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Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Username: Cap_jeff_rogers
Post Number: 28
Registered: 1-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, October 01, 2006 - 4:30 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – Sept. ’06 wrap-up.
For those loyal readers of the Kona Hawaii fishing report, Sorry that there was no August ’06 wrap-up. I was on vacation for most of August. The beginning of the month wasn’t looking too good anyway and although I did keep in contact with a few of the captains during my vacation, it doesn’t appear that I missed much of a bite during August. Many people ask me “where do you go on vacation if you live in Hawaii”? To visit relatives that do not live in Hawaii of course. People also ask if I fish while on vacation. YEP! I fished almost every day this time. Also got in some white water kayaking, skydiving, flew around my brothers gyrocopter (a lot) and got to fly (with an instructor) a trike (powered hang glider) for the first time. Hey, if you’re not catching big fish in Hawaii, it’s real hard to find anything else that can come close to the thrill!
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So, on to the September wrap-up. I think this is a crack up. I’m sitting here with writers block wondering what I can say about the month. I started wondering about last September so decided to look at last years report. What I found really made me laugh because it’s the same as this year. Here’s a quote from the ’05 report: “Fishing in September is really a gamble in Kona. I was just looking at my September fishing report from last year along with my own catch records from September ’04. What I saw prompted me to go ahead and look at my ’03 and ’02 reports also. I did find somewhat of a pattern. September is a good month for marlin overall but the bite seems to turn on and off throughout the month. Not just a slow down or pick-up. I’m talking` a definite ON / OFF. It also seems to be one of the best months for big marlin. Several 500+ marlin are caught in September and this year proved it again with quite a few big marlin both brought in and many released.” And so the “pattern” continues. I had a shot at one of the big blues just a few days ago but it came off after straightening out the Mustad 12/0 stainless hook.
The 100+ yellowfin bite was pretty good all month long. The porpoise schools holding them have been near shore and easy to find. Usually it’s just the first boats in the school that get bit. The ahi get shy (or wise) after the first bite but there a few captains (not me) here that constantly catch them every time (almost). They pick one or some out of the school even though the rest of the fleet is having no luck. It takes a lot of dedication to keep up with the ahi. They’re fast, smart, have excellent eye site and are picky eaters. That’s where skill and luck separate.
Mahi mahi are a fairly common catch right now followed by just a few ono and spearfish. The mahi mahi seem to be small this year. The bottom bite has been slow this September. As you may have noticed from recent reports, I’ve been doing a lot more jigging lately. Jigs of all size and shapes are now (as of this year) available at the local tackle shops in Kona. I’m also testing some new jigging equipment. I’ve had some good catches with the jigs including a couple of ono recently, the biggest kawakawa I’ve ever seen (made Kona’s “Big Fish List”) and even tried for some of those fast, smart, eagle eye, picky eaters but it seems that only the younger and smaller ones are stupid enough to fall for a jig. I guess the big ones don’t get big for nothin’.
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
Kona Hawaii fishing |
Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
New member
Username: Cap_jeff_rogers
Post Number: 27
Registered: 1-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, July 29, 2006 - 3:58 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – July wrap-up –
As I said last month, the marlin are here. The full moon on the 10th and premium water conditions made for some really good fishing. The Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament, one of the most famous tournaments in the world was held this week. A five day tournament and it got off to a slow start. The week before the tournament started the current was switching and an influx of cold water hit the Kona coast. It shut the bite down to almost nothing. As the week progressed, the current became steadier, the water warmed up and the bite turned back on. Several billfish were tagged and released including many spearfish and striped marlin. There was another “grander” blue marlin (1027 lbs.) caught this week but not by a boat that was in the tournament. I’m not sure how many granders that makes for the year so far but I know of at least five. That’s a big improvement over the past few years.
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The ono were biting pretty good until the current switched. They’ve scattered offshore so most that are being caught are being caught in the deep. Ahi and mahi mahi have also been a fairly common offshore catch for July. Trolling offshore for the day is almost a guarantee of getting hit. Getting them to stick on the hook has been a common complaint. Getting anglers to get one to the boat without loosing them has been a problem I’ve been having lately.
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Jigging has been working better than bait for targeting the bottom. Not many sharks around anymore. Almaco jack and amberjack are the most common jig catch but you never know what else will hit a jig. Ono and snapper were a couple of recent jig catches but the one that really sticks in my head was just a light hit. After the hit, the jig felt heavy but not like there was a fish on it. When I got the jig up I found it snapped in two with the inner wire holding the halves together in the shape of an L. No marks on the jig whatsoever. Whatever hit the jig had a lot of speed and power but it must have missed with it’s mouth. I figure any fish head butting a 12oz. jig at high speed would probably be knocked out cold. I’ll never know what it was but I can imagine it would have been a pretty funny thing to see.
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See ‘ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
Kona Hawaii Sport Fishing |
Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
New member
Username: Cap_jeff_rogers
Post Number: 26
Registered: 1-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 29, 2006 - 4:02 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – June wrap-up -
The marlin have arrived. Blue marlin of all sizes – small to grander. Yes, there was a 1075 pounder caught and there have been reports of other 1000+ marlin fought/lost and one even caught, at the boat floating belly up dead but due to the incompetence of one of the crew, it slowly sank to the bottom with a bunch of shallow gaff holes and one gaff still in it. It was definitely a sad tale to hear and extremely frustrating for the angler and the one experienced crewman who, like many of us has yet to attain that coveted “grander” status. I congratulated the guys that did land that 1075 pounder this month and asked my long time friend Steve “How long did it take you to get it?” His answer “22 years Jeff.” A lot has to go right to subdue an animal that big. Most of the time it just can’t be done and the fish wins. Sometimes the boat wins and on rare occasion, they both loose. Personally, I’ve never even had a decent shot at getting one. I’ll continue to dream of that day though. The spearfish are here in full force and something very strange, the striped marlin came back. Normally a striped marlin caught in the summer is a rare thing here but several are being caught now. For those billfish huggers that are appalled about us killing a few (I almost always get comments from them), lighten up! We release many more than we kill (and eat). Unlike the longliners that kill thousands just to toss them back into the water dead. If you really want to make a difference, do something to shut those guys down instead of wagging your finger at us small time operators.
Ahi season has arrived also. This is the time of year that we get the “blind strike” yellowfin tuna. One of the exciting things about this time of year is that when a reel starts screaming, it could be just about anything on the line. There are still some mahi mahi around and some ono being caught in the deep. Small yellowfin and bigeye tuna on the buoys and those “blind strike” tuna are usually yellowfin over 100 lbs.
Sharks are dominating the depths right now. If you hook up anything other than a shark down there, you better be quick to get it up. Sharks can really move fast but as a general rule, they swim slowly acting like time is on their side. Almost every fish we hook that isn’t a shark will either get attacked right away or will have a shark following it right up to the boat. Slow down your (fast) retrieve rate just a little and your fish (and maybe your jig) is gone. Last month I talked about cheaper jigs. Yes, they work real good and yes, I’ve lost them all + some of the expensive ones to shark attacks. Back to the tackle shop today to get more of those cheap ones and some more hooks. I did some work on my jigging page (FISHinKONA.com/jigging.htm) and illustrate how to tie your own trapper hooks. The cheap jig (lost the last one yesterday to a shark) is in the bottom photo, the jig on the left.
See ‘ya on the water or maybe the tackle shop,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
Kona Hawaii Sport Fishing |
Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Username: Cap_jeff_rogers
Post Number: 25
Registered: 1-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 29, 2006 - 6:05 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – May wrap-up –
The most common billfish being caught right now is spearfish. While good eating, they’re not what the common angler is trying to attain while fishing Kona waters. The coast is loaded with bait schools right now. Aku and shibi popping up out of nowhere and others being marked by bird piles from near shore to beyond the horizon. Now all we need is the blue marlin and ahi to find `em. There have been only a few marlin around and a few “blind strike” ahi catches. There has been a porpoise school outside the harbor and South that has produced some ahi also but with the abundance of bait in the water, when the summer yellowfin & blues do show up, there will be plenty of reason for them to stick around.
Ono are beating out the mahi mahi right now as the most common catch but not by much. Both are in abundance so overall, adding in the spearfish bite, the bite is pretty good. A great opportunity for those looking to take home some fresh island fish or just to have some back at the condo. I cover how to get the fish home on the FAQ page on my web site.
With the trolling bite being what it is, I haven’t been devoting much time to bottom fishing. On days that I have done it though, it’s been a quick and easy bite. The sharks are still abundant as are the amberjacks and almaco jacks. Jigging has been the quickest method for getting a bite but costly when the sharks rob you of not just the fish you’re fighting but your jig, hook and rings for a total about $30 and another trip to the tackle shop. I hear there are some cheaper jigs available in one of our local shops so I’ll be giving those a try when my expensive ones all get eaten. With tying my own trapper hooks now and jigs available for just over $10 (if they work), now I can loose twice as much tackle before I get pissed! Oh, did I say that out loud? My fingers were just typing away and it came out. Hope I’m not violating this forums vulgarity policy. If a moderator thinks it is, please insert “very very very very angry” where that other word is 
See ‘ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
Kona Hawaii Sport Fishing |
Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Username: Cap_jeff_rogers
Post Number: 24
Registered: 1-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 28, 2006 - 6:35 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – April wrap up –
The blue marlin bite remained pretty decent in April. Not as many big ones as last month and the overall total seemed to be less but it’s not even the start of peak blue marlin season yet. If the pre-season numbers and sizes are any indicator of what’s to come this summer, Kona again will prove to be the Pacific Blue Marlin capital of the world. There were even some straggler striped marlins caught this month. The spearfish bite should be at its peak right now but there aren’t many around. They came in early this year so I’m sure we’ll be seeing that bite going hot and cold for the next couple of months for spearfish. .
Mahi mahi tops this months report as the most common catch. We’re right in the middle of the peak spring run on those. Normally the fall season run produces the bigger mahi mahi and the spring season run is the smaller schoolie dolphin. The average size being caught this spring season is pretty big with most weighing over 15 lbs. and the average being close to 20. Ono season is starting off with a bang. We’re just at the beginning of the season for them now. Last year the ono bite started off real good at the beginning of the season but went to almost no ono being caught in the peak season. Because of what happened last year, you won’t be getting any predictions from me on how that bite is going to turn out this year. It’s just a “wait-n-see” on that one. .
The bottom bite has picked up pretty good. Lot’s of big sharks in the area also. After catching and releasing a 120 lb. amberjack earlier this week, we hooked up another close to the same size right after and it was eaten in one quick gulp by one of those big eating machines. Just the day before in the same area, we caught a giant trevally and a tiger shark followed it right up to the boat. All I could say is that it was HUGE! If you’re looking to catch something that’s a lot bigger than you are, Sharks (also known as tax collectors around here) are the guaranteed catch right now. Last month I mentioned jigging and the modifications I’ve made to the Penn 9500. I did get some emails about it so I made a page up on my web site showing the mods and added a really good knot for joining braided line to mono. The URL is FISHinKONA.com/jigging.htm and there will be more info being added as time permits. Because of the sharks in the area, I’ve had to put jigging on hold. As I said last month, those Shimano jigs are expensive. The tax collectors (sharks) cost me way too much this month. Anyone else feel that way in April? .
See ‘ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
Kona Hawaii Sport Fishing |
Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Username: Cap_jeff_rogers
Post Number: 23
Registered: 1-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 30, 2006 - 3:35 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – March wrap-up .
Big billfish top this months fishing report. Kona’s biggest blue, biggest striped marlin, biggest spearfish and biggest sailfish for the year were caught this March. There actually were several big blues caught this month and the biggest was Kona’s first “grander” of the year weighing in at 1,049 lbs. and boated on the Sea Genie II by angler Tommy Werner. Other marlin estimated as granders were also reported as fought and lost this month. While this typically isn’t the time of year known for big billfish, it’s proved many times through the years that a run of big ones can happen anytime. With that, just when we thought the striped marlin season was over, a run on those came in also. The biggest of the year was caught on the Hookele weighing in at 138 lbs. I got my fair share of stripe action too. Although very good eating, I released all of them this month, my biggest estimated at about 120 lbs. I still maintain the biggest stripe of the decade so far weighing in at 186 lbs. Each winter I stand a chance of loosing that claim but so far, so good. The biggest spearfish of the year came in early this month and weighted in at 63 lbs. Sailfish are rare in Hawaii and the boat that caught this years biggest one (so far) at 84 lbs. is even more rare. A 15’ Hobie Power Skiff with a 50 HP. outboard motor. The sailfish jumped into the boat during the fight and landed in the lap of one of the two occupants who was sitting on a bucket. No injury was reported. .
Mahi mahi season has started and though Kona maintained a fair amount of mahi mahi throughout the winter, we should be seeing even more in the months to come. The ono seem to be biting lately also. Small bigeye and yellowfin tuna are still on the buoys and ledges and March even produced some blind strike big yellowfin weighing well over 100 lbs. .
The bottom bite has been slow. The main reason I think is that the baitfish have been rather large this season and the bottom fish running rather small. Sharks and jacks usually run in the 40 to 100+ lb. range but there seems to be a bunch of small ones down there this year. Jigging has been the key to getting ‘em and I’m sure glad that Shimano started promoting the “Butterfly Jig System” in the US recently. I’ve been using the Japanese style jigs for almost 10 years now. The problem was that I could only get good jigs by bumming them from my Japanese jigging clients. In the US, you could get Diamond, Tady and Salas jigs and it was even harder to find them in the size and weight it takes to deep jig the Kona waters. The Shimano jigs work much better by design and are now available at two of our local tackle shops. The jigs are expensive as are the hooks and connecting rings but the price is well worth it. The reels that they promote for jigging are expensive too. Instead of Shimano reels, I’ve been using self-modified Penn 9500 spinning reels and 5’5” spinning rods for years. The trick on the Penn reel is to install a 2nd silent anti-reverse dog and Loc-tite all the screws and nuts. Jigging is really hard on a reel and if you just take a 9500 out of the box and go jigging, it may not even last a single day. I also attach a 2nd handle. By shimming the handles up so they face the same direction, it really balances out the reel and it’s much easier on the arms after a long day of jigging and a lot of fights. If anyone wants more information on my mods, shoot me an email. Jigging isn’t just tough on equipment, it’s also tough on the body. If you really get into this aggressive style of jigging, you’re in for a work-out. When just one arm starts looking like it belongs to Popeye, you may want to take my 2 handle advise. It’s IGFA legal!
See ‘ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
Kona Hawaii fishing |
Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Username: Cap_jeff_rogers
Post Number: 22
Registered: 1-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 12:05 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – Feb. ’06 wrap-up…
The winter season is nearing the end and it`s been a very mild winter so far. This is stormy season for Hawaiian waters but so far we`ve been blessed with flat waters almost all winter. The striped marlin never really came in this season. We had a few spurts of `em but nothing consistent. This make two years in a row of a slim stripie run and that followed three years of really good runs. We know very little about where the Hawaii striped marlin come from and go. Hawaii is such a small dot in the middle of a big ocean that I guess it can easily be passed by. Too bad the striped marlin aren`t more like the Humpback whales with a built in GPS.
Mahi mahi has dominated the winter catch totals and that’s a little odd because when the water gets to be on the cold side (76) they usually aren`t around but we have had a lot of floating debris coming by the island. Nets, ropes, logs and with that stuff is usually mahi mahi no matter what the water temp. Spearfish is running a close 2nd to the mahi mahi catch and there has been blue marlin scattered (as usual) throughout the winter months.
The bottom bite hasn`t been anything spectacular lately but I did catch the biggest amberjack of my career last month. Weighing in at 131 lbs., it`s the biggest amberjack caught since the new state record of 145 lbs. was caught in `02. The amount of sharks hanging around in the main bottom fishing area has lowered and the commercial snapper fishermen are liking that. Myself, I`d rater have some big sharks to fight. If you`re looking for a good battle, my personal experience is that between a marlin and a shark of the same weight, the shark usually fights longer and harder. While a marlin has the potential to be the tougher fight, they usually wear themselves out at the beginning of the battle and are pretty tired by the time you get them to the boat. With sharks, it`s near the boat when anglers need to be on their game and muster all the strength they can to get it to the boat and get the job done. While at leader next to the boat, sharks are usually more gentile and less dangerous than a P.O.`d marlin ……. As long as give up on thinking about getting your hook back.
See ‘ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
Kona Hawaii fishing |
Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Username: Cap_jeff_rogers
Post Number: 21
Registered: 1-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, December 31, 2005 - 4:52 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – Dec. wrap-up.
Better late than never. The striped marlin have finally showed up. They’re running very small this year. Bad if you’re looking for a good fight but great if you’re looking for food fish. Hawaii striped marlin babies make the best sashimi! It’s also great seared on the outside and raw in the middle. Unlike the striped marlin caught off of Southern California and Mexico, Hawaii striped marlin meat is light pink and can even be orange in color. A very light, non-fishy flavor and if they’re less than 40 pounds, very tender also. Mahi mahi and spearfish are still biting along with blue marlin of all sizes. Over all, the trolling bite is slow. The current is going South and that usually slows the fishing here. It should switch back North soon. Shibi (baby yellowfin & bigeye tuna) are on the FAD’s and ledges as is typical in the winter time here.
The humpback whales have started to show up also. While they don’t have any effect on the fishing, it’s an added bonus to see these huge animals. At the beginning of the Hawaii humpback season they’re pretty shy. Having they’re babies and teaching them a few things. Toward the end of winter, they start mating and that’s when they put on the big show. Jumps, tail slaps and fluke waving. I never get tired of seeing these animals play.
The bottom bite is good for pink, red and gray snapper right now. The bigger bottom critters like amberjack, almaco jack, giant trevally and shark are in short supply. I’ve been having good luck catching sharks at the green buoy right in front of the harbor entrance. It couldn’t be kept a secret for long. Other boats saw what I was doing and I also told a couple of guys. Now there’s a lot of competition for the few sharks that hang out there. Several boats are dropping baits at the buoy now in an attempt to make up for the slow trolling action. That makes it harder for me but it also forces to go find a new jack and shark honey hole close to the harbor. A friend of mine just installed a $30,000 forward and side scanning sonar on his boat. He’s very anxious for me to come out and play with it. I’m anxious to go find some spots near the harbor full of fish and not have a bunch of boats hitting my hole.
See ‘ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
Kona Hawaii fishing |
Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Username: Cap_jeff_rogers
Post Number: 20
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, November 28, 2005 - 1:59 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – Nov. ’05 wrap-up :
Well, this month was definitely better than last month. The current has slowed down and the fish are starting to come back. The marlin bite is still slow. The striped marlin haven’t showed up yet but there has been a few blues here and there. My luck with the blues has me singin’ the blues. Up until November I had only lost one lure this year to a big marlin. In November I lost 3 big blues along with 3 big lures. The first one wrapped up in the leader and broke off leaving me just 5 inches of scuffed up leader when I got the line back. A boat near-by said he saw my fish with the lure stuck on the end of its nose. Another was lost with the failure of a professionally made wind-on leader. Another was lost when my crimp at the hook failed. I had a lot of pressure on the fish but it should have held. It seems like many of the boats are having the same kind of luck I am because few marlin catches have been reported this month. The mahi mahi bite is doing well. Most of them are pretty decent size. Mahi mahi tops the list of the most common catch right now. Currently we’re having another flurry of spearfish. The 100+ ahi bite has slowed to near nothing but the babies (shibi) are hanging around the ledges and buoys.
The bottom bite has been tough because the jacks and sharks only want live bait right now. It’s hard to imagine sharks being picky eaters but I’ve seen it with my own eyes. If it’s wigglin’ then it gets bit pretty fast otherwise, you can almost forget about getting a bite. Sharks are pretty much ruling the North grounds right now and with the marlin bite being slow, a greater number of Kona sport fishers are targeting the sharks for some action. Sharks don’t fight anything like a marlin. Marlins usually make those spectacular runs and jumps at the beginning of a fight and typically wear themselves out fast and are pretty easy to get in after that. Sharks on the other hand tend to fight consistently and don’t seem to tire out even on a long fight. Pound for pound, I think a marlin has the potential to fight harder than a shark but usually doesn’t. The shark, while generally looked down upon in the sport fishing world as a good catch, deserves some respect for it’s fighting ability. Even more respect if you’re trying to get your hook back!
See ‘ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
Kona Hawaii fishing |
Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Post Number: 19
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 28, 2005 - 10:58 am: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – October ’05 wrap-up.
Mommy always said “If you don’t have anything good to say then don’t say anything at all.” This is where this report should end but….. I never did do everything my mommy told me. October was one of the worst fishing months ever. The sea conditions weren’t bad, the supply of baitfish has been pretty good although they’re not biting too readily. It’s just been a tough month to find anything bigger than bait fish out there. The marlin bite should still be pretty good this time of year but it’s not. The striped marlin should be coming in soon and there were a couple of ‘em caught recently so we’re waiting to see how that season will pan out. We did see a little flurry of spearfish the first week of October but none after that. A few ono here and there but nothing consistent. The mahi mahi bite is supposed to be happening now and though there are a few being caught, it’s a pretty poor showing for this time of year. The only bite that has been going on with some consistency is a yellowfin tuna bite in a porpoise school down by C buoy. There’s a bunch of boats working that school daily so it’s pretty crowded but there are a few 100+ pounders being pulled up every day.
The bottom bite has been off too. A strong North current has made things difficult along with the bait fish being hard to get. I’ve been using frozen opelu as backup bait but a live mackerel or skipjack just can’t be beat. The current slowed down yesterday and it even looked like it’s trying to switch South. That gave me an opportunity to fish an area that I haven’t fished in a while. I got a 40 lb. amberjack and a 350 lb. shark out of the deal. Just to make mommy happy, here’s something good to say. After a month like this, it can only get better from here.
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
Kona Hawaii fishing |
Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Post Number: 18
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Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 5:03 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – Sept. ’05 wrap-up.
Fishing in September is really a gamble in Kona. I was just looking at my September fishing report from last year along with my own catch records from September ’04. What I saw prompted me to go ahead and look at my ’03 and ’02 reports also. I did find somewhat of a pattern. September is a good month for marlin overall but the bite seems to turn on and off throughout the month. Not just a slow down or pick-up. I’m talking` a definite ON / OFF. It also seems to be one of the best months for big marlin. Several 500+ marlin are caught in September and this year proved it again with quite a few big marlin both brought in and many released. We also got to see Kona`s second “grander” marlin of the year this month weighing in at 1197 lbs. caught on the 5th during a Labor day benefit tournament. So what tides, moon phase, solunar table should you look at before picking the day(s) for your September big marlin trip? I suggest the most scientific method. Stand back and throw a dart at the calendar! The pattern I found is that there is no pattern to this ON / OFF month.
Ahi are still a fairly common catch right now but the bite is quickly turning from a blind strike bite to a porpoise school only bite. The mahi mahi stuck with us all summer with a few here / few there and the season for them is just around the corner so expect the bite on these to pick up real soon. As for ono and spearfish, not too much action on those. Otaru are around feeding on shrimp at the surface but don`t seem to be very interested in any trolling plugs you want to throw at them.
The bottom bite is usually a little slow in the summer. My last bottom fishing trip got me fast hook-ups but I`m not sure the slow season is over yet. Live bait was harder than usual to get this summer and with live bait being the best bait, it definitely had an effect on my summer catch rate. The mackerel finally started showing up and they`re biting so there`s hope that even if the top water bite shuts OFF, we can get a good tug on the line by dropping live bait to the bottom.
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
Kona Hawaii fishing |
Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Post Number: 17
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, July 31, 2005 - 6:55 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – July ‘05
Kona is doing what Kona is famous for. Producing a whole lot of Pacific Blue marlin. The summer is the peak season for blues here and there’s several tournaments going on also. Tournaments make finding the bite and counting the catch results off Kona easier because it’s all broadcasted on the VHF radio. Tournament boats are required to call in their hook-ups, fights, fish landed or tagged so if one particular area has a bunch of fish biting, the information gets out immediately. Under normal circumstances, VHF radio is rarely used to talk to our other fishing friends. We all use cell phones so no one else can listen in so a hot bite in an area can generally go unreported to the majority of the fleet ‘til the end of the day when we’re all lookin’ to see who’s flying the fish flags and the “dock talk” goes around about where the action was. Many of us who tag and release marlin and fillet out our smaller fish don’t even report the event to The Fuel Dock who keeps the best daily catch board of the fish weighed in and also lists tagged fish if the boats report it to them. Their catch board is a good general indicator if the bite is good or slow but it’s always yesterdays news and leaves out the most important piece of information. Where’s the bite? Right now it really doesn’t matter where you go because the marlin are everywhere. There does seem to be a pattern of the bigger ones in close and the smaller ones on the outside though.
While I was on vacation (end of June / beginning of July) I heard that the yellowfin tuna bite got so good that the fish buyers didn’t even want them anymore. Yellowfin isn’t something you would normally release because it’s the highest dollar fish we have here but if there are no buyers….. Yes, I heard that some were released because they were just too hard to get rid of. There are a few mahi mahi around but I guess we should just give up on seeing any kind of an ono run happen this summer.
Because of my vacation I was also only going by hear-say about the bottom bite. I hear that the sharks have been in full force making it hard to catch any of the good eating stuff like snapper or grouper. I’ve done a few drops since I’ve been back and didn’t have too much of a problem hooking up to amberjack, almaco jack, palani and snapper. I only had a couple of shark bites so maybe the main shark population has moved on. I hope not! If it’s a big fish fight you’re looking for, a good size shark can really put an angler to the test!
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
Kona Hawaii fishing |
Capt. Chip Van Mols (Chip)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 01, 2005 - 1:18 pm: | |
Kona Fish Report and news from Rod Bender Sportfishing.
May 31, 2005
This year spring really sprung in Kona with some of the best blue marlin action we’ve had during this time frame in the last few years. Great numbers of 500lb +++ fish too, which is normal for this time of year here but better than average this year! Late March thru May quite often produces the first Grander of the year and this year was no exception. The first near miss came in late April on board the Sundowner and weighed 991.5lb, then another a few weeks later a 968lb on the High Noon. Blue marlin of all sizes continued to bite and then finally on Friday the 20th May it happened, 1132.5lb blue marlin captured aboard the Five Star! There were several 500+lb blues and lots of smaller ones caught that day, it was going off! The very next day it shut down completely but it has come back around to fair bite and will bust loose again any day now. To make things even better this spring was the late arrival of striped marlin which were scattered all over the place and some pretty good numbers of spearfish too. Several big yellowfin tuna have already been caught in the blind and the porpoise schools are starting to hold them well also. Deep water wahoo have also moved in making a nuisance of themselves among our marlin lures with their razor teeth but yes they do eat very nicely! The hardest thing to catch during this period were the charters to get you out there, which is typical of spring here, but for those lucky enough to get out you had the good spots to yourself. Some years it’s big blues or nothing during spring but this year we had it all! I would expect the next grander to come in the next three weeks or so! Stay tuned!
Here’s how we did on the Rod Bender for the few trips we did this past May.
May 2, Full day with Gerry Bailey. We had the hum today and started Gerry off tagging his first marlin ever, a stripey est. 125lb. We then backed that up tagging his first and then second spearfish, both est. 35lb. “sure would be nice to find him a Blue too” and there it was on the long corner tube, whoosh! 15 minutes later Gerry is getting his photo taken with his 500+lb blue marlin alongside the boat for unhooking and release! Grand Slam, and a nice one too!
May 4th, group half day, we tagged two stripeys from a double header. Missed a small blue too.
May 9th, half day with returning angler Barry Barber from Florida. I tried to talk Barry into a full day but he reminded me that when he fished with us 2 years prior he caught a 200 pound and a 600 pound blue both on half day trips so… half day it is. It didn’t take long, about an hour into the morning and my Smash bait on the short corner gets SMASHED and starts doing what it likes to do which is going backward behind large blue marlin at warp speed! Tough fight on this one but 45minutes or so later Barry is checking out his 700+ pound blue marlin beside the boat for release. The set of Hays Hooks I’m testing in that lure really did the trick, test passed, strong as too. We set up and trolled back into the strike zone and promptly caught Barry a spearfish. Set back up again, went about 200 yards, and my long corner tube disappears into a massive hole of white water, YIKES here we go again! Barry’s wife Karen hops into the chair on this one and everything’s going great , all settled down, I’m thinking how weird it would be to catch husband and wife both fish over 600lbs on a half day and the hook pulls. We’ll never know how large that one was but it sure moved an impressive amount of water on the strike and got a lot of string out! Karen then came back with a spearfish of her own! Only in Kona! I suggested Barry try fishing a tournament or two but I can’t find any half day tournaments!
May 11th, holo holo, My daughter Jada and I left the dock about 10:30 or so with my new crew Will for a little shakedown and to see if Jada could up her junior world record a few notches. She jumped off a little blue, caught a stripey est. 120lb and two spearfish to boot. In by 3:30pm, Good Fun!
May 12th, Holo holo, I have big blue marlin fever, they are here, another training day for Will is in order and I bring along Terry to crank. We promptly jumped off a 250 then tagged a 150lb blue. Backed that up with a couple spearfish and finished the day jumping off a blue around 400lb. We tried a legend lures ZEUS teaser off the cleat on the long corner side today and immediately added a shock rubber to the tow rope, It’s going to get smoked!
May 17th, half day with Dan and his wife from North Carolina. We go straight down to my Zone, smack on my first set of marks, and there she is on the long corner tube behind Zeus. What a bite this was! Inside out sideways and did a big slashing 180 degree turn with the lure then launched itself (really high) straight back across the spread, over my long rigger and shotgun and under the short rigger, landing well outside the opposite side of the spread and started smoking. Looked 800+, I about fell off my chair! No tangles either. 50 minutes later Dan is standing alongside a really fat one we’ll call 750+ for the tag and release!
Hey Guys! How about some copies of the boatside photo’s please!
May 21st, Half Day golf superintendents tourney, Big shutdown the day after the grander bite, I was foaming at the mouth in anticipation when we pulled out! 12 boats and one 125lb blue is the only marlin caught. We caught an ono.
May 27th, full day, it’s a new ocean out there and the fish have figured out a new way to feed, 0 for 2 on small blues, 0 for 2 on spearfish and 0 for 2 on wahoo. Rubber hooks!
May 28th, full day, 0 for 2 on small blues again, 0 for 1 on spearfish but we did catch 2 from 3 shots at nice sized deep water wahoo so the boys got plenty of fillet to take home.
It has really started to pick up again over the weekend and a few big ones are starting to show up again! Peak blue marlin and yellowfin tuna season are right around the corner and this next moon should be a lulu. We’re flat out starting the 16th of June thru the 5th of August after which we have a lot of prime open time in August for anyone looking for some summer action. September, also one of my favorite months here, has plenty open time as well. Let’s rock!!!
Good Fishing and Aloha,
Chip
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Rod Bender Sportfishing
bvanmols@rod-bender.com
www.konasportfishingcharters.com
808-960-5954 |
Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 29, 2005 - 7:59 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – May ‘05
The big fish just keep getting bigger! Kona now has it’s first “grander” of the year thanks to the captain, crew and angler of the Five-Star. The blue marlin weighted in at 1,132.5 lbs. There were a few “beasts” caught this month also. A “beast” is a marlin over 500 lbs. and one of those was caught on stand-up tackle!! Not to toot my own horn too loud but yes, it was with me. Kona captains rarely use stand-up tackle for anything but catching baitfish. I’ve been a stand-up fan for a long time now for both bottom fishing and trolling. While I’ve caught several mahi mahi, ono, spearfish and sharks up to 1000+ lbs. on stand-up Penn 30’s (modified) loaded with 100 lb. braided line, the biggest marlins I ever got on these rigs were in the 200 lb. range. Not much of a fight. To top off the difficulty of a 500+ lb. beast, this marlin was also foul hooked in the left shoulder. This gives any fish a better mechanical advantage. Even so, angler Bud Foster got the fish (after it took 600 yards of line out on it’s first run) up to the boat in about 40 minutes. The mechanical advantage the angler had with proper stand-up technique, modern equipment and just pure strength was enough to overpower any advantage that foul hooked marlin had. She was in good shape when we got her to the boat so we decided to just photo and release.
Mahi mahi should be in full swing right now but there is a severe lack of those sweet tasting critters. It’s a good thing the spearfish are biting good right now. The ono bite is picking up real good also so it should be a good season for them. Blind strike ahi are still being caught but not in the numbers that we saw last month.
The bottom bite has been real slow for everything but sharks. Even if it’s not a shark that takes your bait at first, it won’t take long for `em to find what you hooked up and gobble it down. Although I hooked some “beast” sharks this month, we broke leader, line, cable or pulled hook on all of `em. I made 2 new rigs with heavy tri swivels to try to beef up the strength of my bottom fishing rigs but the welds broke! Back to tying knots. Anyone here know a knot that’s stronger than a dropper loop that you can tie using 300 lb. test mono leader????
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
Kona Hawaii fishing |
Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2005 - 4:07 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – April ’05 –
The billfish bite was real good for April. It’s still going strong now. It’s mostly spearfish with blue marlin of every size mixed in. Personally, I’m still having problems getting a decent billfish bite. Here’s an example of the kind of luck I’ve been having lately. I’m up on “the grounds” last week trying to catch live bait. The baitfish are in the area but not biting too well. I finally get a bait bite on the rod that I set and then notice we had a double baitfish hookup but my customer forgot to set the clicker on his reel. His baitfish already had about 2/3 of the Shimano TLD25 emptied. He gets his bait about ½ way back to the boat and then something grabs it and starts running with it. There had been some bottlenose dolphin in the area so I just figured it was one of them. I push the drag up to strike on the 25 lb. test and suddenly a huge blue marlin makes it’s hook up jump behind the boat. Now were hooked to a huge blue with a bait rod! Right about the time I was contemplating turning a chasing it, the line broke. Good thing anyway, we really couldn’t have done much with a fish that size on such light tackle. That marlin (or possibly another huge one) was hooked a little later, a short distance away. Angler Kevin Poynter fishing on the Sundowner with Capt. Darrin Isaacs pulled in what is now Kona’s biggest fish of the year. A 991 ½ pounder. Just shy of that elusive“ grander” victory. Anyone think there was a chance at it on a bait rod with 25 lb. test?
The ahi, mahi mahi, ono, and shibi bite it also good right now. Some of the ahi are getting caught in the porpoise schools but most are getting caught “in the blind”. There’s been some 100+ bigeye tuna getting caught in the blind also. Ono lane is producing many of the ono but they’re also biting in the deep.
With the trolling bite doing good, I’m only spending a small portion of the day bottom fishing lately. If you know where to go, it doesn’t take long to hook up. The middle of April we hooked up to a shark (one of five) that quickly took out over 300 yards of 100 lb. test line with the drag cranked up high. I was backing down the boat hard and it was still taking line fast. I was turning to chase when the leader snapped. I figured it had to be a tiger shark by the way it fought. The next day in the same area, same anglers, we got to see the beast. Estimating it to be every bit of 1000 lbs. I threw a skipjack tuna to it and although it followed it, sniffing it out for some time, it just wouldn’t take the bait. Yesterday, in that same area, another grander tiger (or possibly the same one?) came in trying to eat a 50 lb. amberjack we were hauling in. The water was real flat so we all got a good look at it. No one on the boat wanted to have anything to do with a beast that big. The best angler I had on the boat was still huffin’ and puffin’, out of strength from fighting the amberjack. I’ll be out tomorrow and the next day with an experienced jig fisherman that has fished with me several times over the years. He brings his own tackle and only wants to jig but I’m hoping I can talk him in to going after that tiger with one of my new 2 speed Penn Int. V reels. It’s Penn’s latest model and so far, I’m very impressed with the performance. If we do catch that tiger, you won’t see a picture of it hanging dead at the dock! I get a few of these beasts hooked up every year, It could even be the exact same ones. A photo and release will do just fine.
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
Kona Hawaii fishing |
Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 31, 2005 - 3:45 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – March ’05 -
Kona is having the blues. If I was speaking of blue marlin that would be a good thing but this time I`m not. March was packed with storms, rough seas and few fish. As in last months report, “rubber hook syndrome” is still in effect here with the billfish acting less aggressively than normal. Blues, stripes, spearfish and even some sailfish are being brought in or tagged and released but not in the numbers we`re used to. There were two huge blues caught this month just under the 1000 lb. mark (we think). One of the beasts weighed in at 916 lbs. but the other was lost at sea. One of Kona’s most active boats, the Linda Sue II caught the monster blue out by OTEC buoy and after a 3 ½ hour fight they were on their way back to the harbor.
Ono tops the list as the most common catch right now followed closely by mahi mahi and then spearfish. The shibi are pretty much gone. The baitfish schools are scarce to nonexistent. This should change soon (I hope) as I`ve been marking huge shrimp schools all along the coast at 200 to 300 fathoms. When the baitfishes find these schools, it should start the whole food chain going again.
The bottom bite has been slow but, as usual, it’s the best bet for making sure you don’t come home empty handed. The currents are still inconsistent and there’s no live bait to be had so I’ve been paying retail for fish from the market. One of them I bought called sama, looks very similar to our frigate mackerel (the best bait) so it seemed like the best choice. At a cost of $5 each I bought 10 of them only to find out that the fish (not even sharks) will touch `em. These are strange fish. Even when they get old, they have almost no smell to `em. I guess the old adage still rings true. It’s not the looks but what`s on the inside that counts!
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
Kona Hawaii fishing
|
Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2005 - 5:17 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report Feb. ‘05
The trolling catch in Kona diminished in February from a really good catch in the first part of the month to only a good catch recently. We`re still getting lots of hits but everyone here is having “rubber hook syndrome”. When the fish get less aggressive, they tend to just zip off a little line and then come off. Captains and crews start changing hook sizes, angles, length in the skirts and of course sharpening the hooks to a fine needle point. That helps somewhat but if the fish just won`t hit hard, there`s not much you can do. I had a REALLY HUGE marlin (well over 500 lbs) checking out one of my lures a couple of days ago and even though I teased her with it, she just watched it for a while and then moved on. There are some really big marlin swimming the Kona waters right now. Two monsters were caught this week. The biggest of year is now 923 1/2 lbs. and that same day, another marlin over 700 was caught. Most of the bites in Kona are still coming from spearfish. These guys are really stealthy and have a tendency to grab-let go-grab-let go-grab-let go. They`re really hard to hook when they do that. The striped marlin and mahi mahi are doing the single hit and run thing. If you don’t hook `em on the first hit, chances are that they won`t come back for a second try. Ono are still biting in the deep. Plenty of shibi and otaru still around. The current is pulling North again and appears to be stable. That’s always good for the bite right in front of the harbor and North of the airport.
The bottom bite has been slow because of the recent inconsistent currents. It could also be that the big sharks that were here for the last two months sent the typical reef dwellers running for their lives. The shark activity seems to have shifted to the South and that`s good because the best bottom fishing is a short run North of the harbor.
Tourism here is Kona is going full tilt! All the hotels are full. Many boats going out. This is odd for February but I think I know the reason. The mainland U.S. has been getting slammed with some pretty foul weather. Many mainlanders go to Florida or the Caribbean to escape the nasty weather but because those places are still repairing and cleaning up from all those hurricanes, Hawaii seems like (and is) the better option. The sun is shining, the waters are flat and the fish are biting, biting, biting ….. well as long as they keep biting, sharpen those hooks more, you`re just one hook-up away from the fish of a life time.
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
Kona Hawaii fishing
|
Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 28, 2005 - 10:49 am: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – Jan. wrap-up.
The good trolling bite is still happening in Kona. I could just about copy and paste last months fishing report in here because not much has changed. Mostly spearfish coming in followed by mahi mahi, striped and blue marlin, shibi and otaru but there’s yet another fish to add to the list this month. Ono (wahoo) are normally a summertime fish but we do get small runs from time to time in the winter. Mostly ono like to hang near shore but sometimes they wander the deep. Right now we’re having a deep water ono run.
The bottom bite slowed just a little and most (but not all) of the sharks have moved on. Baitfish along the ledge of the grounds are few between and not readily biting either. Live bait always out shines dead baits when bottom fishing. Two days ago Capt. Rennie Boyd was fishing near me and he called my cell to talk about what was going on. I had just landed an amberjack and it got shark bit on the way up. The Capt. Rennie decided he would switch to shark fishing. He called me later and said that three tiger sharks, each over 1000 lbs. were feeding near his boat. He had one hooked for a while but didn’t get it to the boat. He did catch and release a dusky shark about 400 lbs. though. Yesterday I fished that same area and hooked up one of those 1000 pound tigers. About an hour into the fight the three main gear screws sheared off and jammed the spool tight. I towed the fish around for a couple of minutes and then gunned the boat to break the line. It’s a fairly new reel but a fish like that really puts a strain on the tackle. Our disappointment was short lived. About 15 minutes later, trolling on the way home, we caught a 545 lb. blue marlin plus we already had a rainbow runner for the dinner table caught earlier in the day.
As of the end of 2004, I became the top sportfish catching captain in Kona for the 8th year in a row. Capt. Guy Terwilliger was my closest competitor and my hat’s off to him because he did it mostly by trolling and only some bottom fishing. It was a common site last year to see Capt. Guy flying one or more fish flags nearly every trip. When I talked to him a few weeks ago about his catch percentages, they weren’t very far below mine. A year ago this month I decided to put my money where my mouth was and offer $100 off your full day charter if we didn’t catch at least one fish. My 2004 stats for January were really suffering because I had already missed catching on three days. After making the offer, I only missed two more days the rest of the year. An extra $100 in the pocket sure is a good motivator!
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
Kona Hawaii fishing
|
Captain Chip (Unregistered Guest)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 09, 2005 - 8:31 pm: | |
Kona Fish Report, Jan. 9 ’05, Capt. Chip Van Mols reporting from the ROD BENDER.
The wintertime variety season is upon us here in Kona and I’ll give the coast a fair or medium rating so far this season. We’re still waiting for the bulk of our small striped marlin to show up but the largest concentration of sub 100lb blue marlin I’ve ever experienced has helped fill the gap left by the tardy stripeys. The little blues, 25 to 80lb were particularly thick the last week of December. Spearfish have moved in now and pretty much a daily occurrence with some days seeing them thick as thieves, I’ve seen a few boats come in with 4 spearfish days. Seems like we’ve been averaging 3 or so bites a day from mahi mahi 15 to 35lb so we’ve all been eating well and if you find something floating look out, you’ll catch a bunch. A few thumper blue marlin around as usual just to keep you honest and we got thumped ourselves a couple times since my last report, damnit! Biggest blue so far this year was 670 something and was caught by the MADUSA last week. On the weather front, we’ve been getting our usual weather fronts, thunder, lightning (which is rare), and rain today so I’m happy behind my computer but mostly the days are sunny 80 degrees with moderate to flat calm seas. That’s the way we like it!
Here’s how we did on the Rod Bender since my last report:
Dec. 13th, full day for three mahi mahi
Dec.15th, half day for zip
Dec. 18th, full day. We caught 3 nice mahi’s missed a couple stripeys and a spearfish and got blown away by a 400lb blue marlin on 20lb, Ouch!
Dec.22nd, full day with returning friends Vince and Patty Carr. Pattie caught her first blue marlin! A 90lb model. We also caught three mahi’s for the BBQ and had a few other shots at spears I think.
Dec. 23rd, full day with Graham McCoy and his partner. 1 for 3 on little blues tagging one about 70lb. 2 mahi for the BBQ.
Dec. 24th, Full day with Graham again and we tagged a stripey about 50lb and a spearfish about 30lb. 2 more mahi and we missed a few other shots on various little billfish
Merry Christmas!
Dec. 27th, full day with the Dave Hawkins party. Our party of 5 caught 5 billfish today; everybody got one and our first grandslam of the season too. We tagged 3 blues from 4 shots est. 35lb, 65lb and 80lb. 1 spearfish about 45+lb from 3 shots on them and 1 striped marlin est. 100lb from one shot. Don’t forget the 25lb mahi for the BBQ.
Happy New Year!
Jan 3rd, ½ day with Leslie Steidel and her 2 boys. Leslie caught a nice mahi right out of the gate then our hooks turned to rubber going 0 from 6 shots on spearfish leaving the boys empty handed, we did get one to leader but he fell off out of tag range, sorry boys.
Jan. 4 and 5 we had Ted Wills who came to Kona from the east coast to finish his 10 billfish royal slam with the addition of a shortnose spearfish, day one we accomplished that goal with Ted tagging a 30 pounder and his son catching a couple mahi mahi, one a nice sized bull. Missed a stripey and another spear too. Day two Ted brought his daughter Megan to try for the slam and we started off early with a quick spearfish about 30lb, then a Mahi, a missed strike or two and then HERE SHE COMES, 700lb blue eats the long rigger and we’re off to the races. It all went well chasing her down except the other boat that was in the fish’s path and cut us off, bad luck! It almost jumped in their cockpit, no ones fault, I’m sure they were as shocked as I was pissed. Right after that Megan tagged a blue about 100lb and the search was on for the stripey to fill out the slam but we couldn’t find one.
Jan.7th, half day and we forgot to put quarters in the fish machine before we left, no hits, no runs, no errors! Very slow for everybody today but should start to fire again after this front passes and the current starts moving again.
So there you have it, averaging around 2 billfish per day and still have a shot at monster and get to catch dinner too. When the stripeys show up it’ll be nuts. They’ll rattle you outriggers all day when they arrive! Humpback whales are full speed right now too. The whole tackle stores on board now, we’re just waiting for you to come over and join in the fun. Questions? email bvanmols@rod-bender.com, call 808-960-5954 and have a look at the Rod Bender on www.konasportfishingcharters.com . We’ll both be glad you did!
Tight lines, good fishin and Aloha!
Chip
Capt. Chip Van Mols
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Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 31, 2004 - 4:11 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – Dec. 2004 wrap-up:
The year is ending with an awesome bite going on in Kona. On the top of the catch list is spearfish. It’s not even time for them to show up yet but they`re here in large numbers. They don’t fight very hard but these rare billfish are really cool looking. Kind of like a cross between a sailfish and a marlin with a short nose. They`re also good eating. Most Kona fishermen prefer eating spearfish to mahi mahi or ono. Mahi mahi is the second most common catch but the list goes on ….. Blue marlin and striped marlin are both biting. Most of the blues are small but there`s some big girls swimming around too. The striped marlin aren`t here in big numbers yet but it`s still early in the season. I`m keeping my fingers crossed. To top off the great trolling action is blind strike ahi and otaru. This is usually a bite that happens in the summer. We do get shibi (small yellowfin and bigeye tuna) on the buoys and ledges in the winter but the size of these tuna and the fact that they`re just biting in the blind makes this an unusual month.
The bottom bite has been the best way to get something huge on the line. Lots of big sharks moved in. Tiger, dusky, Galapagos and the usual sandbar sharks are thick as thieves. The Sandbars are up to 100 lbs, the Galapagos are 100 – 400 lbs., the dusky`s are 100 – 600 lbs. and the tigers are 750 - 1000 lbs. The commercial fishermen that fish for snapper this time of year are really mad about the shark invasion. Snapper fetches a good price on the market around new-years eve/day being a traditional Japanese dish. The snapper get chopped before they can get them up. Since I’m into the sport of fishing, I find this shark invasion to be a great opportunity to test the strength and skill of anglers using my modified stand-up tackle. I’ve broken the gimbaled butts of two rods and shattered a fighting belt this month. We got the fish anyway! The belt was a total loss but I’ve already replaced and beefed up the rod butts.
For those regular readers of my report, remember last month I mentioned the bait-stealing bottlenose dolphin? Well, about a week after my last report, I hooked one about 350 lbs. right in the corner of the jaw with a circle hook. My two anglers that day were both too old and weak to handle such a beast so I got to fight the fish (ooops mammal) on stand-up tackle and drive the boat at the same time. It`s this kind of stuff that makes this job so much fun! It adds a whole new dimension to a fight when the thing pulling on the other end of the line has intelligence. Leaping summersaults, long hard runs and circling the boat at high speed but it made one big mistake. About 20 minutes into the fight it decided to go deep and try to cut me off on some rocks. I kept the line straight up & down to prevent getting snagged. It stayed down a little too long and when it came up for air, it was so winded and out of breath that getting it close to the boat to cut the line was pretty easy. For those of you thinking that fighting this dolphin to the boat was cruel, consider what would have happened if I had cut the line while right after it took the bait. Trailing a couple hundred yards of 100 lb. test line, pulling it`s resistance through the water, getting too tired and weak to feed or maybe even getting it`s tail wrapped up in the line. A slow and painful death. Instead, while fishing the same area a couple of days later some bottlenose came by the boat to check things out. While the others swam away, one of them, about 350 lbs. came right up to the boat several times and kept staring at us, checking the people out. Because of it`s unusual fascination with the people standing on the deck, me included, I’m pretty sure it was that same dolphin even though I didn’t see it wearing its fashionable circle hook lip ring.
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Captain Chip (Unregistered Guest)
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Kona Fish Report, Dec.8th 2004, Capt. Chip Van Mols reporting from the Rod Bender.
Yep it’s been awhile since my last report, that’s because there hasn’t been a lot to report on. One of the slower fall seasons we’ve had in the last several years. Things went pretty quite in early Oct. with only the odd small blue marlin around except the last week of that month when a wave 500 to 700lb fish swept past and an occasional mahi mahi started showing up in the blind. I then departed for Australia and a weeks fishing on the Great Barrier Reef, which was outstanding this year! Returned to Kona on the 13th of Nov. to find little change in the fishing here. Plenty of bait in the form of small skipjack tuna getting around on the outside but not much here to eat it. The mahi mahi had increased a little, generally this time of year is the start of the mahi season and bigger individuals will be encountered in the blind and we start keeping an eye out for floaters that may hold schools of them and there has been a few of those. The second half of Nov. did give us a little wave of small blues with the odd 400lb model mixed in to keep you on your toes. Some years November gives us great runs of small to large blues that follow in the juvenal skipjack we have this time of year. You never know about this place, we get great runs of blue marlin whenever they feel like showing up. Now it’s Dec.8th and what most of us are waiting for are our winter runs of striped marlin and spearfish, which can provide great action on light tackle when they get going. Should be any day now we start seeing them, often they’re here already by now but they can wait till the end of Dec. to early Jan. sometimes. Hopefully we get an early Christmas present this year! Or better yet a big run of Blues!
I’ve been on the bench the last couple weeks healing up a hook wound through my left Achilles tendon but here’s how we did on Rod Bender the since my return from down under.
Nov.14, Double half-day group charter for Red Bull. We caught a mahi in the morning and a mahi in the afternoon. We were top boat for the 10-boat group, a bit slow.
Nov.16, Full Day with Scott. All zero’s today.
Nov.18, Full Day with returning anglers Mike and Debby Morris. Mike and Deb usually pop in around this time of year and they’ve seen it hot and cold for a variety of species, catching three blues in one day in Oct. and 5 stripes and couple spearfish in one day during Nov. in the past. We caught a spearfish today to avoid the skunk. Didn’t see much else though.
Nov.20 thru 22, full days with Jon Smyth and friends to try for blue marlin on stand-up gear. Day one we caught 2 or three big skipjack and I think we missed a small blue (could have been a big mahi). Day two we caught 2 mahi mahi 20 to 25lb. and jumped off a 200+ blue on 30lb standup at the end of the day. We also watched a boat hook and catch a 400+ blue right next to us, the only blue for the fleet that day but we know where they are! Day three, we pounded the area and were finally rewarded with a double header on small blues and released them both, 70 pounds each! I said small but they were blues! Another 25lb mahi finished out the day. That’s a bit better.
Nov. 26th, I did a little moonlighting as deckhand today on a friends boat for a ¾ day. I got the spread out on our way to the grounds (the area from last three dayer), got the first angler in the chair for the rundown and bang we’re hooked to a small mahi mahi. The day just kept going like that and by about 11:00 am we have three mahi mahi, three big skipjack and a blue marlin about 130lbs. Just get set up again and we’re hooked to another mahi about 25 pounds, I gaff him (a bit shallow) and go to pin his head in the corner for the hog tie and pops off the gaff and gets me the with the other hook in my ankle. Sorry folks gonna have to make this a half day!
Moral of the story, if you fish double hook rigs when these yellow basturds are around, gaff them good in the head and if they fall of the gaff RUN!!!!! Or fish single hooks. I know very few fisherman here that haven’t been hooked by a mahi like this and if they do it long enough they will get it, it’s not if, it’s WHEN!
OK, it’s variety time here, got the whole tackle store on board the boat; 16lb to 130lb tackle, just waiting to see what shows up tomorrow! Should be striped marlin madness anytime now followed and joined by spearfish and as many blue marlin as want to join in. Throw in a few mahi for BBQ and that’s what you should expect from this place thru March, seems we average about 3 billfish releases per day from now till then and grand slams happen this time of year too! Come and thaw your bones. Questions: email bvanmols@rod-bender.com or call 808-960-5954, I’m always happy to help! www.konasportfishingcharters.com
Tight lines, good fishin and Aloha!
Chip
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Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Kona Hawaii fishing report – Nov. wrap-up.
The mahi mahi bite is still going strong with baby blue marlin pulling in close as the number two bite while out on the open troll. Some bigger marlin are around too but not many. The striped marlin season is close so they should be showing up soon. Along the ledges there’s plenty of bait and some otaru running around. I’ve been live baiting the ledges a lot lately and trying to stay away from the many many many barracuda that have also been cruising the tops of the ledges. They’re notorious bait choppers and are very good at not taking the hook. They’ve even been coming out and nailing me in the deep sometimes. Barracuda are not a common fish here in Kona and I don’t know what brought them here but as long as there’s ample food for ‘em, I guess they’ll be staying. Another pest for the live bait bite has been bottlenose dolphin. They’re also very good at stealing bait and not getting the hook but I did manage to hook one of ‘em recently. Those things sure can pull! Luckily, by giving it some slack line it was able to shake the hook and I didn’t have to deal with it at the boat. I’ve been catching mahi mahi with the live bait too and hoping for some marlin but no luck lately. My last catch (and release) on live bait was a surprise. A Galapagos shark of about 200 lbs. At first I thought I had a marlin on. How disappointing 
The bottom bite hasn’t changed much since last months report. Kind of slow but still producing some kind of a catch. Mostly amberjack, almaco jack, shark and snapper.
I got new toys to play with! As if three boats weren’t enough, I’m adding another one to my line-up. It’s a Stamas 310 center console. You can see the review at http://www.offshoremag.net/reviews/stamas_31tarpon1/index.html
Twin Yanmar inboards and a bow thruster! I’ve got it all geared up now and will be taking it out this Tuesday for the shake down run. I’ll be offering this boat for EXTREAM SPORTFISHING! No fighting chair on this boat, it’s big game stand-up for experienced anglers only. The main tackle is new Penn 50 VSW two speeds (4 of ‘em) on Diawa rods loaded with 1000 yards of 100 lb. test. 750 yards of braided line topped with 250 yards of mono. These new Penn 50’s seem like they can handle the load but if not, the drags are easily modified and beefed up. I’ve been using beefed up Penn 30’s loaded with 100 lb. braid on all my boats for many years. I’ve never found that the tackle was too weak for any fish I’ve hooked up, my biggest being a tiger shark at about 1000 lbs. The problem has always been weak anglers. I’m hoping the Penn 50 two speeds will make it easier on ‘em. I hate anglers that whine :p
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Kona Hawaii fishing report – October
Mahi mahi season is here, right on schedule. That’s amazing considering that fish don’t have calendars or maps along with the fact that historically, they rarely do show up exactly when they are supposed to. I have a fishing season calendar on my web site and above that is the disclaimer that fish, like party guests don't always show up when they should and sometimes they still hang around when they're supposed to leave. So what about the fish other than mahi mahi on that calendar? Typical of that disclaimer, the blue marlin bite should be good and it’s not. Spearfish are still coming in and they shouldn’t be. Where are the bigeye tuna? I guess they got lost. Some yellowfin are still being caught out of the porpoise schools and the ono bite is actually pretty good right now.
The bottom bite should be kickin` into high gear but that bite has slowed down recently. The currents have been switching back and forth this past week so the hunt is on. The old fishin` holes are dried up so it’s a matter of finding where they moved to.
Five and a half years ago I started a tagging program for jacks. Giant trevally (in the jack family), almaco jack and amberjack. The state of Hawaii’s DAR (Dept. of Aquatic Resources) started sponsoring my program shortly after and now there’s taggers on all the islands. Last week I put a tag in my 1000th fish. The news made the local paper and will also be in Sport Fishing magazine. DAR had already published the news of the 1000th tag several months back but that was news to me. My records didn’t reflect 1000 tagged fish. The difference came about because they were counting fish caught that were previously (several hundred of them) tagged. I’ve been re-releasing the fish with the original tag still attached. Recording the information like length and area caught but there was no need to put another tag in `em. So, counting the fish that I actually put a tag in, I finally hit the 1000 mark. This also happened while I was doing a photo shoot/story for a Japanese fishing magazine called Salt World. Lucky me! A cute little Japanese girl got jack #1000 so it’s really her photo that makes the story worth publishing 
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Kona Hawaii fishing report – Sept. wrap-up
The marlin bite really turned on last week and this week. Just about every boat that has been fishing North of the airport and using live bait has been scoring. Most of the marlin are running between 100 and 200 lbs. though a few bigger girls have been hooked and lost (man I’m going to miss that lure). The bite is starting to taper down now. There were still a couple of boats that scored yesterday but nothing like it was earlier this week and last week where you could see several fights going on at once and even more marlin crashing bait schools on the surface. They’re feeding on skipjack tuna but some of those tuna are much bigger than bait size. Some of them that we’ve been catching are over 20 pounds and a lot of fun for the anglers on light tackle.
The bottom bite has been VERY good. The amberjack have been running bigger than normal with most of them in the 50 to 100 lb. range. There’s been no waiting for this bite to happen. As soon as you send one of those tuna (the smaller ones) toward the bottom, you’re hooked up! As many of you know that regularly read my reports, I love the bottom bite. I haven’t seen any big sharks in the area yet but I hook most sharks while bottom fishing. I expect that it won’t take too long for a real big one to come nosing around where all the action has been.
Other fish that have been coming into the docks recently are mahi mahi, ono, spearfish and ahi. Not a lot of ‘em but all really good eating stuff! I’ve been eating plenty of ono lately but what I really have my taste buds set for is some spearfish. I’ve been putting out my best spearfish lure but only seem to be hooking up to ono and small marlin with it. Fun action for my anglers on the stand-up tackle.
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 29, 2004 - 3:55 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – July 29, `04
The marlin bite is pretty good but really scattered. There doesn’t seem to be any particular area that ther`re concentrating in. The fishing grounds to the North have lots of bait size aku and otaru but there`s also been a gang of about 8 bait-stealing bottlenose dolphin (stenos) hanging around and keeping that area limited to trolling only. This same area is the best grounds for bottom fishing and the bottom bite has been good if you can get a bait down. The bottlenose generally don`t go down deep after a meal. With the abundance of bait fish along the ledge, dropping bait has attracted a lot more than your typical trevally, amberjack and almaco jack. Yellowfin tuna have been nailing my baits along with some deep-water ono. There`s also been a fair amount of shark activity in the area.
Yellowfin tuna are also doing they’re typical summertime “blind strikes”. Just trolling around, no particular area or bird/bait activity going on and when the reel goes off, it could just as easily be a yellowfin tuna bite as it could be a marlin. Even more yellowfin have been pulled out of a porpoise school that`s been hanging around far to the South of the harbor. We use the term “porpoise school” to avoid confusion with the term “dolphin fish” but the animals that the tuna are swimming with really aren`t porpoise at all. They`re spotted dolphin (kiko). They won`t steal your bait like the bottlenose will and they put on a great aerial show for the tourists with leaps and spins that just seem to defy gravity.
Just a few more fish to add to the bite list. Spearfish and an occasional mahi mahi in the deep. Shibi on the FAD`s and koa`s. Ono lane is producing some fish but you either need to put in your time or just get lucky to score there.
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Chip Van Mols (Chip)
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Kona Fish Report, July 11 2004 and June too.
Summer is here and time for the computer is scarce but here’s an overview of the what’s been happening.
News Flash!
The first GRANDER blue marlin of the year made it to the scales on July 3rd aboard the charter boat TARA with skipper Shawn Cleaver and mate Mike Shimimoto, official weight 1006 pounds. The fish was foul hooked square in the middle of the back and was dragged sideways from depths, stiff as a board, after a 5-hour battle, OUCH!!! Congrads to the boys and their party!!!
Kona’s biggest fish for the 4th of July World Cup tourney was 701lb blue caught aboard the HoloHolo by Capt. Scott Pruner , nice fish but not big enough to beat the 1189 in Bermuda this year but it did win the Kona Cup and also the Firecracker Open and fetched the boys on Holo Holo over $100,000.00. More congrads!
This weekend the Marlin Skins tourney is in progress with day ones Skin taken by a 710 blue aboard the Game Boat and day two taken by a 680 aboard the Anxious. 25 boats still out there today competing for the final skin, 500lb minimum weight to qualify for a skin.
Blue marlin and Yellowfin tuna are the mainstay of our summertime fishery here and they are both present fair numbers this year. Also hanging around over the edge have been short nosed spearfish and the odd wahoo.
Here’s how we did on the ROD BENDER since the first of June:
June 2nd, half day all zero’s
June 7th, full day holoholo with my daughter Jada and one of her soccer mates Chelsea Possamonti. A wave of small blues had arrived and were biting right in front the harbor. Chelsea caught her first blue ever tagging one about 150lbs, 1 from 3 shots, and Jada caught a 30lb spearfish from 2 raised. GOOD FUN!
June 9th, double half days. We tagged 1 spearfish from 2 bites and went 0 for 3 on small blues.
June 10, afternoon half day. They were waiting for us right in front of the harbor, we went 2 for 3 tagging 150 and 200lb blues, only in Kona!
June 11th, ¾ holoholo with Jada. 0 for 1 on blues.
June 21st, full day with Dale Ransier and his party. We had the humm today tagging 3 blues from 7 raised, 140-250lb and an est. 30lb spearfish. Funny, I hadn’t been out in over a week and I had heard it was a bit slow all over but everywhere we went there they were! Ignorance is bliss sometimes.
June 23rd, full day with Dale, We went to all the same areas today and no takers for us until 4:00 we scored a 119lb Ahi on the shot gun and backed it up with 125 ahi immediately after that. Talk about a mercy bite!
June 24, full day with Dale and co. again. 1 for 2 on blues tagging an 180lber.
June 25, full day with Nick Cortezi and his gang. We caught 1 small ono, lost a 150lb blue right behind the boat and also lost a spearfish. The moon and tides are perfect but the current (most important factor) is slack, fish are scattered.
June 27-July 4th, Henry Potts and his Party for 8 days of slow fishing, we couldn’t get rolling on this trip. The marlin and ahi were still scattered and we had 6 or 7 marlin up for the trip only tagging 2 at 180 and 250lb and caught 1 spearfish from 5 raised, a 40lb ono and a 40lb cow mahi mahi. Not what I had in mind for 8 days over the full moon, sorry guys! There were some nice blues to 800+ caught during this period but …
July5th, full day with the returning Cortezi party. Nick tagged his first blue est. 275lbs after a biteless morning and shortly after we encountered a double header on sailfish releasing one about 50lb. That was my second sailfish in Kona over the last 20 years, yep they’re rare here! We went looking for a spearfish to complete the slam but no dice, good day though!
July 6th, full day with Daniel Davis and Anna. Anna did great job on her first blue marlin, tagging an est. 250lb and Daniel caught an ahi of 100lb gilled and gutted. 1 for three on blues, we jumped off a couple smaller ones. The Ahi was caught in a huge porpoise school we had all to ourselves, I thought we were going to sink the boat with them but we’ll take the one!
July 7th, ¾ day with another Daniel and Peter who I recognized and we figured out that he went to school with my sister in-law, small world! Peter started out the morning a 160 ahi, his first ever and Dan caught a spearfish, no marlin bites today but a good day all the same!
July9th, afternoon half day for no bites. Oops. There was fair bite in the morning and the afternoon bite was a bit out of our half-day range.
When we finally get our good current happening this place will go mental!! Still pretty fair fishing except our little 8 day backslide up there and you’re only one bite away from grander any day you wet a line here! We’re due! We have a few days off this week then it’s straight thru till Sept.3rd. I won’t be surprised if this summer the fishing continues right thru September, it was killer last year and after labor day you have all the grounds and fish pretty much to yourself. I’ll bet it really goes off here any day now, should be a good summer! Questions? bvanmols@rod-bender.com, or call 808-960-5954. I’m always happy to help!
Good fishin, tight lines and ALOHA!
Capt. Chip Van Mols
ROD BENDER Sportfishing
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Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 - 2:52 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – June ‘04
I’ve grown accustomed to keeping my eye on the fish flags flying in the harbor and looking at the catch report board at the charter desk and keep up on how the Kona bite is doing. I also talk to several guys while I’m out fishing to see what’s going on. Things just weren’t matching up? Not very many flags have been flying in the harbor and the guys I’ve been talking too haven’t been having much luck lately either, yet; the charter desk catch board listings have been fairly full with marlin, yellowfin tuna, mahi mahi, ono, spearfish and more. Knowing that it was about the end of the month and time to write the Kona fishing report, I was trying to figure it out. I think I got it. It’s summer! There’s a lot more boats going out including a lot of private boaters. Even though the bite is kind of tough out there, the sheer number of boats going out and reporting their catch is keeping the catch board pretty full. Normally when the bite is good, the few of us that stay busy year-round end up flying multiple flags. What I am seeing now is actually a fair amount of flags flying but they’re just spread out among more boats. In conclusion, the bite is pretty good. There’s just a lot more competition out there.
Most of the marlin coming in this month were under 200 lbs. but lately there have been a few bigger ones. I’ve had a few marlin shots lately but haven’t been able to get ‘em to the boat. The biggest yellowfin of the year was caught last Sunday and topped the scales at 216 lbs. The ono run has been hot this month but has slacked off a little bit lately. I went to the bottom for some action yesterday and got bit quick. An amberjack at about 95 lbs. and a giant trevally at about 35 lbs. Both tagged and released. Summer usually isn’t the best time for the bottom but, there’s a lot less competition for bottom fish. It beats getting skunked!
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, May 31, 2004 - 1:06 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – May 31, 2004
The month of May started off kind of slow with the majority of catches being mahi mahi, ono and spearfish and then, WOW! The marlin moved in after the new moon and almost every boat that was out was raising at least one marlin during the day. My best day was on the 27th when we raised 3 marlin. We hooked one of `em and landed it. A 447 pounder. On the 26th we tagged and released a black marlin that would have been the biggest black of the year in Kona at about 275 pounds but we decided to let it go. We did get some nice photos of it though. Still no grander (1000+ lb.) marlin caught this year but it should happen soon. The biggest marlin caught in May was a 960 pounder. That`s a lot of fish but it doesn`t get the prestige that a “grander” brings.
The ahi (yellowfin tuna) are here with a wide variety of sizes. There`s 3 to 20 pounders on the FAD`s, and there`s 30 to 200 pounders just roaming around. I heard a rumor that a 200 pounder had been caught but it turned out to be false. Just like the “grander” is the mark to hit with marlin, 200 lbs. is the mark to hit with yellowfin.
Last month I made Kona`s “Big Fish List” with an amberjack and a barracuda. This month I made the list again with gray snapper ….. twice! Got a bigger one a week later. The bottom bite has been pretty good so I’ll continue to take at least part of my day (on most trips) to see if we can find something bigger off the bottom. Being on the big fish list gets your name in the local paper each week. Had I killed the black marlin mentioned above, I would now have 4 slots on Kona`s big fish list but, I’m only feeling slightly bad that I didn’t kill it. The main reason I tagged and released it wasn`t for study, conservation or any reason other than the fish wholesalers are just too loaded up with marlin meat right now. I called them from the boat while we were still fighting the fish and they really didn`t want it. I told them that if the marlin was not seriously wounded that I would let it go but if it was eyeball hooked or otherwise mortally wounded they would be seeing me at the scales. The marlin was very healthy and easily released. The 447 pound blue we caught the next day wasn`t so lucky.
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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alexbrittin (Unregistered Guest)
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Looking for private or semi-private deep sea fishing charter for my son and me. Staying Kona. Dates Aug. 30, 31, Sept. 1, 2. alt. email ambrittin@aol.com |
captain chip (Unregistered Guest)
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Kona Fish Report
Capt. Chip Van Mols reporting from the ROD BENDER, May 14, 2004.
Yes, yes, I know, it’s been a while! Been suffering from a combo of writers block and bunch of other stuff. I’m a fisherman ya know! SORRY! We’re going to try and get back on the track of a once monthly report from here on out.
A brief overview of the past few 3 months or so would be that our striped marlin run petered out early this year when they disappeared around the first week of Feb. taking most the spearfish with them. What they left behind was pretty darn good winter bite on blue marlin, most of which were pretty large (500+). February, March and April all saw there days and weeks when there would be a handful per day caught over 500lb and there was a week in early April that at least one fish over 700 was caught every day. There have been very few days this whole year that one over 500 hasn’t come in. Two 900+ and several 800+ have already come in this year as well. No granders yet for Kona but there have been a few encounters from brief to as long as 17 hours with blues that were estimated over 1000 pound mark. One of the more interesting encounters was week before last and involved and angler happily cranking in his first ever spearfish when a submarine with a bill on it swam up and ate the 6 foot long mini marlin whole! They stayed attached to the giant marlin for thirty minutes before they pulled the hooks and the marlin swam off licking her chops with the spearfish lunch! Another charter boat in April caught a 780lb blue that had a big bleeding gash in its forehead just below the dorsal fin. Upon closer inspection the skipper noticed something white and hard stuck inside the gash and it was bleeding too. He grabbed on to end of it with pliers and pulled out the whole top jaw and short bill of another unfortunate spearfish! Maybe that’s why the bulk of the small striped marlin and spearfish said adios last Feb., hummmm? It only took me one ZING POW on 30lb. in mid Feb. to realize that our supposed light tackle season was over a month or so early this year! While it’s still not summertime numbers for the blues here yet there are more smaller and midsize ones showing up now along with the big ones so things are looking good for summer.
Mahi Mahi 20 pounds and up have been around for ever now and I’m getting tired of eating the stuff, be nice to run over a grain fed steer once in awhile! Mahi are mostly singles in the blind but there has been some great floaters with huge numbers of them this past month and some of the FAD’s have been producing as well on and off all winter and spring.
Yellowfin tuna 100+ pounds have been in the porpoise all year and recently a few are getting caught in the blind as well. Summers coming!
Wahoo (ono mostly small but a few 40+) are here in varied quantities from week to week and skirt sales at the tackle shops are great. Mostly around 40 fathoms but you better watch out for floating debris out in the deep too.
Spearfish have been coming and going in small waves but not the numbers we’re used to for this time of year.
Striped marlin, there’s still the odd one around mostly 60 to 75 pounds but like I said their numbers were low this season
From here on out it should just get better and better, yeehaa! We still have plenty of time in June, my mid July (absolute prime for big tuna and blue marlin) is wide open and my September (our best month 2003, 22 days 28 blues) is completely empty after the 3rd. The charter prices are cheapest in the world, we speak English (well we try!), you can eat the food and drink the water without getting sick, the seas are calm and you can’t beat the weather. All right here in the USA. Our water temp is up to 81 degrees and there is lots of bait currently starting to move in from the outside, should bust loose any day now! Looks like it’s going to be another banner year and hope you can join in on the fun with us!
Until then, good fishin, tight lines and Aloha!
Capt. Chip Van Mols
ROD BENDER SPORTFISHING
www.konasportfishingcharters.com
bvanmols@rod-bender.com
808-960-5954
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Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Post Number: 4
Registered: 1-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 29, 2004 - 6:53 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – April 2004
Big blue marlin (500+) were here in the middle of April. Many of us were expecting this years first “grander” (1000+) marlin to be caught but, all the granders hooked up (there were a few) were able to win their fights. Just for the record, most big marlin with the fight. I only hooked into one big one about 600 lbs. during the run and broke line on it about an hour into the fight. The big mama’s are no longer around and only a few small ones are being caught. The trolling bite overall is still pretty good though. Lots of mahi mahi, ono and spearfish were caught this month. The ono run has stopped but there’s still plenty of mahi mahi and spearfish to go around. Both are excellent eating and can be a lot of fun to catch if your captain is running light tackle.
The bottom fishing bite is back in full swing. The bite is still mostly amberjack, almaco jacks and sharks but the snapper have been biting too. Gray snapper is pretty abundant right now if you know where the holes are. Last week we got a big amberjack and though we tried to release it, the fish just wouldn’t swim down and soon died so we took it to the scales. It weighed in at 85 lbs. and has now taken its place as Kona’s biggest amberjack of the year. Just a few days ago we caught another fish that made Kona’s “Big Fish List”. While dropping bait toward the bottom, a barracuda swimming mid-water grabbed it. The fight was short but what an impressive looking fish. This big toothed critter topped the scales at 43.5 lbs. edging out a 41.5 pounder caught just the week before. Barracuda are generally not an abundant fish here but this year I’ve already heard of several being caught. Both amberjack and barracuda are not consumed in Hawaii due to the high risk of contracting ciguatera poisoning. There’s a good web site about this at www.cigua.com
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Post Number: 3
Registered: 1-2004
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Votes: 2 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - 5:23 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – March 30, 2004
Spearfish and mahi mahi tops the catch list for March. If you were out looking for food fish instead of sportfish, this was a great month. The marlin bite was very erratic. Blue marlin topped the list this month when it’s the stripped marlin that should be in season. Very few striped marlin were caught in March and the blue marlin bite was real good about the middle of the month but has since diminished to almost none. I mentioned last month that I had busted out my big tackle again because some big marlin were starting come in but I went back to running mostly light stand-up tackle shortly after writing last months report. Ono (another good eating fish) started biting about a week ago but don’t get your taste buds excited yet. Small flurries of ono often happen in the off-season and hardly ever last for more than a week or two.
The bottom bite has continued to be the excitement of most trips. Amberjacks and almaco jacks in the 20 to 40 pound range (smaller than average) and a load of shark attacks. Mostly we’ve been seeing small (60 – 100 lbs.) sandbar sharks but we got a good show from a 500 lb. tiger shark just yesterday when it followed up a big amberjack and bit it in half right behind the boat. We played with it for about 15 minutes, teasing it and taking many photos of it eating the remainder of the meal. I have to admit; playing with the big sharks like this has become the most exciting thing about fishing for me. Huge, beautiful animals, not hooked so they tend to be more bold than scared. Anyone for a swim?
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Username: Cap_jeff_rogers
Post Number: 2
Registered: 1-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 1:41 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – Feb. 28th, 2004
Winter’s not over but the marlins don’t know it. The striped marlin are basically gone and the big blue marlin have moved in. A few nice size ones topping the 500 lb. mark and several in the 150 to 250 range have been coming in this month. I got all of my 130 rods back out and sized up my lures but I haven’t had a whole lot of action from the big ones since I’ve done that. The spearfish bite is still good and the mahi mahi bite, although fluctuating a lot is remaining pretty strong for winter.
A few ono are starting to show up out in the deep.
Shibi size ahi are being caught in the koa’s by the handline commercial guys and a few big ahi are coming in by the guys using green sticks in the porpoise schools.
The bottom bite is finally good again. It was March of last year that it got real hard to find the bottom fish. I don’t know where they’ve been on vacation for the past year but it’s good to have ‘em back. The 30 to 60 lb. jacks are taking the baits as soon as they get near the bottom and yes, sizing down my circle hooks did increased my hook-up ratio. There have also been a lot of sharks around. The sandbar sharks are a good challenge for most anglers with an average of about 75 lbs. and we’ve also had some fights with tiger sharks, dusky sharks and bronze whalers in the 300 to 500 lb. range. If they take just a bite out of a fish we’re bringing up, then they will usually follow it all the way up to the boat. Then the fun really starts. I tease them right up near boat and let them finish eating. WHAT A SHOW! I hope to get some videos of that up on my web site soon.
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Jeff Rogers (Cap_jeff_rogers)
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Username: Cap_jeff_rogers
Post Number: 1
Registered: 1-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 30, 2004 - 4:44 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – January 30th 2004
The bite remains pretty much as it was in my report from last month. A good mix of striped marlin, blue marlin of all sizes, spearfish and a smattering of mahi mahi but very “spotty” as far as area goes. I also said last month that “It’s only a matter of time `til a big blue eats one of my small lures” and that happened earlier this week. A 211-½ lb. blue marlin ate a small lure attached to one of my Penn 30 stand-up rigs. Although my angler, Ken Williams had very little saltwater experience he did a great job angling it. Picking your lure size and tackle doesn’t ensure the fish will cooperate with your choice. Last week I caught a small mahi mahi on the biggest lure I own, attached to 130 tackle. Not much fight there. Still, the average fish being caught now is small (by Kona standards) so I’ll continue to run mostly light stand-up tackle with at least one 130 lb. rig out in hopes that if a grander (1000 lb. +) comes by, it will take the big lure and not one of the peanuts.
I’ve been getting a fair amount of action on the bottom lately but not getting good solid hook-ups. I changed circle hook size and style (bigger/fatter) a while back because I got a good price on ‘em but I’m thinking that it’s contributing to the large number of misses. Cheaper hooks get to be pretty expensive when you find that they’re costing you fish.
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Chip (Unregistered Guest)
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 29, 2004 - 10:43 am: | |
Kona Roundup for Jan. 2004
Good wintertime action continues along the Kona coast! We are experiencing the best winter run of blue marlin of all sizes that we’ve had for several years, seems like we’re catching a blue every other trip or so, which is great for this time of year. They seem to be mostly around the 150 to 250lb range but there have been some big ones around as well with the biggest of the year so far weighing in at 966 lbs caught by a visiting 45’ CABO from Honolulu last week. A few days before the 966 one of Kona’s most seasoned veterans fought a monster estimated way over the 1000lb mark for a few hours before the line parted while trying to plane up the fish, brand new 130lb test. Two blues over 500 were reported caught yesterday and on our last trip this past Sunday we had a 700+ take our long corner for a rather lengthy ride backwards at warp speed before tossing the hooks! More good news is that our striped marlin run this winter is here and while not in best numbers of recent years the average size is way up from 25 to 40lb last year to 65 to 90lb this year, more than makes up for the numbers in my opinion. Short nosed spearfish are here in good numbers and week before last we had a real push of them here where I saw several boats coming in with 3 and 4 tag flags for them. Most my recent trips we seem to raise 2 or 3 spears a day. Add a mahi mahi here and there and you have our typical Kona wintertime variety package that makes for good fun fishing. It’s billfish grand slam time.
Here’s how we did on the ROD BENDER this January.
Dec. 31st, returning anglers/friends and promoters of the Pompano Beach Fishing Rodeo, Vince and Patti Carr for a full day. My notes aren’t very clear for this day but I do know we released a spearfish and boated a fat mahi mahi for the BBQ. I also remember that on our way back out over the drop off after catching the mahi we hooked a very nice sized blue marlin estimated 500-600lb which managed to fall off the hooks after about 10 or 15 minutes battle, gave us a great show while it lasted though. I seem to remember some other rubber hooks that day as well. That’s fishin and we weren’t empty handed. Nice folks, nice day!
Jan. 1st, my daughter Jada and I went out for a full day to defend our title in the NYD tourney. Our striped marlin took fourth in the biggest fish category and our mahi mahi missed the biggest in its category by 2lbs. 2 bites 2 fish and you can’t beat the company! We did have a rather lengthy ride home in 30-40knot south winds and 10 ft seas that appeared out of nowhere around 2:00. I thought it was always flat in Kona!
Jan.6th, Full day with Curt Kradoifer and friends. We went 3 for 3 today tagging a 200lb blue marlin and 2 striped marlin est. 80 and 35lbs. Couldn’t find mister spearfish for the slam, but we tried!
Jan.8th, ½ day with Fred (sorry I forgot your last name) and his daughter Morgan. My karma ran over my dogma! 0 for 5 missing 1 blue, 3 spearfish and 1 striped marlin. That one hurt, but Fred used to guide salmon charters in B.C. and was very understanding. It still irks me though! MEMO TO MYSELF: Must switch from rubber to steel hooks, PRONTO!
Jan.9th, all I can say about this day is I’m glad they are few and far between. Four drunk, chain smoking lads in their late forties, smelled like an old, dirty ash trey with a mean hangover, you could tell a couple of them hadn’t slept and one of the early comments I heard from the bridge was “That’s not the way Pedro does it Cabo!” Never raised a billfish, which is probably a good thing cause with 4 open glass Heineken bottles and 4-lit smokes it could have been a disaster but did manage a mahi mahi without incident. ALOHA OI
Sorry for the rant
Jan.10th. Fredster came back to get even with the fish he missed the day before the drunks and HE DID! I think we hooked everything that bit today, well we may have missed one or two. In the morning Fred released his first striped marlin est. 80lb. and then boated a nice mahi mahi, then another stripy est. 70lb and later one about 90lb, all on 30lb test. The icing on the cake was an est. 180lb blue marlin on 30lb at the end of the day. We got great photos of Fred standing over all his fish at boat side, which I promise I’ll get to you Fred. Tagged 1 blue, 3 nice stripeys and boated a mahi for BBQ. Fun day! Couldn’t find the spearfish for the slam though.
Jan. 11th, full day with O.D. Soles and we found them again, releasing two spearfish and two striped marlin in the 70 to 80lb range, couldn’t find the blue for the slam today!
Jan. 18th, ½ day with John Klasner and friends, great boat ride but I couldn’t find the fish, oops.
Jan. 20th, holo holo with some friend over for a wedding. It wasn’t looking good for our wedding party till shortly after seeing a bunch of bananas floating back in our wake around 2:00 we hooked and caught an est. 125lb blue marlin followed shortly after by a spearfish est.40lb, we missed a shot at a stripey and called it great end to good day. Turned around a skunk into a two billfish day in the last hour.
Jan. 22nd, full day with Tom and Nancy Rice. Grand slam! Tagged 2 spearfish 30-40lb, tagged 2 striped marlin 70-80lb, tagged 1 blue marlin est.150lb and boated a 20lb mahi for the BBQ. Good action as we missed a few other shots besides the ones we caught. We caught our blue and last striped marlin back to back just before the high tide at 4:30pm while all the other boats were in there slips washing down, it pays to pay attention!
Jan.25th, holo holo full day, 0 for 2 on blues, dropping a 150lber at the back of the boat and dropping a 700lb+ after a screamer of a run (hair rises on back of neck now). 0 for 2 on spearfish, damn rubber hooks slipped back out there. Finally on our last pass in a zone out wide I had been pounding we lucked out on an est. 75lb stripey, day saver!
Well there you have it, averaging 2 or three billfish per day and I’ve been eating fresh mahi for dinner a lot. February is usually the peak of our wintertime season and it’s looking real good for this year. We have been getting a few of our wintertime fronts passing thru but for the most part it’s been sunny days around 80 degrees and calm seas to go along with the good fishing! Some BEEEG buggers getting around too so you better hang on to your knickers when she comes a knockin! Grandeur can and does happen anytime in Kona. Wish I was fishing every day, don’t you? If you dial 808-960-5954 we can make it happen.
Tight lines, good fishin and ALOHA!
Chip
Capt. Chip Van Mols
ROD BENDER Sportfishing
bvanmols@rod-bender.com
www.konasportfishingcharters.com
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Captain Chip (Unregistered Guest)
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Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, December 26, 2003 - 5:29 pm: | |
Kona Fish Report for December and 2003 wrap up for the ROD BENDER
Continued fair fishing since my last report. The numbers of striped marlin and spearfish have increased a little but they still aren’t at full swing. Most boats are getting a few shots a day from both species. Blue marlin are still here in fair numbers which is good to see, 100 to 300 lbs seems to be average the last three weeks or so. Not much floating debris coming through yet to hold schools of mahi mahi but we’re getting the odd single or double strike in the blind from nice sized mahi to 45lbs. Still a few big yellowfin tuna around in the porpoise school, 100 to 170lbs, the trick is to find a school by yourself and dropping a live skipjack in front of them. Trolling a mixed spread of lures from large to small has been the most productive for all the other species and I have seen a few days this past week where many boats came in with multiple captures of billfish. The Chiripa leads the pack so far this season with the first grand slam of winter, 1 blue, 2 stripeys and 1 spearfish last Friday the19th, they also had a mahi mahi for BBQ. New moon was the 23rd I would expect to see a lot of slams the next few weeks during the building side of the moon. January thru the first half of March are usually the best for the numbers game on billfish here.
Here’s how we did on the Rod Bender for the few times we were out this December.
14th, full day with Dan Perry and his son Justin. No hits, no runs no errors, oops
15th thru the 17th with Roger Trunsdale and his son Mathew. Day 1 we started of with a double strike on striped marlin missing 100lber and tagging a 40lber right in front of the harbor while setting the lures. We went one from three on blue marlin tagging a small one about 50lb, we missed one around 150lb on the strike and pulled hooks on one about 300lb after 5 minutes in the chair. We went 1 for 2 on a double strike of Mahi, boating one about 25lb and losing her boy friend that looked 40+. We missed a few spearfish strikes as well. Not happy with my hookup ratio today but happy we caught the ones we did.
Day 2, one strike one fish, tagged a 30lb spearfish. Mercy bite while clearing the lures in front the harbor. Better hookup ratio, not enough strikes though!
Day 3, wind 30 knots out of the north! There was a lee south of the harbor but went strikeless there. We caught plenty of salt!
21st, Holo Holo with my daughters for a ¾ day, we found a 30lb mahi outside our airport for the BBQ, Jada did the honors as her little sister was sleeping. We later happened upon a big porpoise school and the first pass on them confirmed the presence of big Yellowfin tuna as I looked at our recorder and saw numerous marks down below us at 30 to 40 fathoms, then off went the shotgun lure with a the typical scream of a tunas first run. After clearing all the gear I noticed that the line was up on the surface and we had a half a spool out on the 50 rig and it was still going at a fair pace, humm, must be a marlin, could be a big one too! Wrong, 45 minutes later we successfully released a common spotted dolphin that had lassoed itself (hook back around the leader) by the tail. *%#@*%#@!!! Nobody got hurt, although the porpoise was tired, we got our lure back. No sashimi but BBQ Mahi will do.
23rd, full day with Larry Speak and friends. Guess we weren’t holding our mouths right today as there was a pretty good bite from blues, stripes and spears today. We pulled hook on a stripey, missed a spearfish strike and another mystery bite. Oops
2003 wrap up for the ROD BENDER.
We fished 125 days:
Half day (aprox. 5 hours) = 15
¾ day (7 hours) = 16
Full days (9+ hours) = 94
BLUE MARLIN captures 72, 5 weighed the rest released, 8 est. over 500lbs. Largest est.700lb.
Striped Marlin captures 37, 2 taken the rest released.
Short Nose Spearfish captures 39, 7 taken for the BBQ the rest released.
Ahi ( yellowfin tuna 100lb+) 16, biggest 192.5
Sorry I don’t keep accurate numbers on Mahi, wahoo, smaller tuna etc…
A few High points of the year 2003 would include:
Jan 1st. My daughter Jada angled and landed to IGFA rules a 514 pound blue marlin. Winning the New Years Day tournament ($4600.000) and earning a Junior Girls IGFA world record!
Jan.31st. My owner, Henry Potts and his friend and first time angler, Don Maulsby, teamed up on Rod Bender to tag and release 7 striped marlin and 2 spearfish this day trolling 30, 20, 16 and 12-pound tackle. Most stripeys caught in a day for the fleet. Most billfish released in a day for the state. We also caught few 25lb yellowfin, 20lb mahi and 20lb skipjack. Fishy day!
Feb.6th. Another fishy day! Tagged 6 stripeys, tagged 1 spearfish, boated 12 yellowfin 15-25lb and 1 mahi.
We had some great blue marlin days this summer! We averaged a fish per day between June and September.
August 2nd, Hook Harmling and his Brother John went 3 for 3 on blues est. 700, 200 and 170lbs.
Sept. 29th, New Rod Bender Record! Tag and release 5 BLUE MARLIN in one day! 150lb –225lbs, 3 were tagged on 30lb test stand-up and 2 on 130lb test, all 5 were caught trolling lures and were released in good condition. 5 strikes for 5 fish tagged and released. My owner and friend Henry Potts and his son Chris had the honors on the rods and I had a blast driving on em!
We had a ton of great days, sorry if I didn’t include yours, but I’m running out of ink!
Blue marlin are wandering around out there with the mahi, spears and stripes! The stripeys should really go off anytime now. The weather is perfect, sunny, 80 degrees, light breeze, water in the high 70’s. The only missing ingredient is you. Let’s Go! bvanmols@rod-bender.com or 808-960-5954 would be a good way to start you in the right direction, AHEM!
Hope y’all had a merry one and do have a happy and safe NEW YEAR!
Tight lines, good fishin and ALOHA!
Chip
Captain Chip Van Mols
Rod Bender Sportfishing
Kona, Hawaii
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Capt. Jeff Rogers (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, November 22, 2003 - 1:22 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – November 22, 2003:
November has averaged a pretty good bite overall for the few boats going out. We had screwy currents during the 2nd week that made “catching” more difficult but the guys who know how to work such conditions did OK. This last week we had high winds and rough seas for a few days that made the ride uncomfortable but the bite seems to be pretty good. I say “seems” to be pretty good because I haven’t been out there much. I haven’t had this many days off since the terrorist attacks of 2001 but I stay in touch with the few captains that are going out so I know what the conditions are for my upcoming trips. The striped marlin and spearfish have moved in and the big blue marlin are still here. Billfish are the most common fish coming in right now. Mahi mahi bites remain somewhat common and there’s shibi (small yellowfin and bigeye tuna) showing up on the ledges and buoys. No ono to speak of.
The bottom bite produced a couple of good size amberjack the last time I bottom fished and on another quick bottom drop; sharks bit us off. At least there’s some action happening down there and it usually doesn’t take much time to get bit so it makes sense (in my opinion anyway) to spend at least part of the day trying the bottom for some quick action.
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Jeff Rogers (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 24, 2003 - 6:54 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – October 24, 2003
October is usually one of my favorite months to fish because of the variety of fish we can catch while trolling. It’s kind of between seasons and usually some of the summer fish are still around and if some of the winter fish start biting early it can be a lot of fun. Unfortunately sometimes the summer fish leave and the winter fish don’t arrive early. That seems to be where we’re at right now. A mix of blue and striped marlin, some ahi, some spearfish and some mahi mahi but not much of any one of them. The best bite right now is mahi mahi. They have always been our “between season” fish for us. We get a spring run of (generally) small ones and the big ones come in the fall. Mahi mahi are among the most temperature sensitive of fish so the waters here get a little too warm for them in the summer and the winters seem to be just a little too cold. So, what’s too warm or too cold? We only get a temperature variance of about 76 to 84 degrees. Picky, picky, picky.
The bottom bite should be getting pretty good right now …… it hasn’t yet, still waiting. The bottom bite always picks up sometime in the fall and is usually good through summer so I have high hopes for another bountiful season coming up soon.
See `ya on the water,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Jeff Rogers (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 20, 2003 - 2:47 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – September 20, 2003
The trolling bite has picked up lately with a mixed bag of billfish, tuna and mahi mahi. The spearfish are back along with some striped marlin but the main billfish bite is Pacific blue marlin in the 150 to 200 lb range with some occasional 400 to 500 pounders in the mix. The “blind strike” yellowfin tuna bite has pretty much stopped and even the yellowfin bite in the porpoise schools is slow. The big skipjack tuna (otado) that usually come in late August are here but in small numbers. Even if you do find some, the bite is slow to nonexistent. While I haven’t landed any mahi mahi myself lately, I see plenty of mahi mahi fish flags flying in the harbor and the ones I see guys filleting up are pretty good size.
The bottom fishing bite took another turn for the worse. Finicky currents and some big sharks in the best fishing areas have sent the giant trevally, amberjack and almaco jacks running for safer waters. There were two big tiger sharks hanging right in front of the harbor. One of them, over a thousand pounds was hooked inside the harbor entrance, landed and killed. The remaining one (just a little smaller) has been spotted several times just outside of the harbor entrance, a favorite spot for snorkelers and scuba divers. No one has been snacked on yet but you wouldn’t catch me swimmin’ out there.
See `ya on the water, not in it :o ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Jeff Rogers (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 20, 2003 - 4:49 pm: | |
Kona Hawaii fishing report – August 20, 2003
Kona’s reputation for BIG blue marlin continues. Another “Grander” (3rd this year) was caught last week and another one just shy of 1000 lbs. was landed the week before. You might be wishing you were on the charter that caught one of these beasts but neither one was caught by a charter boat. The first beast weighing in at 983 lbs. was hooked up by a small boat with just one guy on board. He had been commercial fishing all night for Yellowfin tuna and was on his way home in the morning when the marlin struck. Realizing it was too big to handle alone, he called for help and another commercial fisherman jumped on board to help out. They landed the fish in just under an hour. The next Kona beast weighed in at 1065 lbs. and was also caught by small boat commercial fishermen on their way home from an all night tuna trip. This one took 3 hours and 20 minutes to land. The big blues (over 500 lbs.) are coming in at a rate of about 1 per day. Most of the blues are running in the 150 to 250 lb. range.
The summer yellowfin tuna bite seems a little slow compared to last year with the daytime catch totals staying at about 4 per day. The nighttime commercial catch of yellowfin and albacore has been pretty good lately.
The spearfish bite is back on and is the most common catch while trolling lately. Most are tagged and released but if you’re looking for some food fish, spearfish is your best shot. They are delicious! The ono are supposed to be in peak season right now but they seem to be the most rare catch lately.
The catch rate for those trolling all day remains well below 50% but the bottom fishing bite has finally picked up with amberjack to over 100 lbs, almaco jack, giant trevally, gray snapper and a wide variety of sharks hitting the baits without much waiting time for a bite. This is by far the hottest fishery for those wanting action instead of a boat ride.
See `ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 - 6:27 pm: | |
Subject: Granders and Things in Kona
Kona Fish Report, May 21 2003, from the helm of the ROD BENDER.
Good springtime fishing continues along the Kona coast! Blue marlin of all sizes are here and good percentage of them are of the large variety. The first grander of the year ( 1014 lbs.) was brought to the scales a couple weeks ago by Capt. Robert Hudson on his charter boat CAMELOT, Congratulations! This fish was caught while trolling for wahoo in 40 fathoms of water about a mile from our harbor! This just after I read an article by some professional that marlin aren’t found that shallow in Kona, you never know. Next on the big fish list was 948lb blue caught on board the Sea Strike four or five days after the 1014. Every day there has been at least one 500lb plus blue tagged or captured and pretty much all the boats fishing are seeing two or three blues a day on average, sometimes more. All the other usual suspects are here as well with 100lb plus yellowfin tuna starting to stack up nicely in the porpoise schools, wahoo (ono) being found out in the deep as well as inshore (all my marlin lures get reskirted this time of year and we all eat well), a couple bites from spearfish a day is common and there are some nice sized mahi mahi around too.
Here’s how we did on the Rod Bender since my last report, I know, it’s been awhile!
April 21, full day with Don Wies. We tagged a 200lb blue marlin (had an old long line hook in the corner of it’s mouth and now it has a yellow tag in it’s shoulder) and lost a big ahi out in the porpoise school.
April 23, full day with Walter Woods. We pulled the hook on a 400+ blue marlin and tagged a spearfish.
April 30, half day with forgot to write down your names. Action packed five hours; we went 2 for 3 on striped marlin, tagging 2 in the 70 to 80 pound range. Missed a small blue and missed 2 spearfish.
May 1, full day with Perry and Martha, We missed a spearfish and a couple other mystery bites and Perry caught a deep-water ono around 30lbs, yum yum.
May 2, Full Day with James Riviera. We tagged a 180lb blue marlin and a 45lb spearfish in the morning and got the “let’s go in” call at 2:00 while we were waiting for our Ahi bite in a very juicy looking porpoise school.
May 5, full day with Ed and Paula Wies. Ed was looking for a big marlin but instead got a pretty nice pile of smaller fish, 8 mahi mahi 22 to 37 lbs., 5 ono 20-40lbs and a half dozen little yellowfin and skipjack tuna. We found something submerged that was holding a huge school of mahi , ono and a ton of bait. We could have filled the boat with mahi and ono but we worked wide looking the marlin that should be in the area and still caught 13 pieces of smaller stuff. My whole first string of marlin lures got shredded and I watched another charter boat troll by at the end of the day and hook a huge marlin, they broke 130lb test after 3 ½ hours, right where we had been working all day, go figure.
May 7, full day with Ed and Paula. Today we had 2 spearfish bites, tagging one them, no marlin though.
May 8, full day with Kevin Beck. Kevin wanted some fish to eat and hopefully a shot at a big marlin. 35lb mahi mahi filled the food order and a shot was all we got when we missed a 400+ blue marlin.
May15, half day with Berry Barber and friends. Tagged a 100lb blue marlin from a double header. Missed 2 spearfish from anther double-header and boated a 45lb ono for the BBQ.
May 17, half day with Berry Barber group. Berry came back again looking for the big one and found it! After a 50 minute fight we had an estimated 600lb blue along side the boat that came up with its mouth pinned almost shut by the hooks. It took my deck hand 5 minutes on the leader to get the digging fish up till she rolled over, tried to revive with no success. Weight at the dock, 593lbs.
Trade winds are blowing, the current is going north, marlin and bait fish are moving into the ledge, we should start seeing the yellowfin tuna busting around on the surface any day now too. Summer is here! A quick look at my tide chart for June and DAMN, looking real good! It’s already good and we’re just getting started. Bet we see another grander here before the third week of June is out. My calendar has a bunch of openings in it. Where are you? Any questions? Email bvanmols@rod-bender.com or give me a buzz at 808-960-5954. I’m always happy to help. And check out the Rod Bender at www.konasportfishingcharters.com.
Good fishing, tight lines and ALOHA!
Chip
Capt. Chip Van Mols
ROD BENDER Sportfishing
Kona, Hawaii
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Capt. Jeff Rogers
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, May 17, 2003 - 3:26 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Hawaii fishing report
KONA IS GOIN’ OFF!! Ono tops the list as the easiest to catch. There’s so many being brought in that the fish wholesalers are flooded with `em and don’t even want `em anymore. This is one of the best eating fish you can get so if you’re looking for some fish to take back to your condo or back home with you, you need to know a few things. Check out my FAQ page (Can I keep my fish?) at http://fishinkona.com/FAQ.htm . .
Another great eating fish that’s a really hot bite right now is spearfish. Many prefer the taste of spearfish over ono or mahi mahi. These fish love to play with your lures, they’re stealthy and hard to hook so you’ll miss most of the ones that come to play. They take line fast and then the fight is basically over. They come to the boat so easy that sometimes it’s hard to even tell the fish is still on the line. If you don’t plan on eating them (and your crew doesn’t), do the right thing. Take your photo and let ‘em go. .
Both blue marlin and striped marlin are being caught now. Just when we thought the striped marlin bite was over, they came back! No complaints here. The blue marlin are ranging in size from just 25 lbs. to over 1000 lbs! Kona’s first “grander” (1000+) was caught May 2nd and weighed in at 1014 lbs. Another blue caught earlier this week came just shy of the grander mark and weighted in at 946 lbs. Most of the real big blue’s win their fights and the ones that don’t usually die trying. The hook or the battle mortally wounds many others. If you’re one of those who gets their heart broken because a marlin was killed, I got a piece of advice for you. Don’t fish for `em. .
The early summer porpoise schools have arrived and with them are the yellowfin tuna. Most of the ones being caught are right around the 100 lb. mark. The first guys in the school are having good luck but as soon as the boat traffic gets heavy, the bite turns off. All of the FAD’s (fish aggregation device’s) are holding small yellowfin, bigeye and skipjack tuna. .
The bottom fishing bite has been very slow but if you know where to go, you can usually find some action. On May 3rd my angler was bringing in an amberjack from the bottom when a tiger shark cruised in and ate it. I quickly rigged bait for the shark and hooked it with a circle hook. When I first saw the shark down in the water I figured it was about 400 lbs. I found that I had really underestimated the size of this fish :o She weighs about 700 lbs! We got the photo and release along with some good digital movie footage of it. It’s a very impressive sight! I hope to somehow add the movie to my web site. .
See `ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 9:18 pm: | |
Subject: Kona fish report, April 15 2003 from the ROD BENDE
Kona Fish Report, April 15, 2003. Capt. Chip Van Mols reporting from the ROD BENDER.
Firstly we pass along our condolences to the families, loved ones and friends of those lost in Iraq and prey for the safety of all our armed forces. Keep up the good work!
Now on with the show
Spring has sprung here in Kona! The small striped marlin and spearfish of winter here have taken their leave and big blue marlin are moving in. The last three weeks, starting strong the last week of March with a bit of a lull the first week of April but coming on strong again now, there has been at least one blue over 400 pounds caught every day and some days half the boats out are catching big ones. Unfortunately this is a slow time for charters with only 8 to 12 boats going out daily. Biggest so far this run and for the year to date went 868lb and was brought to the scales by the crew on the Makalei the last week of March. Two fish estimated at 700+ were released by the crews on the Huntress and the Sea Genie respectively week before last and the list is just to long to go down from there. It is a little more of a gamble this time of year cause the numbers aren’t really there but the payoff can be BIG as this time of year usually produces some monsters of grand proportions. Spring here has produced four fish over the magic 1000 pound mark the last two years and I expect the first 2003 grander to pop up any day now. Fishing for the big ones this time of year does take some patience as there aren’t usually great numbers of smaller blues mixed in to wet your appetite while you wait but have no fear there has still been some fair action on mahi mahi on floaters and a few spearfish and striped marlin around to keep your riggers rattling while you wait your turn on the big one. In fact this spring so far hasn’t been an all or nothing for the big one at all with most boats coming in with mahi, ono, spearfish, stripeys and/or smaller tuna etc… very few skunks and plenty of table fare. The yellowfin tuna bite has been off for a couple weeks, we thought the porpoise schools were going to keep on holding 100lb+ fish for ever, but that usually comes on strong again starting in May or June with our summer run blue marlin of all sizes right behind.
It’s been a while since my last report, I was gone most of March, but here’s how we did on the Rod Bender since my last update.
Feb. 25, full day with Jack Butler. We tagged two striped marlin 35 and 55lb, boated a 25lb mahi mahi and six yellowfin tuna 10-20lb.
Feb. 26, full day with Willie Stark and friends, tagged a 45lb stripey and boated a 104-pound yellowfin tuna. We had rubber hooks this day going 1 for 8 or something like that on the stripeys and pulling into a porpoise school on our way home immediately lost a big tuna, I was steaming so we went into overtime and got lucky with the 104 shortly after.
March 1st, holo holo with my old friend Mathew the Leatherman and his friends from the mainland. Hooks were made of steel again tagging 3 stripeys 40- 85lb and 1 spearfish 40lb not to mention a half dozen yellowfin 15-25lb.
March 5, full day. Tagged a 40lb stripey from about 3 shots and boated 2 by 20lb skipjack and 2 by 15-20lb yellowfin.
March 6, full day, forgot to write you’re name down, sorry but I did write down this. We went wide today and missed 2 spearfish out by OTEK buoy in the morning then we spotted a porpoise school in the distance and on our third pass we hooked a double of big yellowfin tuna on 50lb test, caught one 120 pounder and pulled hook on the other on the leader looked about 150lb. Not bad for one angler. We set back up and headed in the direction the school was going but couldn’t find them, damn. We then decided to go into ledge and see if we could find a stripey or two and just as we were arriving in the zone we spot another porpoise school and first pass bang we catch another 105lb yellowfin tuna. We get going again, get into position and bang, mahi mahi 25lb, get going again and another 20lb mahi mahi slows us down. By now there is ten boats trying to work the school with us and I look back at the ledge and it’s empty, exit stage left and back into the ledge to try and catch this guy his first marlin and bingo tag and release a 40lb striped marlin! Wait, it gets better, we head down the ledge on the way home and catch a couple small yellowfin and we’re just about to pull the plug and we get another double strike. I figure it’s more small tuna but one of the 50’s starts screaming on nice long run, another 100lb yellowfin tuna in the boat! Wish I could remember your name single angler guy. You sure are lucky! 3 yellowfin 100-120lb, 3 yellowfin 15-25lb, tag and release 1 stripey 40lb and boat 2 mahi 20 and 25lb.
Road trip 3/7 to 3/21, Bermagui, Australia. Fished 7 days for tag and release of 15 striped marlin 200lb average and 2 black marlin 250lb and 350lb.
Road trip, 3/26 to 3/30. Honolulu for my older daughter’s soccer tournament, she makes it to the semi’s and winds up third from 20 teams. JUST HAD TO THROW THAT IN THERE!
April 3, full day with Mike Sandlin and his Kids. Trolling the big gear for big fish now but the bite has slowed so we break up the day and let the kids catch skipjack and small yellowfin around one of our fad buoy's (C ) until there arms are to sore to catch any more and back to trolling the big guns. Today’s day saver came the in the form of a cargo net we found a couple skiffs working in the afternoon. Skipping fresh belly strips on our little stand up rods proved effective for 3 nice mahi mahi to 25lb and a small ono. Whew,
April 5, half day, NFL players association charity tourney, we didn’t have any players on board so I guess these guys were association? We won this tourney last year but no cigar this year, 0-0-0.
April 6th, full day with Vince and Patti Carr who bid on this trip on Rod Bender at the IGFA auction. Still slow on the trolling front but we did get lucky on another floater and they both caught a couple mahi mahi each 15-25lb each in the after noon. We set up the lures for the troll home and jumped off a 200lb blue.
April 7th, full day with Bob Brundermattson, another single angler, lookout! Bob just wanted to catch fish of any kind we decided to give OTEK buoy a look. After an uneventful troll up to the can we found the buoy loaded with skipjack and small yellowfin. We worked the area with lures for a while and raised nothing but I was getting some suspicious marks on the recorder near the can (mahi mahi?). We live baited most the day around the can for one mahi mahi about 25lb. Every time I drug our baits near the can they got nervous but I never saw any more mahi, humm. We switched back to lures for the troll home at 2:00 and once the pattern was out we made one last swing by the buoy and looking at my recorder I see the same suspicious marks down at 20-35 fathoms and two of our rods start making noise, nice holes left behind where the fish bit too. Our single angler brings in first one and then a second 50 to 60 pound Big Eye tuna! We make another pass and get another single, another pass and get a triple but the one on our teaser is just for show! One more pass for good measure and we get another single but pull hook on the leader. 5 big eye 55lb to 69lb is the total and one 25lb mahi. I haven’t seen big eye like that in 6 or 7 years, good fun!
Some yoyo said there was lots of big blue marlin around and the stripeys had all gone north or wherever they go, what’s up with this!
April 13,Sunday full day holoholo with my two daughters. Friday and Saturday went off with big blues, 50% of boats out caught nice ones 400- 675 pounds so we figured we would go out and see what kind of trouble we could get into without a decky. Nothing in the morning for us, no good reports from the other boats I spoke to in our area and my faithful crew both went to sleep. Not pleased with area out front of the harbor I pounded my way for an hour and a half north up thousand fathom curve, trades were smoking so the further I went the bigger and steeper the seas got but the speed of the current also increased and we started seeing birds. Got as far north as I wanted to be and started making my first trough run into the top corner of the grounds from the 1000 and we hooked a stripey, 8 year old Kari made short work of that and soon had her first striped marlin estimated 50lb. She was stoked until her sister caught one about 125lbs while I was putting the lures back out, sibling rivalry, ha. After Jada’s fish we continued in to the ledge where we missed another stripey and back out the thousand where we missed a spearfish and a small blue on the way. I heard of three blues this day 180 to 485 pounds for about 10 boats out.
I mentioned the trade winds are smoking right now well it’s getting the current well situated for some good fishing and more and more bait is showing up. This next week or ten days should be good. I saw a skiff come in with a 500 pounder Monday morning and about half the boats out again caught blues. You never know until you go! So LET’S GO! We have tons of open time including most of July and the first week of August (tournament season) still available. Rod Bender is a showroom floor condition 1999 35’ CABO flybridge, air-conditioned, comfortable, fast and rigged to the teeth with all the finest everything. Competitively priced with a bunch of older boats that have less. And we support tag and release of billfish. And we work hard for you, no bus rides! And… ANY QUESTIONS?
EMAIL: bvanmols@rod-bender.com
OR CALL: 808-960-5954
Good fishing, tight lines and ALOHA!
Chip
Capt. Chip Van Mols
ROD BENDER Sportfishing
www.konasportfishingcharters.com
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Capt. Jeff Rogers
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 15, 2003 - 10:40 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Hawaii fishing report
Kona Hawaii fishing report 3/15/03
The striped marlin and spearfish bite has slowed down just a bit. It’s been an afternoon bite so the people that only booked morning ½ day charters have been missing out. It seems to be getting harder to hook the billfish that are hitting the lures also. Spearfish have always been harder to hook than marlin but now even the marlin seem to be getting less aggressive and lure shy. The full moon is coming soon. The bite should pick up then.
The spring mahi mahi run is starting to kick in. We were lucky enough to have a decent mahi mahi bite all winter long and now that the mahi season is starting, it looks like this spring will be a good one. We’re also having a good ono run right now. Hardly anyone is working the ono lane but those that are putting in some time working the lane are finding success. There’s been plenty of ono caught in the deep too. The yellowfin and skipjack tuna bite remains good also. Overall, the trolling bite has been great!
Those of you that have fished with me before know that I’m always probing the deep ledges for “sea monsters”. All these small stripies, spears, mahi, ono and small tunas running around are fun but the only place you have a good shot at catching a fish that weighs more than you do is the bottom. The bottom bite has been slow overall but plenty of big sharks to tangle with.
See `ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 4:33 am: | |
Subject: Kona Fish Report , 2-24-03
Kona Fish Report, Feb. 23 2003, Capt. Chip Van Mols reporting from the ROD BENDER.
Classic winter variety fishing continues along the Kona coast since my last report! While the blue marlin bite has been extremely slow our smaller wintertime residents have really been picking up the slack. Small striped marlin, spearfish, mahi mahi, great numbers of 10 to 25 yellowfin tuna and skipjack tuna have all been in the mix making for some pretty fast action and a lot of happy anglers. Our run of striped marlin really took off for a couple weeks at the end of Jan. and first part of Feb. when raising multiples became a common occurrence. Spearfish numbers have been fair with a few on the larger side showing up, the men’s 16lb world record getting pushed up a few pounds last week by the crew on the Vixen and the previously vacant 8lb tippet record being potentially filled by the crew on the Sea Genie II. Mahi mahi haven’t been here in great numbers but a couple blind strikes from singles daily has been common, yum yum, average size 12 to 25 pounds. Here’s something we haven’t seen around here in a long time, large numbers of yellowfin tuna in the 10 to 25lb range have been all over the place from the ledges to way out wide, SASHIMI! Big skipjack tuna, 10 to 30 pounds round out the package, POKI! Along with these larger tuna there has been plenty of smaller bait along our drop off and out wide which has us all scratching our heads wondering where all the blue marlin are. My daughters pending junior world record 514 pound blue marlin still holds on as biggest of the year so far which is very unusual but just this past week a few blues have just started showing up so it won’t be long now before it’s beaten. We hooked an estimated 600 pounder on the Rod Bender yesterday but pulled the hook after 30 minutes or so, almost. Speaking of the Rod Bender, here’s how we did since my last report!
Jan. 14, full day with David Goode. Tag and release 2 striped marlin, 2 spearfish and boated 3-mahi mahi to 22lbs.
Jan.18, full day with David Goode. Tagged 1 stripey and boated 1-20lb mahi.
Jan. 30 to Feb. 4, Owner of the Rod Bender and angler extraordinaire Henry Potts and his friend Don Maulsby for Dons first experience in offshore fishing. We decided to troll light tackle standup from 12 to 30 pound test since the average size of fish around was also light. Don was here for three days and Henry for 6 days.
Day one Jan. 30, The captain made a wrong turn today and all we found were 1 20lb mahi mahi and missed 1 striped marlin on a ¾ day.
Day two Jan. 31, The captain made a right turn and Don got some quick schooling, we had the hum. Tag and release 7 striped marlin and 2 spearfish as well as boating 2 yellowfin, 1 skipjack and 1 mahi mahi all in the 20lb range. That’s the best single day billfish total for any boat in the fleet in many years and we didn’t even leave the dock till 10:00am.
Day three Feb. 1, I made the same turn but a few less strikes today tagging 2 stripeys and 1 spearfish and boating 1 yellowfin and 2 skipjack in the 20lb range. We also jumped off a 100lb blue marlin on 16lb tackle, almost got the grand slam!
Day four Feb. 2, We decided to bait and switch today for a change of pace and raised 4 stripeys and 2 spearfish on the teasers only tagging one spearfish from three bites. Can’t catch tuna or mahi on teasers either!
Day five Feb. 3, The billfish bite started slowing down, tagged 1 stripey, missed a spearfish then we found a broken off FAD buoy and caught 12 yellowfin tuna 15 to 25lbs in about 45 minutes skipping Ballyhoo around the FAD. On our way home we managed a mahi mahi and 2 big skipjack.
Day six Feb. 4, the honey hole dried up forcing us into a wider search pattern which led us to a spearfish that got away, a stripey that got away and then a double strike on little blue marlin from which we tagged 1 estimated 50lbs, cute little bugger! We also had a double header on some of the biggest skipjack I’ve seen in a while, one weighing 26 and the other 28 pounds, they make a 16lb rig smoke on the bite!
15 billfish tagged for the 6 day trip from 3 different species and plenty of good eating fish along the way as well.
Feb.6, full day, somebody put the honey back in the hole, tag and release 6 striped marlin, 1 spearfish and boated 13 yellowfin 10 to 25lbs and 1 mahi mahi. Sorry I forgot my charters name, no wait, they were the Smith family, that’s it! oops
Feb. 19, 20 and 21, we had Thomas Irizarry for three days of fly-fishing. This guy is on a world wide roll right now having caught a grander blue in Ascension Island last month and coming to Kona to catch a short nosed spearfish to complete his royal slam of billfish species. He fished the 18th on the Hookele and quickly accomplished his goal tagging a 40lb spearfish on conventional trolling gear. Now to work on his royal slam on the fly. Day one we raised 1 spearfish and 1 striped marlin to the teasers, the spearfish didn’t cooperate but the stripey did and Thomas made short work of a 40 pounder that we tagged and released, his first striped marlin on the fly. Day two we raised one of each again but neither teased into casting distance. Day three I changed areas hoping for better numbers and immediately raised a spearfish to the long teaser and bingo Thomas caught his first spearfish on the fly! Estimated 30lbs. Then the skies turned black and down came the rain so we headed in for the barn and an early lunch. 2 ½ days, 2 fish teased into casting range for 2 fish caught. Thomas has caught hundreds of sails on the fly, both Atlantic and Pacific, it was an absolute pleasure to watch him work the rod. I learned plenty from him and he is also one of the most fun people you could ever fish with, an honor. Wish I had a few more days to find him a small blue too!
Feb. 22, half day with Jeff Glideman and a few friends. Back to trolling 50 and 30lb gear who shows up to the party? A 500+ blue marlin that’s who! Unfortunately the hooks pulled after 30 or 40 minutes. We were getting close on 50lb tackle too, oh well, fun while it lasted! We’ll get the next one Jeff!
Since January 1st we’ve fished 17 days of which three or four were half days and two were ¾ day and have a total of 32 billfish. A tad slower this year than some of our recent years but wintertime is our light tackle season here and we usually average 2 to 3 billfish per full day and as you can see above we do have some great days, timing is everything but January and February are consistently good producers and great light tackle fun. Depending on the year it can start as early as mid November and last right thru spring. A good wave of blue marlin of all sizes can come anytime and add to the excitement and we usually get a run of monster blues in the spring, 4 spring granders here in the last 2 years. After mid March it can get a bit risky trolling around with 16, 20 and 30-pound test out but it sure makes it fun on the smaller species while the blues aren’t here in numbers, I just adjust to the fish. You just have to pick a boat that has the selection of gear and the experience to use it and just add water, cause you sure can’t beat the weather! Any questions? Call or email, I’m happy to help.
Good fishing, tight lines and ALOHA!
Capt. Chip Van Mols
NEWS FLASH!!
Just after writing this report I went down to the harbor to find Thomas Irizarry weighing in a 37.5 pound spearfish caught on 12 pound tippet fly gear aboard the Northern Lights with Capt. Kevin Nakamaru! A new potential world record! Told you Thomas was on a roll!!!! Congrats to all!!
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Capt. Jeff Rogers
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 22, 2003 - 6:31 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Hawaii fishing report
Kona Hawaii fishing report 2/22/03
The striped marlin and spearfish bite remains good overall but it’s more of a “right place, right time” thing now. They are no longer scattered everywhere but seem to be grouping in spots. Where’s the spot? Hmmmm. Some days only a few boats get lucky and find ‘em. On other days, everyone fishing a particular area is hooking up. Few blue marlin are around right now but a few big beasts have been raised. I had a monster blue hit one of my lures just 2 days ago but didn’t get a hook in it. I’ve heard from other captains about their hits and misses with big blues also.
Mahi mahi, ono and small (10 to 25lb.) yellowfin tuna are fairly common catches right now. The mahi mahi are running kind of small but still good eating. Not too many guys are targeting the nearshore ono because the offshore bite has been so promising but the guys that have been fishing one are having good success. The yellowfin are hanging in the koa near red hill and along the front side and top corner of “the grounds”.
The current has been strong North so the bottom has been hard to fish. In last months fishing report I mentioned that I had replaced a broken stand-up fishing rod and was anxious to see how the new one performed on a big fish. Sometimes you need to be careful of what you wish for. During a 4 ½ hour battle with a shark weighing over 1000 lbs. my new rod didn’t break (though it looked like it would). The shark finally won the fight when the hook pulled out and we ended up being skunked (no fish) for the day. It ruined my chances for a 100% catch rate year on full day charters. I wonder if the shark would have been easier on us if he knew that all we wanted was a photo of him for my fish photos page?
See `ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Jeff Rogers
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, January 23, 2003 - 10:31 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Hawaii fishing report
Kona Hawaii fishing report 1/23/03
Storms and rough seas tops the news for this months fishing report. Storm season in Hawaii is January-February and the storms seem to be coming back-to-back. The seas have been rough for over a week. This is the time of year you find out which captains are hungry. What I mean is that some captains will take their clients out for a `Bronc` bustin` puke-fest for the sake of making a few bucks. Some people can take the rough seas but most cannot. I`ve been talking the sea conditions over with my clients and discussing our options. As a result, all of my charters lately have either been canceled or cut short.
The trolling bite has been very good. Lots of bites but hard to get a hook in `em. All the captains are talking about how many “hits” they`ve had and they are plenty. Mostly it`s the mahi mahi in the 20 to 40 lb. range that are acting aggressive enough to get hooked but the striped marlin and spearfish (both running in the 20 to 50 lb. range) have been a bit shy about committing to the kill. They`re just playing with the lures like a cat chasing a string but it won`t extend it`s claws. There`s so many out there though that if you can take the pounding for a whole day trip, you`ll probably catch.
The bottom drops have been very productive with a wide variety of catches. If you`re looking to catch something of size, the bottom is the best way to do it right now. We even snapped a stand-up fishing rod in two a couple of weeks ago fighting a big fish. I already bought a replacement rod but haven`t had the chance to test it out yet. I`m anxious to see how it performs on a big fish. That will come this Saturday ……. If the weather cooperates.
See `ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 8:19 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Fish Report, Jan. 12 03
Kona Fish Report, January 12, 2003, Capt. Chip Van Mols reporting from the ROD BENDER.
Not much has changed since my last report and fair to good variety fishing continues along the Kona coast. Short nose spearfish, small striped marlin and mahi mahi are all making daily appearances behind the boats fishing now with the odd big blue marlin thrown in for good measure. I’ve fished a bit in the porpoise schools lately and the amount of tuna showing up on my sounder is mind boggling but they don’t want to bite, at least not by sportfishing methods unless you get lucky and find a school by yourself. Striped marlin so far this year are running small, 25 to 40lb, and were showing up mostly in singles behind the boats a couple times a day until the last week or so. Now I’m starting to hear more guys raising multiple strikes on them, a good sign that they’ll really take off soon! Hopefully their size increases with their numbers too! Spearfish also seem to be slowly increasing in numbers but are not up to their full potential yet. Still most guys are encountering a couple visits from them daily and some have been up to 50lbs and they should keep on increasing in numbers for the next few months. Nice sized mahi mahi are another daily occurrence, 20 to 40 pounds, mostly singles in the blind and you can expect their numbers to increase and size to decrease in the near future when we start finding schools of them on floating debris. This past week there has been a rash of big blue marlin bites for the fleet but none of them resulted in a capture that I know of except for the Tara who tagged an estimated 450lb. Capt. Randy Parker on the Huntress told me they missed a possible grander on their long rigger last Thursday. The biggest blue weighed so far this year was caught by some little girl on some 35’ Cabo on New Years Day and I heard it went 514 pounds, took first place in the New Years Day tournament and could be a new junior world record, hummmmm!
NEWS FLASH !!!
Hey All,
My 11 year old daughter, Jada, and I took out the Rod Bender yesterday, just the 2 of us for a little New Years Day fishing. We put in our $200.00 and entered the first tourney of the year hoping for a little luck. What we got was a LOT of luck! 15 minutes after the start fishing gun, Jada watching the wheel and me just finishing setting the lures out and whoosh, off goes the short rigger with a rather large hole in the water left behind. "Nice one Jada, that looks like the one you've been waiting for" and Jada raced to cockpit, pulled the screaming 80lb outfit and harnessed up in the chair while I cleared the other lures. Long story short, one and half hours and 3 or 4 miles later we were very close but the fish still was to strong for me to leave the controls and leader up myself, my little anglers legs were starting to get a bit shaky holding 35 pounds of drag and I was starting to worry if she would be able to last long enough to finish by herself. Then a welcome call came from Bill Hoey on the LADY who was nearby and he offered to lend us his Captain, Rob McGuckin to the rescue! Rob hopped on, slid on his leader gloves and 10 minutes, lot's of black smoke and reversing later (not to mention one of the more difficult leader jobs I've seen in a while) we had Jada's prize secured and we slid it into the cockpit.
Blue marlin 514 pounds.
New potential IGFA female junior WORLD RECORD!
2003 NEW YEARS DAY TOURNAMENT 1ST PLACE WINNER! (40 boats entered)
And
The happiest angler in the world!!!
The proudest papa in the world!!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
I write this report I can brag a little can’t I? Jada also caught a 40lb spearfish and 2 est. 20lb skipjack on New Years Day. I recieved a green light from the IGFA to send in Jada's junior world record application, the current record is 422lb with nothing larger submitted since their last print. I'll let you all know upon the Igfa's approval. Jada is still on cloud nine and I should make an instructional video of her using the Aussie stiff legged technique in the chair, it'ld blow your minds!
Here’s how we’ve done on the ROD BENDER since the 1st.
Jan.3 for a half day, 1 for 3 on striped marlin tagging a 30 pounder.
Jan. 4, full day, 0 for 2 on spearfish and 1 for 3 (triple header) on striped marlin, tagging a 35lb.
Jan.8, full day, 0 for 2 on stripey (double header), landed 4 mahi mahi 18 to 26 ½ lb. and 1 for 1 on spearfish, est. 35lb.
We don’t have Skunks here in Kona but we sure seem to be avoiding the black and white cat! Good fun fishing here this time of year and you can’t beat the weather, sunny, 80 to 82 degrees almost everyday, calm seas, plenty of fish and you always have a shot at catching a big one too! Should just keep getting better and it’s already pretty good. Questions? email bvanmols@rod-bender.com
Good fishin, tight lines and ALOHA!
Chip
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Rod Bender Sportfishing
www.konasportfishingcharters.com
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Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, December 21, 2002 - 8:18 pm: | |
Subject: Kona's Winter Variety Package Starting!
Kona Fish Report, Dec. 21 02, Capt. Chip Van Mols reporting from the ROD BENDER
After a pretty lack luster fall season the fishing seems to be starting to pick up for our wintertime tourist season. While we’re still not in full swing the fishing has definetly picked up considerably this past week and it should just keep getting better. Our wintertime run of small striped marlin has started making their presence known with several of the boats out this week seeing 2 or more a day. When they really get going we’ll start running into them in packs and the action can get pretty good. Short nosed spearfish are also becoming a daily occurrence and are on the increase. Mahi mahi (dolphin fish) are scattered all over the place and we should start getting some big numbers of them around floating debris soon, for now picking up one here and there while trolling seems to be the norm. Large yellowfin tuna (100 to 180 pounds) are still hanging around our porpoise schools and are available to those lucky enough to fool the finicky things, most being caught on a variation of a commercial greenstick rig but a few have been taken trolling small lures as well which is a bonus this time of year. Skipjack tuna in the 15 to 25 pound range (we call the big ones otado here in Hawaii) have also been in the mix striking on smaller lures in the blind. As a bonus this week there has also been a fair showing of blue marlin of all sizes. A few them on the rather large side that probably followed in the otado. Marlin of the week award goes to the Hookele and crew as they brought an 808lb blue to the scales last Wednesday. Just about all the boats out that day encountered a blue or two and half of them caught them. How’s that for variety!!!?
How does one deal with such a variety of species when your next strike could be 10 or 1000 pounds? You go trolling and run a variety package of lures and hope to make the most of species available. Little lures long to big marlin lures short and then pray the big marlin, when she shows, are on one of your bigger outfits. Sure keeps you on your toes around here and I found myself staring at my tackle hanging in the salon for about 15 minutes trying to decide what size gear to run where the day after the 800 was caught. Here’s what I ended up with from the veritable tackle store full of gear I have to choose from.
SC 130lb test w/large purple/silver/ black/blue marlin lure, like a big Coggins. Otado around and big marlin eat them, match the hatch.
LC 130lb test purple/ black tube in the morning and a blue green smokey joe in the afternoon after seeing small yft’s in some of the current slicks.
SR Heavy 80lb rig strung with 100lb test, senior wide range blue/silver w/black inner.
LR Light 80lb rig, usually run 50 on these but I didn’t want to let my guard to low so 80lb today with infant blue jet, 7 ½ inch blue/silver over orange/white over pink.
SG 50lb test run from the bridge. Purple AP, 71/2inch blackpurple/silver outer over pink w/blue flake inner.
Here’s what happened on a ¾ day charter:
First fish up was a small striped marlin on the SG, gave several shots but missed the hooks. Next was a small blue that also struck the SG but stopped in its tracks and shook it off. Next was a 20lb mahi mahi on the LR, got dinner, we found this in a current slick about 1300 fathoms. Continued down the slick and started seeing schools of small skipjack and had a double strike LR and SG on 8lb yft’s, when I slowed down they were all over our swivels and the squids dangling from my bridge teaser, lot of life around here, switched to blue green LC now. Continued down slick 5 minutes and there’s a big hole on the SR, just knocked it out of the clip and I see nothing following but my decky says it looked over 500, that’s what the hole looked like to me. Got the SR back up in the rigger, waiting for it to come back but nothing, go a little further still nothing, take it off auto pilot getting ready to go back and just before I start our turn here she comes on the LC, whoosh, we’re off to the races, looking good for a while but pull the hook after 10 or 15 minutes, fun while it lasted, 600+ easy. Set back up and back through the area for another pass and off goes the SG, blue marlin under 100lb tag and release. Worked the area some more for no additional strikes. Running out of time so we aim for the barn and start clearing lines one at a time while trolling, got everything in the boat except the SG, I wanted to restack the top shot so I dumped it back a couple hundred yards, pulled the throttles back and cranked the lure all the way to the transom, swivel at the tip, pulled the rod out the holder and held the tip down so my decky could grab the leader and retrieve the lure from the water and a spearfish grabbed it right there! Tag and release 1 spearfish.
First day I fished in almost a month, I had fun! I enjoy the variety especially when that includes blue marlin of the larger kind, had a shot at a billfish slam too not mention some good fillets for the BBQ for my client and us.
Should just get better from here on out and if the blues thin out then you can go light tackle for stripeys, spearfish and mahi with good numbers usually available right thru March. Questions anyone? bvanmols@rod-bender.com and check out the ROD BENDER at www.konasportfishingcharters.com
Tight lines, good fishin and Merry Xmas!!
Chip
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Capt. Jeff Rogers
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, December 16, 2002 - 4:49 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Hawaii fishing report
Kona Hawaii fishing report 12/16/02
I’m doing the monthly fishing report a little early this month. My booking calendar is full ‘til the end of the year and if I don’t get the report out now, it just might not get done. To type a report and post it all over the fishing web sites takes a few hours. I started posting the Kona fishing report on the web in ’98 and in all these years, I only missed one month. Letters (emails) I get throughout the year thanking me for the reports is the only reason I’m still doing it today. So, here’s the latest scoop on Kona fishing. Mahi mahi tops the most common catch for this month. Nice sizes too. Common Kona fishing charter tackle consists of 80 and 130 pound test set-ups but this is the time of the year I like to live dangerously. Trolling and live baiting with some of my 30-pound test stand-up tackle when I have clients on board that look like they can handle it. Mahi mahi and striped marlin (also common this time of year) are much more fun on stand-up than with a huge 130 lb. test wench. If you do hook up with a big blue marlin though, chances aren’t too good that you’ll get it in. Earlier this year, Steve Broderick caught a 186 pound striped marlin with me on stand-up and it remains as the biggest striped marlin caught in Kona since the Hawaii state record was set in ’96. Other big fish caught with me this year on stand-up tackle also made Kona’s “big fish list”. As I wrap-up the fish counts for the year, it’s obvious that I made it as the top sportfish catching captain in Kona now for the 6th year in a row. OK, enough patting myself on the back : ) back to fish reporting.
The spearfish are starting to move in. Good eatin’ stuff! Striped marlin bites are still slow for this time of year but since the past two years have been good for the stripies, let’s just hope they’re running a little late this year. The winter blue marlin bite was pretty good last year and it’s the same this year. The bigeye tuna bite has been poor for the past two years. It looks like a repeat of that again this winter. A few small ones here and there but not the run it should be. Snapper and grouper catches are slow for this time of year too. No big deal! Get out of the snow and cold and warm your bones in the Kona sunshine. As the fishing seasons and water conditions change, a good captain knows where to find the fish. Sunshine and screamin’ reels! What are you waiting for?
See ‘ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Jeff Rogers
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, November 28, 2002 - 4:34 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Hawaii fishing report
November is typically a slow month for both fish and fishermen. Tourism has been slower than normal so there’s less charter boats out fishing. Daily catch totals have been sporadic, not so much because of fish abundance but because of a lack of fishing effort.
Blue marlin is the most common billfish right now. The striped marlin and spear fish are starting to show up but it’s still too early in their season for large numbers to show up.
The most common catch right now is mahi mahi. The fall mahi mahi run is a blast compared to the spring run because the average fish size is doubled. Common catches in the 25 to 35 pound range with some reaching 50+. We had a nice ono (wahoo) run this month too. It slowed down recently but I wonder if it’s also just due to a lack of ono fishing effort. Another fish biting now, though out of season is otado. What’s an otado? Many years ago someone in Kona mispronounced a Japanese name for skipjack tuna (otaru) and the name stuck. The term otado is used to distinguish large (over 10 lb.) skipjack tuna. Try using this term on another Hawaiian island and you’ll probably get a (huh?) blank stare. Even funnier is that many Kona fishermen don’t even know there’s such a thing as otaru (huh?).
The bottom bite has been real slow. There’s usually some kind of action but not the norm. I’ve been spending a small portion of my fishing day testing some of the holes. There’s usually at least one fish hanging around.
See ‘ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, October 22, 2002 - 6:44 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Fish Report, October 22 02, from the ROD BEN
A TRANSITIONAL TIME
We're starting to get into our fall fishing pattern here now. We still have some blue marlin around in 125 to 500 pound range although they aren't as consistent as they could be, one day half the boats out catch blues and the next none. We get waves of them all year round here so you never know from day to day with them and it can go off anytime, you just need a little luck. This time of year we start getting our first waves of mahi mahi and they are usually the bigger ones (20-40+ pounds) than we get in the winter, they have started to show right on skedual and we can expect there numbers to increase over the next few weeks. The first few striped marlin and spearfish have started to show up as well and if all goes to plan one day in the next two to four weeks we'll be slammed with them. After a pretty mediocre blue marlin season I think we're all looking forward to our fall/winter variety package fishing. Once that gets going (mid November last year) then you can expect multiple attacks daily from stripeys, spearfish and mahi as well as the occasional blue marlin ripper and if you hit it right there can be lot's of blues around but you get good action from the smaller stuff while you wait to get lucky on a blue. All of my billfish grand slams (blue, stripey and spearfish the same day) have come between the months Nov. and March here. We fish a lot of 30 and 50 pound test (and lighter by request) this time of year instead of the heavy gear but we're always ready for the big ones, not IF but WHEN they show up. We're always waiting for the big one here but we get to catch a bunch of the smaller guys while we wait, it's fun fishing!
My daughter and I went looking for some of those bigger mahi mahi on Saturday and found three of them in the 25 pound range that fell for tiny live skipjack fished at one of our fad bouys, fished a few larger liveys looking for a marlin for her with no takers. Sunday we had Steve and Mary Wise for a full day, we trolled back out to Otek bouy where I had luck with the mahi the day before and found they had left so we trolled back into the live bait grounds to spend the afternoon tide. we arrived just in time to watch the Kona Spirit catch a blue about 150lb and the Happy Times hooked one that looked 500+ right next to us. So close in fact I had to run our boat full speed out of the fishes path, killing our own baits, lovely! Nothing for us but we put up the "eye ball flag" cause we SAW one! Missed jumping in our boat by 20 yards and I'm not sure how it didn't get tangled in our lines! We did luck into an est. 550lb blue and 30lb spearfish for angler Chris Potts earlier this month, so we're not always spectators, every dog has his day around here!
I leave for an annual sabbatical to the Great Barrier Reef in a couple weeks, be back the last week of Nov. I'll let you know how we fair with the big black marlin down there next report. Until then
good fishin, tight lines and Aloha!
Chip
Capt. Chip Van Mols
ROD BENDER Sportfishing
email: bvanmols@rod-bender.com
www.konasportfishingcharters.com
cell: 808-960-5954
home: 808-325-2155 |
Capt. Jeff Rogers
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, October 22, 2002 - 3:50 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Hawaii fishing report
Kona Hawaii fishing report 10/22/02
The current has settled down, the bait fish are thick and the marlin bite is starting to pick up again. While the bite is far from hot, the steady current and the presence of bait fish will eventually bring in the numbers of blue marlin, mahi mahi and bigeye tuna. I’m also looking forward to the arrival of the winter striped marlin. The first of the winter run was caught last week and weighed in at 84 lbs. The winter striped marlin run has been real good the past couple of years. Although the average size was small, the abundance made for lots of action. I’m hoping the 84 pounder is just a taste of what we’ll be seeing this season.
Yellowfin tuna continue to be caught in the porpoise schools but most of the catch is by commercial fishermen using hand lines and green sticks. The ono bite has been slow but there’s a few coming in.
Bottom fishing remains the best way to get into some action. Amberjack, almaco jack and giant trevally make for a good fight on stand-up tackle. We’ve also had fights with several sharks lately. With the abundance of the bait fish lately, I’ve been letting the size of the bait we catch determine what fish we’ll target next. With big baits, I like to target the marlin for a while, small bait, target the bottom fish for a quick hook-up. I’ve had some recent marlin encounters but not any luck getting them in. My last trip, not even one marlin bite but one of our fish, a thresher shark, wiped out 3 anglers before we got the photo and release. It doesn’t need a long nose to put up a good fight. Sometimes a long tail can be tougher.
See ‘ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Jeff Rogers
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 28, 2002 - 11:10 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Hawaii fishing report
Kona Hawaii fishing report 9/28/02
Too bad I didn’t write this months report a week ago. The bite was really hot then. The marlin bite was good for both the small and the big ones, lots of yellowfin tuna, plenty of mahi mahi and a fair amount of ono too. The bottom fishing bite was picking up also with some nice size sharks and jacks being caught and released. Then the current changed. North, South, in, out, none. Like a faucet, the bite just turned off. So, for this months report, since there’s not much to talk about fish wise, I’m going to give you a brief education on how the Kona currents are produced. The current is produced by a predominate East wind that drives the water and hits the East side (windward side) of the islands. As the water wraps around the island of Hawaii, it creates 2 eddies (whorl pools). One wraps around South Point and creates a large clockwise rotating whorl pool. The water to the North is being squeezed between the islands of Hawaii and Maui and creates a counter-clockwise rotating whorl pool. With me so far? The angle of the current hitting the East side of the island (usually from the E, NE, NNE) determines where the “split” in the Kona current will be. As the 2 eddies rotate, they create a near shore South current to the South and a near shore North current to the North. Because the predominate current hits the island from a North East angle, the predominate current on the Kona (West) side is usually North. When the current hits the island directly from the East, we get the “split” right near the harbor on the Kona side of the island. Add a weak or constantly shifting current to the mix and you get messed up Kona currents and messed up Kona fishing. I’ve got just a couple of charters to do Monday and Tuesday and then I’m going to take a week off. When I start fishing again, hopefully, the current (and the bite) will be back to normal.
See ‘ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 17, 2002 - 7:43 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Fish Report, Sept. 17 02, from the RODBENDER
" POST LABOR DAY BLUES "
Well, After a very lackluster August here in Kona all the Tourist and traveling fisho's have gone. Must be some awfully busy flights out of here right after labor day! Only a handful of charter boats going of our harbor now and guess what! The blue marlin have arrived and we've also gotten another wave of big yellowfin tuna as well. To bad marlin aren't schooling fish, maybe we could teach them to come when all our anglers are here but that's fishin! Anyway, September has long been one of my favorite months to fish here as the summertime run of fish is usually still strong but very few boats are out to fish them, leaving the best spots all to yourself. Three of my four largest blue marlin were caught in Sept., all over 900lbs. The hardest part of fishing in Sept. is getting the charters to get out there. A quick glance at the list of granders weighed here over the years and it's amazing how many times Sept. pops up, one of the biggest months, and very few boats are fishing during that time. Hummmmm.
Blue marlin seem to be ranging from 150lbs to 700lbs, and most boats are getting 2 to 4 shots a day lately, sometimes more.
Yellowfin tuna have been biting well in the porpoise schools out wide and it definitely helps if you're there early. Average size has been big, 150 to 200lbs. One charter boat came in yesterday with 3, 120lb, 185lb and a 207 pounder. Right place right time!
We are experiencing a more favorable current now than we did all summer so marlin are being found closer to the ledge where they belong, 500 fathoms in to 100 fathoms right on the drop off. Plenty of bait and marlin on the Grounds north of our harbor if live bait is your preference and the trolling bite has been strong all up and down the coast. The fishing just seems to be getting better and better and hopefully will continue right thru October and on and on and on! It's not uncommon here to have the best month of fishing in any particular year be a month other than the considered "peak months" of July and August. Anyway, I've got them old "POST LABOR DAY BLUES" cause my boats tied up to the dock and I'm sitting in front of my #*^%#*@ computer. There's only one cure and that is for you to come over and catch a few post labor day blues with me. They're here now, where are you? Sept. thru Oct. rates on flights and accommodation are a lot easier on your pocket book too. Any questions, Give me a buzz, I'll be happy to help.
Good Fishin, tight lines and ALOHA!
Chip
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Rod Bender Sportfishing
www.konasportfishingcharters.com
73-4180 Malino Place
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii 96740
home: 808-325-2155
cell: 808-960-5954
fax: 808-325-1713
email: bvanmols@rod-bender.com |
Capt. Jeff Rogers
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, August 22, 2002 - 5:40 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Hawaii fishing report
Kona Hawaii fishing report 8/22/02
August is tournament time in Kona. Big names like the Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament, Pro Am, Hawaiian Invitational and many other one-day, cheap entry fee tournaments. August is supposed to be the height of the marlin season in Kona too but I remember (about 6 or 7 years ago) when August was pretty much a bust! Rumors started circulating around the worlds best fishing spots that “Kona is fished out”. Well, …. Here we go again. Poor marlin showings for the August tournaments this year have anglers from around the world murmuring the old “no fish there … la la la” tune. For the record, Kona is far from “fished out”. Big marlin catches in Kona have increased over the past few years. It’s only the 8th month of the year and there’s been more than 200 marlin over 500 lbs. caught in Kona. That’s more than last years total, the year before, the year before that ….. I’m not sure what the totals were before 1999 but, you get the idea. Another thing about that “bust” some years back was that right after August was over, the marlin bite went wild! One of the best marlin runs ever. You could just about guarantee a marlin even on a ½ day trip. I know I sound like a skipping record sometimes but I’ll say it again. “Fish don’t know how to read calendars”. The fish are out there. The question is, when are they coming to Kona. Next week? Next month? The sure thing is, they WILL come.
Other fish that are having a hard time reading a calendar are the spearfish and mahi mahi. The spearfish run just didn’t happen this year. This follows a run last year that was awesome. The mahi mahi are making up for it though. They stayed with us all winter and are doing the same this summer. Good fun catching on light tackle and good eating too. Yellowfin tuna, albacore and ono bites have been slow this year compared to last year.
The bottom fishing bite is typical for this time of year. It’s a bit slow but should (got a calendar?) pick up next month. I’m already starting to pick up some snapper and grouper. Interesting thing with the (adult) amberjack and almaco jack tagging. Around 20% of them caught now already have one of my tags in them. Nearly all the jacks tagged were tagged by me. I just finished my 7th series of 100 tags. Data would suggest that they circle the island counter clockwise with no incidence of them traveling between islands. Is it possible that the total adult population around the Big Island of Hawaii is around 3500? Simple math but are there other variables? Just some food for thought.
See ‘ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 20, 2002 - 8:54 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Fish Report, August 20 02, from the ROD BENDE
Continued mediocre fishing along the Kona coast this August. Slow or no current, switching direction or stopping almost daily has had all us Kona skippers pulling our hair out trying to find a pattern to the fishing but just when we think it's going to get started the next day the current has changed again. This spreads the fish all over the place so you just have to put out your favorite spread of lures and patiently go hunting. We've been averaging 1 or 2 strikes per day on blue marlin, mostly smaller fish ( 125 - 200 pounds) with a few 400 to 600 pounders thrown in. The odd yellowfin tuna explosion in your spread is always welcome but also only sporadic. We just fished 13 days with our owner on the Rod Bender for a total of 14 marlin bites, tagging 4 in the 150lb range and 1 in the 500lb range. Pretty average for most the fleet right now but not the action we're used to for this time of year. There is some light at the end of the tunnel now as our trade winds have settled back in the past few days and the current has started to hopefully get situated. Lot's of bait starting to hold on the north grounds and a fair bite up there on sunday and monday, reports from a few of the guys out fishing today were favorable and I was told the current was spliting in front of Kailua at about a 1/2 knot today which should perk up the bite on both our north and south grounds and bring the fish in on our drop offs where they are easier to find for everyone. Fingers crossed as we start a 4 day charter this friday and I'ld like to end the summer season with a bang! Bookings are very light in Sept. but it won't surprize me at all if that's when the bite goes off here, you never know about this place, it can go off anytime!
Good fishing, tight lines and ALOHA!
Chip
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Rod Bender Sportfishing
email: bvanmols@rod-bender.com
www.konasportfishingcharters.com
73-4180 Malino Place
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii 96740
home: 808-325-2155
cell: 808-960-5954
fax: 808-325-1713 |
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 31, 2002 - 4:59 am: | |
Subject: Kona Fish Report, July 30 02, from the ROD BENDE
Not one of our better July's of late but it's had it's moments! Big blues have been making their way to the top of the tournament leader boards all month but the overall numbers of our average blues (150-350) seems to be down a bit from last year. I suppose the slower than average fishing this month could be attributed to our current, which has either been racing strait up the coast and offshore at 2 knots or not moving at all or maybe it's because Jupiter is in the seventh house of Uranus. When you do luck into one of the big ones they seem to be in the 700lb range, nothing over 800lb lately that I can think of, but we had a close encounter with one over the 1000lb mark last week so I know there are a few of them around. Plenty of big yellowfin tuna rolling about but they are also proving very finicky, this week the average size seems to be in the 150lb to 190lb range, biggest this summer so far 226lb.
Here's a few highlites from the second half of July on the Rod Bender:
July 17, full day with returning angler and friend Jim Gregory, no bites all day untill about 2:30pm when we had one that looked 700lb pile on the short rigger, lasted about ten minutes till the hooks pulled. missed a small one shortly after that.
July 18, full day with light tackle lady angler Janet Martic. Looking for ladies 20lb blue marlin record (404lb +), Jan tagged an estimated 250lb blue in ten minutes, nice work!
July 21, holo holo with my daughter Jada, she catches two blues both by IGFA rules, est. 240lb and 140lb.
July 26, the Edelbrock clan was aboard for a full day, Tagged a 150lb blue 5 minutes out the gate and hooked a monster around 3:00pm, luck went in the fishes direction and we parted the leader after an hour and 15 minutes battle, easy over the 1000 mark and we all got a great show, NEXT.
July 28, Full day with Jan Martic again, after a few biteless trips with her since her 250lb marlin we got lucky again today with a 181lb. Yellowfin Tuna, 31 minute fight on 20lb test! Surprised me! Nice going Jan!
Here comes August! booked almost every day, should have plenty of interesting stuff to write about as soon as I can find the time during this buzy season. Untill then...
Godd fishin, tight lines and ALOHA!
Chip
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Rod Bender Sportfishing
www.konasportfishingcharters.com
73-4180 Malino Place
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii 96740
home: 808-325-2155
cell: 808-960-5954
fax: 808-325-1713 |
Capt. Jeff Rogers
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 24, 2002 - 11:45 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Hawaii fishing report
Kona Hawaii fishing report 7/24/02
Once again Kona proves the claim as the “blue marlin capital of the world”. The World Cup tournament pits anglers from around the world for a one day, biggest blue marlin (500 lb. minimum), winner take all event. Kona boats have won this event more than any other place in the world. Congratulations go to the “Marlin Magic”. Winner of this years World Cup with their 617 lb. pacific blue marlin and for winning the $250,000 prize (spare a dime?). A little over a week later in the “skins” tournament the “Ihu Nui” looked like they had the winning fish at 705 lbs. only to be beat out near the end of the day (OUCH by 8 pounds) when the “Chiripa” landed a 713 pounder. The Kona fishery is one more of size than of quantity. For reference, there were 35 boats from Kona entered in the “World Cup”. Only one qualifying fish was caught, most caught nothing. You could get lucky and bag a marlin your first time out but if you serious about getting one, plan on fishing 3 to 4 days.
The yellowfin tuna (ahi) bite is good this year. Some days the tuna bite has been better than the marlin bite. Kona’s biggest ahi was landed June 30th and weighed in at 212.5 lbs.
There’s been lots of other fish added to Kona’s big fish list since my last report. A broadbill swordfish weighing in at 210.5 lbs., a black marlin weighing in at 279.5 lbs., a sailfish weighing in at 67 lbs. and a barracuda weighing in at 70 lbs. The biggest seen in Kona in a long time. Some big mahi mahi were landed this month also. 50+ pounders! Here again, the quantity of fish hasn’t been so hot but the sizes are good.
The bottom fishing bite has followed suite with a bite of size rather than quantity. I released another 100 lb. amberjack last week. It’s my 5th 100 pounder of the year. Prior to this year, my biggest was 77 lbs. Last week we released a 700 + lb. tiger shark. Also the biggest ever for me. We also tagged and released a giant trevally estimated at 80 lbs. 10 lbs. lighter than Kona’s biggest of the year caught wile fishing with me last January.
See ‘ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
|
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, July 12, 2002 - 5:48 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Fish Report, July 12 02, from the ROD BENDE
Summertime is here! And so are the blue marlin and yellowfin tuna, right on skedual. As is normal for us this first part of summer we got a wave of spastic small blues that started the last week of June, seems like it takes them a week or so to settle down and learn how to feed near an island. They bill whack lures and fumble live baits constantly but you get enough shots that most guys were catching one or two a day in the 150lb range with a few in 500 to 700 pound range thrown in amongst the fleet, great action! The first tounament of the season, the Kona Classic, was held on June 29 and 30 and and the radio was ablaze with hookup after hookup, lot's of tags and when the dust settled after day two DOJO was first runner up with a 581lb blue and the HOLIDAY took home all the marbles with a 630lb blue. Next on the tournament trail was the World Cup on July 4th with 109 boats competing world wide for the biggest blue marlin, 30 in Kona. Most the world has already finished up fishing in thier time zone when we're getting started in Kona and the word was that a 585lb blue had been wieghed in Madiera. This time it was the crew aboard the MARLIN MAGIC right here in Kona coming home with a 612lb blue to take all the marbles, $240,000.00, and bring the cup back to Kona, where it belongs! The Fire Cracker Open, July 6 and 7, saw plenty of action as well with lots of tag and releases of smaller blues, plenty of big yellowfin tuna and a couple of big blues to boot. Again it was the team aboard Capt. Doug Pattengills HOLIDAY bringing home top honors and a $78,000.00 paycheck with a 698lb blue, when your hot your hot!
The best is yet to come, we're starting to see more marlin of all sizes instead of so many 150lb males only, should be wide open for the next couple months! I wonder who's going to catch the next grander? It could be you! It could be me! It could be you with me!
Tight lines, good fishin and ALOHA!
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Rod Bender Sportfishing
www.konasportfishingcharters.com
73-4180 Malino Place
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii 96740
home: 808-325-2155
cell: 808-960-5954
fax: 808-325-1713 |
Capt. Jeff Rogers
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 22, 2002 - 8:11 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Hawaii fishing report
Kona Hawaii fishing report 6/22/02
Shortly after my last fishing report the marlin bite went crazy! The smaller males moved in to join the big females kicking off Kona’s summer marlin season. By Kona standards, any time nearly 50% of the boats out fishing catch marlin, the bite is ON. This bite was short lived though. Within a few days it came to a screeching halt. The good news is, it’s back ON again! There’s been about 4 days in a row of blue marlin catches in the 50% range. Males, females, large and small. For those of you keeping an eye on the moon phases, give it up. The fish don’t care! These last runs and slow periods prove it.
Along with the summer marlin runs, Kona is famous for it’s summer yellowfin tuna bite. They’ve showed up too. Porpoise schools are where most of them are being caught but weather trolling around the ledges, out in the deep or live baiting, that fish screaming out your drag just might be a 100+ lb. tuna!
Other bites since my last report included a very good ono run that lasted for about 2 weeks. It’s slow right now but if this years summer ono run even comes close to last years (best in nearly 30 years), there will be lots of “catch-of-the-day specials” at the stores and restaurants. The otado have moved in get your sashimi bowls ready. The mahi mahi are still biting pretty good too but the spearfish bite remains slow.
The bottom fishing bite has picked up pretty good. Lots of BIG amberjack. Shortly after my last report one of my anglers caught a 109 pounder that now tops Kona’s “big fish” list in that category. The state record is only 119 lbs. Just last week we caught another 100+ pound class amberjack that actually measured longer than the 109 pounder but it looked kind of skinny so we decided to tag and released it. We also caught and released the biggest almaco jack I’ve ever seen earlier this month. There is no state record for almaco jack yet. Remember my fishing report last April? I’ll soon be writing an article for Hawaii Fishing News on how to easily tell an almaco jack from an amberjack. Funny that no one ever identified almaco’s in Hawaii before. There are a couple of very distinct differences.
See ‘ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
|
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, May 30, 2002 - 4:42 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Fish Report, May 30 02, from the ROD BENDER
The big blue marlin keep rolling thru in good numbers with at least 1 and as many as 4 over 500lb and as large as 825lb mark being caught every day. The numbers of smaller blue marlin are also on the increase making for some pretty good early season blue marlin fishing. Charters have been very slow for the fleet this spring but the catching has been great for those lucky enough to get out on a regular basis. To round things out and keep your riggers rattleing there has also been a fair peck of mahi mahi, wahoo and spearfish to boot. The big yellowfin tuna keep increasing in number in the porpoise schools outside and we should start seeing them busting around on the inside anytime now. Summer is almost here and it looks like it may be another LULU! With the good numbers of big females around now it won't be long before we get a wave her smaller boy friends around to join in on the fun, everything seems to be right on skedual so any time now!
I've been out of town for a couple weeks but did make it out for a couple days over the memorial day weekend with my ten year old daughter Jada, in search of the smallfry blue marlin record for her. We need to find Jada a blue over 250lbs and she has to catch it acording to IGFA rules. We found plenty of good bait on the grounds off the airport here so we live baited the two days and went 1 for 2 on blues with one about 120lb( not big enough) and boated a 33lb mahi mahi and she also caught a 100lb shark. We watched a handfull of really big blues get hooked by other boats trolling lures in the area the two days and trolling lures seems to be the go right now but is a little to difficult for our Pee Wee sized angler, she'll get'em next time!
Want to catch a big Pacific Blue Marlin? They're here right now and things should just keep getting better! Shame to have our Shinny 35' CABO just sitting in the slip with the big girls on hunt right ouside our harbor! We're running out of things to pollish so let's go fishing! Any questions? email: bvanmols@rod-bender.com or give me a call, I'll be happy to help!
Good fishin, tight lines and ALOHA!
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Rod Bender Sportfishing
www.konasportfishingcharters.com
73-4180 Malino Place
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii 96740
home: 808-325-2155
cell: 808-960-5954
fax: 808-325-1713 |
Capt. Jeff Rogers
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, May 24, 2002 - 6:12 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Hawaii fishing report
Kona Hawaii fishing report 5/24/02
The marlin bite has been a bit slow for Kona but the fish sizes have been BIG! The largest since my last report was a 848 pounder caught on the Ihu Nui. There have been several caught in the 300 to 600 pound range in the past month. Also many rumors of “granders” that have fought and won their battles. I still remain in 4th place for Kona’s biggest marlin of the year but I don’t think I’ll stay there long. There have been 2 fish recently that were real close. The striped marlin have moved out of Kona for the year so my “biggest of the year” striped marlin record appears to be safe. There’s an article about it in this months issue of Sport Fishing Magazine.
The spearfish are here! So much for my prediction last month about them not showing this year. The fishing seasons are a bit messed up. Can’t these fish learn how to read the calendar? The “shibi” that were supposed to show up at the beginning of winter are just showing up now. Lots of action on the FAD’s. The mahi mahi are biting like they’re supposed to, the ono are starting to show up along with some yellowfin tuna bites here and there. Most of what’s being caught in Kona right now is mahi mahi and ono.
The bottom fishing bite has slowed down a bunch. Not because they’re not down there but because they’re being real picky about what they’ll eat. Sea conditions and bait availability is changing on a day-to-day basis. It makes it hard to plan a course of action. I’ve been switching style, target species and gear several times a day to make sure my anglers don’t get skunked. I still maintain the highest sportfish catch rate in Kona.
See ‘ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
|
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, May 01, 2002 - 6:35 pm: | |
Subject: Kona fish Report, May 1 02, big blues return!
Big Blue Marlin are here again!! Things went pretty quiet around here for about two weeks after my last report on the April 10th, with very few marlin being seen, the odd spearfish or striped marlin and only a few floaters with mahi mahi, wahoo and small tuna around to pick up the slack. But starting April 23rd HERE THEY COME AGAIN! The big girls are here and every day at least one of the handful of boats lucky enough to be out fishing gets slammed by a nice one, 500 to 750 pounds. The hard part is getting out since there are very few charters here at the moment but for the few that were out regularly they all caught big ones. Huntress weighed a 728 and the next day a 586 then released a 260 on their next trip. Lady Dee had a steady run of trips this past week and weighed 2 over 600. Been a few close encounters of the Grander Kind and there is a good chance we'll see one come to the scales this week! The water has warmed up a couple degrees peaking at about 80 and a lot of bait is moving into the area on the ledges and at the FAD buoy's, LOOKING GOOD!! The presence of big yellowfin tuna in our porpoise schools continues to build and that fishery is looking good for this summer too. A quick look at my tide calendar shows me that the last run of big ones started late in march 5 or 6 days before the full moon and continued another 9 or 10 days past it, same deal with the run now so far, so hopefully we have another week or so on this run if you believe in that stuff. I believe current is the most important factor here in Kona, good current = good fishing regardless of the moon phase. The bite last month peaked and ended on the 8th after which a low moved over the islands killing our trades and stalling the current for a couple weeks stalling the fishing as well. Trade winds return, current returns, FISH RETURN! Now if my tide chart could just tell me what the weather and current was going to do this fishing stuff would be a snap and I could charge double.
Here's how we did on the ROD BENDER since my last report:
April 19, Half day, all zero's
April 21, full day, 7 mahi mahi to 25lbs, tag and release 1 spearfish 1/1, tag and release 1 striped marlin 1/2.
April 23, 24, 25, convention group morning half days ( 4 hours) 1 spearfish for the lot.
April 28, I took out my wife and ten year old daughter for a 3/4 day and we lost a mahi, missed a spearfish and my daughter caught an estimated 140lb striped marlin. That worked out well with no deck hand, I was tempting fate with the big ones around and a ten year old angler, although she is quite good for her age and size, great technique! We did get a great show from an 800+ blue marlin that one of the single handed charter boats hooked near us about 3:45. 2 hours later the anglers were complaining about being late for the LUAU so they broke it off!! WANKERS!!!!!!!!!!
A quick look at the numbers above and you can see that it pays in "fish caught" to keep your line wet as long as possible. We have a 3 day charter starting the 3rd, I can't wait, fingers crossed, it's an exciting feeling out on the water right now knowing that she's here! Sunday with my daughter Jada at my side I got onto a few areas where the hair was standing on the back of my neck, Shearwaters milling about, flat water, lures humming, scattered bait and flying fish. "Look out Jada" I said. "We could get ourselves into some big trouble around here!" It's not if, it's when and how big!! Great boat, great crew and the best heavy tackle. Just add water and you (a little luck never hurt either). Let's get connected!! Any questions? Call or email bvanmols@rod-bender.com , we'll both be glad you did!
Good fishin, tight lines and ALOHA!
Chip
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Rod Bender Sportfishing
www.konasportfishingcharters.com
73-4180 Malino Place
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii 96740
home: 808-325-2155
cell: 808-960-5954
fax: 808-325-1713 |
Capt. Jeff Rogers
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 25, 2002 - 4:32 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Hawaii fishing report
Kona Hawaii fishing report 4/24/02
The striped marlin have moved out and the BIG blue’s have moved in. The last week of March was particularly good. 4 marlin at 300+, 5 at 400+, one at 534.5 and one at 851.5. OK, this gets even better. The 534 was caught on the “Impulse”. Capt. Erik runs the boat single handed (no deckhand) and the 851 was caught on the “Carnivore”. That’s my boat and guess what, I run that boat single handed too! This marlin was the 2nd largest in Kona for the year but my fame was short lived. Hold on to your socks, The first week of April had 3 marlin at 300+, 2 at 500+, 2 at 600+ and Kona’s first “Grander” of the year caught on the “Catchem I” with Capt. Chuck. Guess what? Yep. Chuck runs his boat single handed also. In this particular instance though he radioed to another boat for help and borrowed a deck hand to help with the beast because they were going for the woman’s 80 lb. test world record. With the leader just out of reach and a very valiant attempt, she gave up on the IGFA rules and just wanted the fish. The deck hand grabbed the main line so they could take the fish. It weighed in at 1,036 lbs. Ready for the 2nd week of April? Not too many fish but there was a 600+, 3 at 700+ and another “Grander”! This one caught on the “Huntress” with Capt. Randy and weighed in at 1,174 lbs. Does Randy run his boat single handed? …… No, that would be just TOO cool. Last week, the marlin bite took a big downward turn. Only 3 marlin reported for the week and none of any size. The biggest fish of the week was a 500+ lb. dusky shark caught and released on the “Carnivore”. Remember who the captain of the “Carnivore” is?
Last week seems to be the start of a good summer time ahi (yellowfin tuna) run. There were 12 weighed in and only one of them was under 100 lbs. The bite should kick into high gear by late May and early June.
The mahi mahi bite is on! Great action for stand-up light tackle and casting fly or plugs. The ono have moved in too. Last years summer ono run was the best we’ve seen in a long time. This year should be good too. The spearfish run looks like it’s just not going to happen this year.
The bottom fishing bite has been great. Lots of amberjack, almaco jack and shark action. It was recently discovered that there are actually four similar kinds of amberjack here in Hawaii. Most people think there’s only the greater amberjack here. Point of fact, a few yellowtail amberjack have been caught in the Northern island chain and recently a Japanese amberjack was caught there too. Here on the Southern most island, after a long battle of trying to prove it to the Hawaii Dept. of Aquatic Resources, they now officially recognize the almaco jack as being here in Hawaii too. I’ve know that for a long time but trying to prove it to the bureaucrats was much more difficult than I had expected. Last year I proved that there were dusky shark here in Hawaii after my daughters IGFA world record was finally approved. Bureaucrats seem to be tougher to fight than the fish : )
See ‘ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
|
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 10, 2002 - 8:35 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Fish Report, April 10 2002, from the ROD BE
HANG ON TO YOUR 130's THE BIG ONES HAVE ARRIVED! And GRANDER # 2 hits the docks!
A nice spring wave of large blue marlin continues to push and shove it's way down our coast! To bad there is only handful of boats going out daily right now to enjoy there presence. One week after the April fools day 1036lb blue on the "Catchem I", Capt. Randy Parker on board the "HUNTRESS" with his crewman Boyd Decoito and angler Jeff Russel of Fairbanks, Alaska brought in a monster tipping the scales at 1,174.5 pounds, Kona's second grander of the year, April 8th!! The fish fell for a 9 inch jet while trolling off the town of Kailua (700 fathoms outside VV bouy)and was subdued by Jeff in just 30 minutes on 130lb tackle. CONGRADS!!! to the team on the HUNTRESS!! This day was the best one day snap since this run started and also caught on the 8th were a 706 by Capt. Scott Pruner on the DECIEVER, 702 by Capt. Kevin Nakamaru on the Northern lights and the tag and release of a 400+ by Capt. Jeff Faye on the HUMDINGER. Kevin has been on fire this past week also boating a 520 on the 7th and tagging a 525 on the 6th. A few other fish of note this last week were a 619 on the FIVE STAR, 602 on the HANAMANA and a 656 on the ANXIOUS. There were several others missed, lost, released and boated.
With the arrival of this big fish wave the small fish have tapered way off, only a very occasional spearfish or stripey, and there isn't loads of bait schools or anything to look at, it's a patience game trolling but when it happens LOOK OUT! For those of you without much patience the Ono bite is picking up inshore and a few mahi mahi are being caught in the Ono lane as well. The big Yellowfin tuna are steadily increasing in number in the porpoise schools but still pretty tough to get by traditional sportfishing methods. Last week we had several floaters pass thru in the current that were holding good numbers of mahi mahi but that ended on friday the 5th but can and often will start back up as fast as it dissapeared. We also have a low pressure trough sitting above our state right now holding back our trade winds so it me be a few days before trades return and our current gets moving again and we start seeing a little more variety.
We're usually looking pretty good here but here's how we didn't do on the ROD BENDER this past week:
April 5th, p.m. half day, missed one mahi mahi
April 6th, full day, missed one spearfish
April 7th a.m. half day, didn't miss anything
April 8th 6 hour 3/4 day, all zero's. This one hurt the most, the water was perfect, My pattern was humming and one of my friends caught a 700lb blue right off the bat. High tide was 1:55p.m. and we had to go in at 1:00. A grander, a 700 and a 400 were all hooked and caught in the next hour and a half and they were the only guys out. I didn't have any bites in my slip while washing the boat, damn!
THAT'S FISHIN! And no one can say I only report my good days!
Good things come to those who are patient right now and put thier time in. There is nothing new about getting runs of big ones this time of year, it happens quite a bit, some years better than others. During this next week or two as we pass the new moon and return to our normal trade wind weather I'll bet we see some more world class marlin fishing and I won't be surprised if grander # three is amongst the bunch, in my humble opinion, of course! It could be you, it could be me, it could be you with me! Any Questions? Drop me a line: bvanmols@rod-bender.com .
Good fishing, tight lines and ALOHA!
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Rod Bender Sportfishing
www.konasportfishingcharters.com
73-4180 Malino Place
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii 96740
home: 808-325-2155
cell: 808-960-5954
fax: 808-325-1713 |
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 - 4:26 pm: | |
Subject: Kona News Flash, First Grander of 2002!
Capt. Chuck Haupert on board his charter vessel CATCHEM I brought the first grander blue marlin of the year to the scales yesterday, april 1st. The 1,036lb blue marlin was caught on a lure in 3 hours using 130lb tackle. Congrads to Chuck and his party!!
The big girls are here right now!
Aloha,
Chip |
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, April 01, 2002 - 11:06 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Fish Report, April 1 2002, Capt. Chip Van Mol
THE WORLDS FIRST TONNER BLUE MARLIN! Ah, never mind, was just going to be another lame April Fools Day thing.
No tonners lately but the fishing has been fair for big blues with a 400+ or two being caught almost daily and a handfull of bigger ones too. Last week Capt. Jeff Rogers on the Carnivor weighed an impressive 851 pound blue, second largest of the year so far! The funny thing about this (ha ha) is that Jeff primarily does deep water jigging for amberjack and only really trolls for palagics on his way to and from the grounds, so if you hear the evil rumor (that I started) that he caught this big one by switch baiting it a live kahala, don't believe it, he caught it trolling! Much to the shagrinn of the highliners targeting billfish full time! Nice going Jeff!
You should have seen the look on some of the other captains faces when I told them the switch bait kahala story, PRICELESS! Best hookup ratio I've had in years!
Back to fishing for fish. Spring has sprung and our winter striped marlin are thinning out, spearfish made an attempt at a run in the middle of march but it never amounted to much, one here and one there. A bit of a run on mahi mahi this past couple weeks but still sporadic and the big yellowfin tuna are in the porpoise schools but not always willing to bite, timing is everything with these finicky tuna, first boat in the porpoise usually scores and the rest watch. Oh yeah, the skirt munching wahoo(ono) are starting to show up and it won't be long before they are trashing our marlin lures in the deep while they try and figure out where the 50 fathom curve is, at least they're good eating. Spring is a transitional time here in Kona, big fish on the increase small fish on the decrease, we usually get some good runs of blue marlin with a fair amount of them being 500lb+ ( April 30th 1990 being the best bite I've ever seen )and before you know it, it's summer!
Here's how we did on the ROD BENDER since my last report:
March 9th, half day, NFL Players Association charity tourney. 26 boats 5 hours fishing, 150lb minimum weight. We landed a 160lb blue and tagged a 40lb spearfish, WE WIN!! We also raised a blue about 400lb that followed us for about ten minutes giving one lure a half hearted swat but just wouldn't leave (window shopper), I told a friend of mine where we raised it and he went there the next day and caught it? 485lbs. it followed him his first pass through the GPS mark for about 5 mins. and no strike, he went back thru an hour later and whoosh!
March 11th, 3/4 day, trolling the grounds. Tag one spearfish 1/1. Then we had a 200lb blue pounce on the short rigger and come off, while getting the lure back in the rigger we hooked a 25lb mahi on the long rigger, we caught the mahi but never saw the blue again.
March 13, half day, 1 spearfish on the grounds.
March 19, full day w/Steve Oenbrink, Gusting trade winds and large seas forced us to look south today and we didn't find much, 1 mystery bite. oops!
March 20-25, Friend and owner of the ROD BENDER, Henry Potts, came to play. the 20th was still too rough to go up north, we left at 9:30 and trolled down south and back, NADA! 21st, after 5 or 6 days of howling northerly we were finally able to get up to the grounds and we promptly tagged the biggest stripey I've ever caught in Kona, est. 170lb. 22nd, back to the grounds, we made a few attempts at live baiting but the porpoise said NO. It was also so crowded with boats that I renamed the place the PROZAC ZONE. Late in the day when most the smoke had cleared, we snuck out a live bait and promptly raised a blue that swirled, stabbed, killed and did everything but eat our bait, we slid back a fresh bait out of our tuna tubes back to the marlin and a freaking porpoise came in and broke up our little party! More PROZAC please! 23rd, being fresh out of prozac and having taken note of a dying current up north we decided to head way down south to milolii and beyond, we ran about 35 miles down, put out the lures and started checking the holes. Nothing on B bouy, nothing in milolii koa and no current, so on to TT bouy where we greeted by clouds of birds, huge schools of skipjack and a nice south current, yes! And a bunch of bait steeling porpoise, sh@#t!! We pounded the area with lures for a few hours with no strikes, keeping an eye on the porpoise (hoping they might leave and let us live bait) when here she comes, 700+ blue, roaring in on our short outrigger!! But no strike, just follow and roar in and back off, 3 times, *%#$@!! After another hour or so trolling the area with the hair standing up on the back of my neck it was time to troll north, we ended up catching a 40lb spearfish in front of milolii and tagging a 170lb blue off the 3rd lava flow, yeah!. 24th, We know where a big one is and why would it go anywhere else? I just hoped we could present it with what it's feeding on, so back down to TT bouy. The south wind line was a couple miles north of the bouy so we had to troll in to the zone and find it in the 4-8 foot seas with 25 Knots of breeze, first pass no porpoise, yes! We cleared the gear and quickly caught 2 x 5lb skipjack, rigged one at put him out the 80lb stand up rig and in no more than three minutes we were hooked and three minutes after that a 200lb blue spat our bait back in our faces right behind the boat, we quickly rig the other skippy and put him out and graciously feed it to one of a dozen porpoise who have now shown up,@#$%&*!!
We pounded the area with lures with no bites untill it was time to start heading north, back up the same depth as the day before and bang there's a mahi in front of milolii and bang there's a blue 400-500 on the long corner that comes off and bang we miss a 150lb blue off the second lava flow. 2 mahi mahi and 0/3 on blues. 25th, we trolled the magic depth all the way down and back, ZIP! Not one of our more productive trips but we had our moments, and a good time!
March 27th, full day w/ Dick and Chrissy Russell, Back down we run to TT bouy, porpoise are there to greet us, so out go the lures and after a couple hours we caught a 270lb blue inside the bouy about 300-400yds right in my magic depth from the prior days. We trolled the magic depth (around 600 fathoms) all the way back with no more strikes, but we finally got one off the bouy and Richard got his first Pacific Blue, one bite one fish, great show too!
With the passing of spring break our tourism slows until summer, For the next 2 1/2 months you can have the fishing grounds and the town all to yourself. It's a great time to come and catch a big blue marlin, not watch the boat next to you catch it! Any Questions? I'll be happy to help! And don't forget to check out the ROD BENDER on our web page.
Good fishing, tight lines and ALOHA!
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Rod Bender Sportfishing
www.konasportfishingcharters.com
73-4180 Malino Place
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii 96740
home: 808-325-2155
cell: 808-960-5954
fax: 808-325-1713 |
Capt. Jeff Rogers
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 16, 2002 - 5:03 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Hawaii fishing report
Kona Hawaii fishing report 3/16/02
The striped marlin bite has slowed down a bunch since last months report. The blue marlin bite is picking up though. It seems to be about a 50/50 mix right now. The blues are running in the 200 to 500 lb. range. The spearfish are finally starting to show up. A bit late in the season for ‘em but if you’re looking for some good eating fish, many prefer spearfish over mahi mahi or ono.
We’re having a pretty good off season bite of yellowfin tuna. Not the little “shibi” kind either. I’m talkin’ 100+ lbs. They’re running with the porpoise schools and the first boat of the day to find the school is usually the one making the score. The “pot lickers” coming in later aren’t having much luck.
Spurts of mahi mahi bites are still happening. The bite should be getting even better as their spring run starts. The ono bite is real slow.
A bunch of dusky and bronze whaler sharks have moved in. They’re in the 200 to 500 lb. range and will really put an angler to the test. Unlike marlin, sharks don’t seem to ever wear down or get tired of fighting. You can usually expect the hardest part of the fight to be right near the boat. The amberjack and almaco jack bite has slowed as a result of the big sharks being in town. Most of the jacks hooked up instantly become shark bait.
See ‘ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, March 04, 2002 - 10:09 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Fish Report, March 2,02, Capt. Chip Van Mols
Good winter season fishing continues along the Kona coast! We've had a fairly steady peck of blue marlin of all sizes, mostly 100lb-250lb but every other day or so someone lucks into a big one over 500lbs. The biggest blue so far this year is a 942lb beast that was captured aboard the Lehualani by Capt. Kenny Llanas and his son Bomboy. Striped marlin are still here in fair numbers but seem to be a bit on the decline, hard to say though, we may still get a few more waves of them right through spring. Mahi mahi are a little slow this winter, there are still enough around to spice things up a bit but we haven't been getting many floaters passing through which is where we usually cash in on big numbers of them. Our usuall wintertime resident the short nosed spearfish is late but the signs that they may be here soon are happening. That sign is there have been a few very large ones caught lately, 40 TO 60lb, and that's how the run usually starts but you never know. The Sea Genie II found one of these bigger models and pushed the 30lb record up to 48lbs last week! A few big yellowfin tuna around too.
Here's how we did on the Rod Bender since my last report:
Feb.12th, afternoon half day, dr.Chuck Prichard. 0 for 2 on the striped marlin trolling the Grounds, Rubber hooks!
Feb.13 full day with Mark Klimiuk. we stated with a nice 35lb mahi mahi and then went 3 for 7 on the striped marlin, tag and release 2 and kept one that my Deckhand needed for a party. Hooks not so rubberlike today!
Feb.14 Mark for another full day, we were spoiled by the action the day before, we caught 1 mahi about 25lb and went 0 for 1 on blue marlin and 0 for 3 on stripeys, back to rubber hooks on the trolling lures.
Feb.15 marks last day, After missing a stripey on the lures we switched to live bait on circle hook and caught a stripe marlin, tag and release. three days,4 stripeys and 2 mahi mahi, OK!
Feb.16 thru 19, we had ace angler and owner of the Rod Bender, Mr. Henry Potts . We trolled most of the first day and I was hoping we would start raising fish so we could switch to teasers and do some fly fishing but the fish weren't responding to lure so we swithched to live bait on 30lb. standup tackle and promptly had a stripey spazz out and run into the leader and then tagged one shortly after that on a cicle hook, est. 60lbs. Day two we again tried the trolling thing in the morning and no raises so back to live bait, this time 20lb. stand up tackle was Henry's choice and along came mister blue marlin, 150lbs 1 hour 45 minute fight, circle hook in the corner of the mouth and Tag & release! Day three, we ran straight to the grounds and straight to live bait fishing, 16lb. today! After several donations to our resident bottle nose dolphin aka Bentfin and a wahoo chop off we got on the right track and tagged 70lb stripe marlin on 16lb in about ten minutes, good fun! Day four, I thought the 12lb was going to come out today, we seemed to heading in that direction but out came the heavy tackle, 30lb, Live bait , circle hooks, tagged a 120lb blue and 60lb stripey, both hooked right in the corner. I love it! Good trip, 4 days 5 marlin.
Feb.21 full day with Ed Bezgembluk. we tried the lure thing and promptly tagged a stripey then pulled hook on a 200lb blue alongside the boat and then the rubber hooks took over so we stuck out a live bait on a circle hook on 50lb and Ed caught another stripey, right in the corner, tag and release. 0 for 1 on blues 2 for 5 on striped marlin.
Feb. 23rd full day with Dan I forgot your last name. We decided to go south to the land of the giants for a change of scenery and the calm water. We didn't find any giants but I did get to watch a 400 pounder feeding on the surface and we had three blue marlin shots tagging 2, 135 and 180 pounds as well as missing a stripey too. I really enjoyed this change of scenery, Dan did too!
Feb.24 Full day with my daughter Jada in search of the smallfry girls junior world record blue marlin. we ran down to the same spot that we caught the two marlin the day before and poked around on the ledge awhile until we came up with a 5 pound skipjack for live bait, no takers though. We have until july 1st, when she turns 11, to work on some of these smallfry records, look out!
We had a pretty good run at them there, so did most the rest of the guys who worked at it. Quite often in March we get a good run of big blues, I'll bet it's not long before I'm telling you about the first grander of the year. It could be you!
Good fishin, tight lines and Aloha!
Chip
Capt.Chip Van Mols
Rod Bender Sportfishing
bvanmols@rod-bender.com
www.konasportfishingcharters.com
73-4180 Malino Place
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii 96740
home: 808-325-2155
cell: 808-960-5954
fax: 808-325-1713 |
Capt. Jeff Rogers
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, February 21, 2002 - 1:09 am: | |
Subject: Kona Hawaii fishing report
Kona Hawaii fishing report 2-20-02
The marlin bite has been pretty hot! Mostly striped marlin (that time of year). We did have a little flurry of big blue marlin come through. Capt. Kenny Llanes and his son brought in one that they thought would hit the “grander” mark. Close but, it weighed in at 944 lbs. A fantastic fish anyway. The biggest striped marlin landed since 1996 was caught by angler Steve Broderick on the 13th. The captain was … well … me : ) It weighed in at 186 lbs. and was caught on Penn 30 international stand-up tackle. We were figuring we would hook into the average size running now. About 50 lbs. Steve didn’t complain at all about fighting the beast. He did a great job angling and had it boated in just over 20 minutes.
The mahi mahi bite has also been hot! It’s kinda strange that the mahi mahi are biting this time of year and the spearfish aren’t. Either way, as long as there’s some good eatin’ fish to be had, most people are happy. The ono bite is slow to none as is typical for this time of year. The “shibi” run looks like it’s just not going to happen this year.
Ending this report on a high note, the bottom fishing bite has been fabulous. Two days ago I had out some jig fishermen from Japan and more than doubled my old catch record of amberjack caught, tagged and released in one day. A whopping 38!!! I think it’s a record that will stand for a long time. Angler Rodney Boreen also took the amberjack division of Kona’s “big fish list” this month with a 100 pounder. Uh ….. that was while fishing with me too. I guess every dog has his day. This seems to be my month : )
See ‘ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
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Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 28, 2002 - 9:31 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Fish Report, Jan.28 2002, from the ROD BENDER
A little bit of everything but not a lot of anything. The fishing along the Kona coast slowed up a notch this past week, possibly due to a passing cold front that lingered over our islands since my last report. Still the fishing is fair with most boats catching on a daily basis. The striped marlin bite has slowed but they're still around just not in the numbers of a week or two ago. Spearfish , blue marlin and mahi mahi are also around but none of them in great numbers either but they're here. Also making an appearances along our coast right now are big yellowfin tuna (135-155 pounds), two or three a day seem to be making their way to the scales from our porpoise schools and even more unusual has been an occasional large big eye tuna (100+). The charter boat Camelot hooked a double last week and came in with two big eyes both in the 140 pound range. Throw in a smattering of 15 to 20 pound skipjack and the odd wahoo and you have a little bit of everything except sailfish I guess, but we don't catch them here anyway, to bad! Sunny sky's and tradewinds are forecast for the upcoming week and we should see the bite pick back up to where we are getting multiple shots at stripeys, blues and spearfish again in the next couple of days. Here's how we did on the Rod Bender last week:
Jan. 21st, Half day with Mark Hoon and family, no hits, no runs and no errors but they did get a good humpback whale show at no extra charge!
Jan. 22nd, 3/4 day with my daughters. My 7 year old, Kari, caught us a 2lb frigate mackerel that we used for a live bait to tag and release a 50lb striped marlin for my 10 year old Jada. She's still looking for a blue marlin over 250 to get her into the small fry junior angler record books!
Jan.24, Full day with John Boyd, John has a 44'Post in North Carolina and has plenty of tuna under his belt but had never angled a billfish. We live baited all morning with no strikes and went trolling about 1:30, we didn't even have all the lures out and we raised a 200lb blue that stuck it's nose into the short outrigger 4 times and left. Not long after that we had a double strike on spearfish and John tagged one of them est. 30lbs. Johns first billfish and no black and white cat on board today. (we don't have skunks in Hawaii)
Even though it slowed down we're still getting our shots and doing a bit of catching! Sure beats sitting on land! Here's one from for the Kona X files, the Kona Rainbow hooked a beast on a lure last Tuesday and everything went right until they were one pull on the leader away from securing their catch and the leader parted, OOPS!, estimated weight 1000+! There's always a few around but I haven't hooked any of them sitting my slip lately. Any questions? Call:808-960-5954, email: bvanmols@rod-bender.com and check out the ROD BENDER at www.konasportfishingcharters.com .
You never know until you go!
Good fishin, tight lines and Aloha!
Chip
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Rod Bender Sportfishing
www.konasportfishingcharters.com
73-4180 Malino Place
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii 96740
home: 808-325-2155
cell: 808-960-5954
fax: 808-325-1713 |
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2002 - 8:09 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Fish Report, Jan. 18 02, from the ROD BENDER
Good wintertime fishing continues along the Kona coast! Striped marlin in the 40 to 80 pound range are still here in great numbers and several shots a day at them is the norm and should continue thru march. The really good news is the blue marlin fishing has been consistently good for months now and I haven't been out a single day this year that I didn't encounter at least one blue piling onto our lures, average weight seems to be 130 to 250 pounds with a few in the 500-600lb range thrown in for good measure. Yesterday 2 blues over the 500lb mark were caught from about 10 boats fishing, The HUMDINGER tagged and released an est. 600lb blue and the JACQUES APITO weighed a 585lb blue. The spearfish action is picking up but still hasn't reached it's usual proportions for this time of year, one day you don't see any and the next day you see three, when they really get going you can expect 4 to 8 shots a day from them, any day now. Mahi mahi round out our variety pack for now, nice to have something for the BBQ!
Trolling artificial is my preferred method for dealing with the variety of fish here right now, it allows me to cover ground to locate the best areas, lure hooked fish make for the best releases and I love watching the bites!. I adjust the size tackle and lures to accommodate what's biting and my clients wishes, If there were less blues around I might run a 50 on the short rigger and 30,s long rigger and stinger but here's my standard spread for the conditions right now:
There is always a chance for a nice blue marlin here so we pull a bridge teaser short and big marlin lures on the corners on heavy tackle (80-130) and with the amount of blues here right now we're also pulling a marlin lure on the short outrigger but something more medium in size ( wide range senior etc.)on an 80lb rig. For the stripeys, spearfish and mahi mahi we run 50lb rigs on the long rigger and shotgun or stinger positions with 7 inch lures, AP's, jets and bullets seem to do nicely and are especially deadly on the smaller billfish if you can position them to ripple steadily and occasionally do a controlled skitter across the surface. Watch out though cause big mama likes that too! That's one of the reasons I run my stinger from the bridge straight off the rod tip, If I see one I don't want to tangle with on the smaller gear coming up on my stinger or long rigger I can control the stinger and my crew can handle the long rigger, I turn the boat very slightly to the short rigger side and tease the fish in to the heavier tackle. Conversely if a small fish pops up on the big gear I wind the stinger in and try to switch them. For the times when all I see is a big hole where my long rigger used to be and we have a 50 or 30 screaming I can clear the teaser and stinger to help my crew get one side of the wake clear so we can turn and chase or back down, POSTE HASTE!
We've only been out once since my last report, my 10 year old daughter Jada and I took out the ROD BENDER last Sunday to practice her IGFA angling technique. She went 2 for 2 on striped marlin and released a 35 and 70 pounder. I never touched a thing, look out small fry girls blue marlin record, here she comes!
Weather is perfect, sunny low 80's, sea temp 77 to 79. Our notheasterly tradewinds started smoking 20 to 35 knots but thanks to our 14000 ft. volcano's standing in the way we have a about 40 miles of beautiful calm water with light breezes in Kona, The rest of the state the water is upside down, we're spoiled here and that's OK, it can't get to calm to scare me! Writing about that poste haste stuff gives me the urge to go for a troll and see what pops up in the spread, how about you? Check out the ROD BENDER at www.konasportfishingcharters.com and feel free to email me, bvanmols@rod-bender.com, if you have any questions on lures, spreads, technique etc...
I'll be happy to share, never know, we might both learn something!
Good fishin, tight lines and ALOHA!
Chip
Capt. Chip Van Mols
Rod Bender Sportfishing
www.konasportfishingcharters.com
73-4180 Malino Place
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii 96740
home: 808-325-2155
cell: 808-960-5954
fax: 808-325-1713 |
Capt. Jeff Rogers
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2002 - 4:23 pm: | |
Subject: Kona Hawaii fishing report
Kona Hawaii fishing report 1/16/02
The marlin bite has been very sporadic. Some days the daily catch board will show that nearly everyone out fishing caught and the next day, hardly anyone caught. Sometimes the good catch days will go for 2 or 3 days in a row and then shut off like a faucet. The current or moon phase doesn’t seem to be a factor this time. Just mother nature showing us that all of our fishing calendars, solunar tables and such are still reliant on her and not our science. Catches of blue marlin are about as frequent as striped marlin. The blues are still running small with nearly all of ‘em under the 200 lb. mark. The biggest so far this year is 679 lbs. And I’ve heard of a few (very few) big ones lost during the fight. The biggest striped marlin so far this year is 85 lbs.
The ono bite picked up this week so get out there while the bite is happening, it won’t last for long. There’s still some mahi mahi being caught too. It’s the time of year for the spearfish to be here but there haven’t been many caught. It should pick up soon. When it comes to great tasting fish, spearfish is highly underrated compared to ono and mahi mahi. Many captains and deckhands here in Kona actually prefer the taste of spearfish over ono or mahi mahi. If you’re planning on keeping your food fish catch, make sure you arrange it with the captain BEFORE booking a charter. Most boats keep the catch as part of their income. A few of us here place a higher priority on customer happiness than on $$$.
The bottom fishing bite has picked up a lot since last month. In certain areas, the fish finder is showing huge clouds of bait fish and big game fish hanging just under the bait fish schools. One of the anglers that fished with me last week landed a 90 lb. white trevally (GT). A 40 minute fight on spinning tackle with 35 lb. test line. There’s a photo of it on the “fish photos page” of my web site.
See ‘ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com
|
MMRC
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, January 09, 2002 - 7:53 pm: | |
Subject: The world´s biggest marlin!
Find the world´s biggest marlin and the most glorious anglers at www.marlin-records.org
The Millennium Marlin Record Club(MMRC)registers all marlin over 625 lbs caught by a single angler as of 01/01/2000.
Register the marlin of your lifetime! |
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