Kona Fishing Headlines for July 28, 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.

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.

DOUBLE YOUR MONEY WITH TWO TOURNAMENTS AT ONCE. The HIBT ends Friday but is immediately followed by two other popular local events. The tournament season keeps on going on Saturday with the O’Brien Dirty Dozen and the Kona Iki Troller’s Light Tackle Fishing Tournament.
The Dirty Dozen is a one-day competition open to all-

NMFS announces that anyone who enters the Hawaii-based pelagic charter fishery after June 19, 2008, (the ``control date'') is not guaranteed future participation in the fishery if the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) recommends, and NMFS approves, a program that limits entry into the fishery, or other fishery management measures. The Council is concerned about potential expansion of the Hawaii-based pelagic charter fishery and resultant impacts on billfish and other pelagic fishes.

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.