marlin.
This year, the Florida native had his most magical fishing day ever aboard Long Ranger, thanks to his mother-in-law’s ashes.

IKI WAHINES SCORE BIG MARLIN AND TUNA.The Kona Iki Trollers' held their Tsuyoki Nakashima Wahine Fishing Tournament on Sunday, July 13, 2008. Tournament spokesperson Lisa Nahoopii provided the results.