Kona Hawaii Fishing Report - June 2022 wrap-up.
It's summer, blue marlin season, and that means tournament season. There have already been a couple of tournaments. The "wee guys" and the Kona Kick Off tournaments are going on right now. The 4th of July weekend will have several overlapping tournaments and a lot of boats. That should relate to a lot of fish caught. The marlin bite right now has been decent and the BIG girls are in town. More lures in the water usually equates to more marlin being caught. There's also been a pretty good spearfish bite going on. In some tournaments, these count, and in others, they don't. Each tournament has its own set of rules. Even if you don't get any points for your spearfish, at least you have some good eating fish for the table.
The ahi bite picked up quite well this month. In most tournaments, ahi count. The night-time small boat guys are catching plenty. The Oahu ahi bite is still on fire! That means there's a lot of ahi on the market. That means the price is down. Not something our fishermen need as the price of fuel and ice continues to skyrocket. The otaru tuna bite slowed down a lot. Not many aku are around either.
The ono bite was pretty good for most of June but it slowed down recently. Since I'm the captain that openly advertises that I routinely cut up fish for my customers, I mostly get people who are looking to eat some fresh fish while they're here. Because of that, I've been mostly targeting (and catching) ono. Sorry, no photos of the fish caught this month. I had a technical glitch and now I don't have any. We still are seeing the occasional mahi mahi flag flying in the harbor.
Since there haven't been any small tunas around, I haven't been doing any bottom fishing. Fresh tuna and mackerel are the key to catching the big game bottom fish. They are picky eaters and believe it or not, even sharks are picky eaters. We have several types of small bottom fish here that don't even get above 2 pounds and sometimes they accidentally hook themselves on my large hook while picking at my tuna. I call them "peckers". Sometimes there are so many of them pecking on my bait it's like being in a school of piranha. Most times, I know when a pecker is stuck on the hook but it does no good to leave it down there. Not even the sharks will eat those peckers.
Go catch some fish,
Capt. Jeff Rogers,
http://fishinkona.com
