Kona Report July 23

[reel fool]

IT's been a while since I put up a good report. Lots of time to cover, but I'll keep it brief.

June--3 days on floaters for some decent Mahi Mahi catches. unfortunately, the best day (22 fish between 19 & 38 lbs) was not captured on film. caught a few on some of the state fads too, but those days produce more like 3-6 fish. Caught some nice yellowfin tuna around the buoys too. Included is a pic of one on a jig that I rigged wrong!! This is what happens when you tie to the split ring, instead of the solid ring on a Shimano Butterfly jig. The jig was gone (along with $20 of my $), but we captured the fish. Look closely at how close we came to losing this fish--then it would have been a mystery.
Caught only 1 spearfish this month and had no other confirmed bites.
Had 2 definite striped marlin bites, catching 1 of them. Nice fish.
The blue marlin action continued to improve throughout June, however, we managed to be at the dock for 5 days rebuilding the starboard engine during the better bite. Then 6 more days rebuilding the port engine during the bite that yielded several big fish weighed--between 600 & just over 900 lbs. glad June is behind us, as my log show just 4 confirmed blue marlin bites & ZERO catches.

July--has been a much kinder month. thru July 23, my log shows a total of 35 billfish bites--2 for 4 on shortbill spearfish, and 7 for 26 on blue marlin. oops. few too many misses in there. However, we managed to catch a few during the Kona Rock & Reel tournament & won ourselves some $$. nice bonus to the month, especially after the sh*t we went thru in June with 2 rebuilds. 2 of the releases also came on the same day (2 for 2) while the Captain's partner (co-owner) was in town & spent the day fishing with us. He did a fine job catching both blues.
The Mahi Mahi have definitely made themselves scarce--whether it be the better blue marlin bite, or the hot water offshore, they are not around. The Ahi bite has been ridiculous out of Oahu, but limited here. We did manage to capture 2 nice ones in one day--150 lbs & the 145 lbs Ahi shown with 10 year old Alex who caught a fish close to 2x his weight!! Great day for a new offshore addict.

Fishing continues to be good, with blue marlin biting almost everyday. In 21 days of fishing we have had 4 days with no marlin bites (that's 26 bites on 17 days). The Ahi (hopefully) are finally making their way over here from Oahu & the ono continue to be caught, although we have spent NO time in Ono Alley.

**the pic of the flat day is typical fishing weather in Kona. If you are here, go get one. IF you are not here, get here. Fishing is good.

Catch 'em up.

[shoefish]

Just another day in paradise, eh? That picture of the split ring is really cool. It looks like another few minutes and you would have been going hungry . Thanks for sharing!

[frankypettolina]

Deadbaiter, can you read.... talks about releases in his report.

Lets not get into another bashing thread.

Good going on the catches Jeff, not missing much here at home, bluefins inshore, scattered offshore. Weather sucked most of last week.