Kona Hawaii fishing report – July wrap-up .
First I`d like to apologize to the many loyal readers of my reports for not doing a June wrap-up anywhere but on my own web site FISHinKONA.com and now even being late with this one. Many of you did go to my web site and found the June wrap-up and I got plenty of emails congratulating me on my new house. Escrow was fast and so was the move so there was just no time to get it out on the web. From writing it to putting it on about 50 web sites takes the better part of a day to do. I always try to get it done as close to the end of the month as I can but the end of July was just too hectic. With that said, here we go:
The marlin bite has been real good. Just in time for the many tournaments that go on here in the summer. One of the most famous tournaments in the world, the Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament (H.I.B.T.) fished this week was a great success. In years past I can remember some teams getting no marlin at all during the 5 day tournament and making claims like "Hawaii is all fished out" and such. This year, each team (37 I think) had several fish on. A total of 86 were caught and only a few were brought in. The biggest marlin boated in the tournament was a 973 pounder caught on 50 lb. test! Kona also maintained its claim as the Pacific blue marlin capital of the world when on July 4th, Kona again won the World Cup Tournament with a 773.5 lb. marlin putting to shame all the other wanna-be contending waters around the world who would like to be known for big and abundant marlin.
The yellowfin tuna (ahi) bite has been really good too. Around the middle of the month there were as many ahi being caught as there were marlin. The size of ‘em is bigger on average than in recent years also. In a normal year there are only a few brought in that tip the scales at over 200 lbs. but this year we've seen many. The spot for biggest of the year has moved up a few times this month and now stands at 240 lbs. That's just the sport caught ones. The night time commercial fishermen have been catching the big ones too but are not reported to the general public.
The ono bite has been slow this year. Some mahi mahi are being caught even though it's not season for them. The otaru are starting to show up now and usually peak in August.
The bottom bite really slowed down as the month progressed. I've been catching a larger number of sharks lately so that may be the reason for the slow down. The current has been playing tricks and on a few days this month, the best bottom fishing grounds were too rough to fish. Summer water in Kona is usually flat calm but we had some unusual winds this month and we've also seen a fair amount of rain. Hopefully August will bring things back to normal. With the economy heading down hill at a fast rate, tourism is suffering here in Hawaii. Reports of unseasonal rain and heavy smoke from the latest volcanic activity haven't helped the situation either. The house I just bought has a beautiful ocean view when the rain and winds wipe the smoke away.
See ‘ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers
FISHinKONA.com