Kona Hawaii fishing report - July wrap-up

[Capt. Jeff Rogers]

Kona Hawaii fishing report – July wrap-up .

So how many of you regular readers of my monthly fishing report Google’d to see who won the Blue Marlin World Cup Tournament on July 4th? You don’t need to email me with the answer but I have thousands of fishermen who regularly read my monthly fishing report and I figured at least some of you would have been curious enough to see if Bermuda was able to take the “Blue Marlin Capital” title away from Hawaii. Drum roll…… Hawaii wins again! Not only did we win but we smoked the rest of the world! In this tournament the minimum qualifying weight is the “beast status” of at least 500 lbs. There wasn’t a single qualifying blue marlin caught anywhere else in the world except Hawaii. In fact, there were 3 qualifying “beast” marlin caught here. The winner was Maui Jim with a 729 pounder but the Maui Jim wasn’t fishing his home turf off Maui, he was fishing right here in Kona where all 3 qualifying beasts were caught. In last month’s report I said that the big blues were here but the smaller males hadn’t shown up yet. Well, they’re here now and the bite is ON! The Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament started last Monday and by the end of the first day, more than half of the teams had tagged and released at least one marlin. The tournament runs for 5 days so we’re right in the middle of it now so I’ll bring you the results in next month’s report. Of course you don’t have to wait to hear it from me, they have a web site.

The smaller yellowfin and bigeye tunas are biting on the ledges and buoys and the 100+ yellowfin are biting “in the blind” as is typical for this time of year. The spearfish are biting too, also typical for this time of year. The bummer is that the ono, that are supposed to be here now, aren’t. We’ll see if they’re just running late in next month’s report.

The bottom bite, as usual, is the best way to get some quick action. Even though the marlin bite is on, you can still end up empty handed if all you do is troll all day. When the trolling bite is on, I like to spend most of my day trolling but to ensure a catch for the day, nothing beats targeting the deep. Mostly I’ve been catching and releasing sharks with a few GT’s (giant trevally) thrown in. Both offer a fight that humbles even the studliest of anglers. The GT’s fight as hard as a fish 4 times its size and the biggest ones sometimes don’t survive the fight. That just happened to us yesterday so we took it in and weighed it. While we did make Kona’s “Big Fish List” with the biggest weighed in this year at 95 lbs., both the angler and I would have rather seen it swim away. We made several attempts to get it to swim but it just wouldn’t go. I actually have tagged and successfully released bigger ones this year. That makes me wonder…… If there were such a thing as a GT World Cup Tournament with the minimum qualifying weight of 100 lbs., would Hawaii be the “GT capital of the world” also? With my mind wandering and wondering of that thought, I’ll wish you all tight lines and screaming reels.

See ‘ya on the water ,
Capt. Jeff Rogers ,
http://FISHinKONA.com