Hawaii Game Fishing

[bradvansteenis]

Anyone,

My wife and i will be spending some time in Hawaii next March. We will be staying on both Maui and the Big Island. Can anyone give us the name of a high quality charter that knows the waters and can put us on the fish. I am starting my search early to find the best of the best on the Islands. If anyone visits the islands often and uses the same charter each time this would be a good place to start. We are seeking Marlin, Tuna, and other large fish. Thank you for responding.


Brad

[reel fool]

You are going to get lots of replys to this one. And everyone will have a favorite.
I fish in Kona about 6 months of the year. See my signature.
There are many good options for Kona--try searching this site--this question has been asked several times.

The quick, but not complete, list of good options.

Marlin Magic 2, Marlin Parker
Marlin Magic, Jason Holtz
Ihu Nui, McGrew Rice
Sea Genie, Gene VanDerHoek
Bite Me, 3 boats, Have to give a plug to my own boss!
Humdinger, Jeff Fay
Northern Lights, Kevin Nakamaru
Pamela, Peter Hoogs
Monkey Biz 2, Chip VanMols

and you can call the Charter Desk, 888.kona4us www.charterdesk.com

[Bert Rodgers]

In Maui, look up Capt. Jeff Kahl (pronouced Kyle). I'm not sure what boat he is on now, he used to wok for the Finest Kind Fleet.

Great guy who catches fish. I think he still holds the Muai record Blue.

Bert

[tim R]

You are going to get lots of replys to this one. And everyone will have a favorite.
I fish in Kona about 6 months of the year. See my signature.
There are many good options for Kona--try searching this site--this question has been asked several times.

The quick, but not complete, list of good options.

Marlin Magic 2, Marlin Parker
Marlin Magic, Jason Holtz
Ihu Nui, McGrew Rice
Sea Genie, Gene VanDerHoek
Bite Me, 3 boats, Have to give a plug to my own boss!
Humdinger, Jeff Fay
Northern Lights, Kevin Nakamaru
Pamela, Peter Hoogs
Monkey Biz 2, Chip VanMols

Those are the guys...There are some others too, the fleet has some really good guys...

As far as the fishing goes, we just broke off a heart breaker last week with Marlin Parker on Marlin Magic II from an awesome short corner bite...Watch out March gets real scary for big fish in Kona, HI...I suggest wearing a cup and mouthguard...These fish are tough and fight dirty!

Call our shop if you need help getting any of the guys numbers.

[mahimadness]

whatever you do do not fish on the finest kind or any boat in that fleet they will surely take you for a boat ride. fished with them a year ago on my honeymoon the captain looked through the newspaper and talked on his cell phone while his mate slept in the cabin. they drug around the same spread all day consisting of all lures and never checked the baits all day. we did accidently catch a wahoo which they told us at the end of the trip they would sell to us by the pound. what a joke i could go on and on. my advice would be fish out of the big island. good luck maui is beautiful

[tim R]

whatever you do do not fish on the finest kind or any boat in that fleet they will surely take you for a boat ride. fished with them a year ago on my honeymoon the captain looked through the newspaper and talked on his cell phone while his mate slept in the cabin. they drug around the same spread all day consisting of all lures and never checked the baits all day. we did accidently catch a wahoo which they told us at the end of the trip they would sell to us by the pound. what a joke i could go on and on. my advice would be fish out of the big island. good luck maui is beautiful

Hawaii is a great place to fish and there are alot of great captains, but there are always a few boat rides in any harbor, it really pays to check them out and talk to them. Kona, HI is especially getting into light tackle fishing including jigging tunas at the buoys, Bait fishing, bottom fishing, night time Swordy & Thresher Shark trips (catch and release on the Threshers) and even fly fishing if you want to go. Don't be afraid to call us at the shop and ask questions about who to charter with!

[reel fool]

Hawaii is a great place to fish and there are alot of great captains, but there are always a few boat rides in any harbor, it really pays to check them out and talk to them. Kona, HI is especially getting into light tackle fishing including jigging tunas at the buoys, Bait fishing, bottom fishing, night time Swordy & Thresher Shark trips (catch and release on the Threshers) and even fly fishing if you want to go. Don't be afraid to call us at the shop and ask questions about who to charter with!

very true. I went to Kona to catch blue marlin, and have spent about 1/3 of my time tuna fishing--chunking, trolling, live baiting, etc....for tuna. lots of good tunas to catch there too.

[YankeePride]

I'm kind of piggybacking off of this thread, as I just found out my family will be spending Christmas '09 in Hawaii. My fishing goal there is to find a boat that will allow us to do our catches IGFA-style, and that has a captain and mate patient enough to show us how to use big-game tackle. If anyone reading this has such a charter or has fished/knows one, please let me know. I know it's a long way off, but I'm already drooling over this chance ...

[tim R]

I'm kind of piggybacking off of this thread, as I just found out my family will be spending Christmas '09 in Hawaii. My fishing goal there is to find a boat that will allow us to do our catches IGFA-style, and that has a captain and mate patient enough to show us how to use big-game tackle. If anyone reading this has such a charter or has fished/knows one, please let me know. I know it's a long way off, but I'm already drooling over this chance ...

I am the biggest Kona optimist there is, but to be brutally honest December can be kinda tough, BUT not always...That's the funny thing about Kona you never know when it will go off...Even on a traditional slow month...

My suggestion would be to save the names of the boats in this thread and wait until December to pick one just before you get here or after you arrive based on the fishing. Charters are slow this time of year and you don't need to book a boat in advance unless your specifically wanting to fish around the holidays and aren't here very long, then you want to book about 1-2 weeks in advance, but that gives you plenty of time to watch the reports and see whats happening.

Of course there could be some Threshers around at night if you want to catch the biggest Thresher of your life...

[tiggere]

I would wait and go out of Kona if I had the choice...my wife and I went to Maui and got on the Start Me *p (figure that one out)...and I must say I was truly disappointed...they ran out to the bouy and circled it for about four hours then turned towards home pulling the same plastic we started with...

Here is the basic run down...we get there after about a 25/30 (might have been a little longer) min run...they throw out the spread and start circling running single lures (all plastic)...after the 6th round (about 1 1/2 hours) the capt. hollars down to the mate and says get the TLD lets see if we can get some live bait...the mate plays with it for 5 or 6 minutes and the capt. tells him to give it to one of us and gives him a look like WTF are you doing...the mate looks around holding the rod out and I go for it...I pick it up and within 15 seconds am hooked up...fat little skipjack...they immediately pull everything in and hook the livey and a frozen up to two of the 130's...we commence to pull that for about two hours...now after I caught a fish everyone wanted the TLD with that little clark spoon...and everyone handed it back to me after goofing off with it for 15/20 minutes...this is no lie...within 30 seconds after it was handed to me I was hooked up again...and it went on like that for the rest of the day...I wound up catching 3 YFT and a Big Eye...all in the 8# range...when it was time to go they switched it back to the single lure spread and we pulled the plastics all the way back to the dock...

what really pissed us off (and I mean everyone onthe boat) was EVERY OTHER BOAT in the area was hooked up...everyone of them...ALL DAY...we watched all these boats catching fish all the way around us ALL DAY...and I don't mean little 8#'ers...I'm talking 50/60#'ers...I asked the capt. why we didn't drop some jigs on a pass or two (after hearing it on the radio which he promptly turned way down)and his comment was it would just turn into a mess...even having one on each corner (two rods at a time) and then switching off...give me a break...we almost get back to the dock (the wife and I had a condo with an outside grill) so I decided (actually I made it known when they were caught they were going back with me)to keep some of those fish to eat...we took one fillet of YFT and one of Big Eye and distributed the rest among the other folks...at least they got a meal out of it...

Come to find out the boat had an evening group of clients coming to fish and it became real clear that they didn't want to have to clean the boat before the last trip of the day...now I had never caught a tuna before and those four are the only ones I have caught to date...but now I have seen what a tuna flopping on deck can do to a boat from the pictures from this site...and realized this is exactly what happened to us...

My advice would be to contact a few of them and ask for references...if they are worth a shit they will give you a ton of them...you have plenty of time...call all of them...nothing worse than being in a 5/6 foot pitching sea with a bunch of pissed off no fish catching men...and a sea-sick wife to boot

On a side note...none of the other boats on Maui looked to have their act together any better...one of them over booked thinking someone wouldn't show...we wound up taking the overbooked guy with us to fill out our 6 people...

I hope this helps and doesn't deter you from going...you really do have a good chance to catch a monster...but we did it as a spur of the moment thing and I didn't research it as well as i should have...damn...how does Capt. Fred Archer type these long messages...my fingers are about to fall off!!!