Kona Hawaii fishing report – July wrap-up.
The Kona blue marlin bite has been reel good (pun intended). On July 3rd, during the Marlin Magic Tournament a 1043 lb. blue marlin was weighed in to take the tournament win. That made #5 "grander" marlin weighed in worldwide and Kona caught 3 of the 5. That gave us good hope that we stood a good chance of beating out Bermuda in the World Cup Tournament set for the very next day. Bermuda is 6 hours ahead of Kona time zone wise so at the end of their fishing day, we knew we had to beat a 668 lb. marlin for the win. Shortly after we had that information, a good size marlin was caught here but at the scales it was just 8 lbs. shy with a weight of 660 lbs. Other marlin were caught here but none big enough to beat Bermuda. With that, I suppose you could say that Bermuda takes the title of Blue Marlin capital of the world but like I said in last month's report, they catch Atlantic blue marlin and we catch Pacific blue marlin so we get to keep that title. When it comes to "grander" blue marlin, Bermuda has none for this year and last year, Kona had 4 compared to Bermuda's 2. I don't want to be petty though, Congrats to Bermuda for the win.
The ahi tuna bite has been reel good too. Blind strikes are getting more common but the porpoise schools have been producing more bites than "in the blind". The ono bite fluctuated a lot during the month. The current direction and speed effects the near shore fish much more that the off shore fish. This month the current really couldn't make up its mind what it wanted to do and switching back and forth in never good for Kona's fishery. The bite is always best with a north current moving about ½ of a knot. That's the conditions we have right now so the ono bite is back on and more otado tunas have moved in also. Some mahi mahi are being caught and the occasional spearfish is still coming in.
The lousy current situation kept the bottom fish moving all over the place so my regular honey holes weren't doing well at all for most of the month. Now that conditions are back to normal, the bottom fish showed up again in the usual spots and have been a pretty easy target. We recently brought up an amberjack weighing about 130 lbs. That's pretty huge and I could have killed it and weighed it in to take the biggest of the year (currently at 85 lbs.) but this jack came in healthy and released easily. Usually the reel big ones (there's that stupid pun again) get their guts and gills blown out after coming up from about 400 feet deep.
We just had tropical storm Flossie come through the islands. I went fishing for a couple of hours just prior to it hitting and had a marlin on but it wasn't on for long. I've had some kind of bad marlin mojo going on lately but yesterday, the day after Flossie hit us, the curse was finally lifted after losing my last 6 marlin in a row. I got a 393 pounder and it was barely hooked so I was lucky to even get it but being lucky beats being cursed.
See 'ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com