The Weekly Fishing Line

What can you say? Can you say slow for the South shore? Although some boats reported some good Marlin strikes and others lost some fish, generally speaking the South shore bite was off this week. Not much to write when there’s nothing to write about, so there’s no sense tying to make fluff out of this. Let’s get ‘em next week.

On the Haleiwa side of the island, however, the Hana Pa’a tournament was held on June 23, 24, and 25, and there was a good load of fish there. For the 60 boats in the event, less than 10 were skunked, and many boats had multiple fish including numerous Ahi ranging from 100 to 186.5 pounds, an abundance of Ono running up to about 55 pounds, some Mahimahi and Spearfish, and one Blue Marlin was weighed in at 509 lbs. So while the billfish activity wasn’t too big, there was a great deal of the nice yellowfins to make up for it. The majority of the fish were caught off Kaena point, partly because they were there, and partly because the wind was kicking up the seas to force some boats into the protected areas on the Waianae side.

The South Shore of Oahu is what we normally report on for this feature, and I’ll get to that in just a minute, but first, since I fished in a tournament in Kona this weekend I thought I’d take an opportunity to get a shot in about that. Team Start Me Up (the charter boat from Lahaina we like to send business to and I fished on for three days) managed to draw in a 423.5 lb Marlin which was good for third place in the Big Island Invitational Marlin Tournament. We also caught a nice 156 lb Ahi and had another heavy Marlin bite on live bait that didn’t stick. Earlier in the week, a couple of fish in the 700 and 800 pound range were caught, and another nice fish was caught in the tournament by the Maui Jim boat (also from Lahaina). Other fish were caught too, but the notation on all these fish was they were caught off Keauhou, Southwest of VV buoy and along "the Trail." None were caught further than 12 miles offshore in this bunch, and all were in a fairly small piece of acreage.

Ok, that said, the overall Marlin bite has been a little slow here on Oahu (and overall, Kona was a little slow too), but a good variety of other fish have come in, especially the larger Ahi. South shore charter boats reported some Marlin but more big Tuna activity this week. Magic had 4 Ahi all over 150 pounds and a big Kaku (Barracuda) on the 17th (sorry, I didn’t find out where). They also got 3 the day before in the 120 lb range. The HH - BO line was a good producer all week for a couple big fish and a good variety of smaller ones, as evidenced by some 50 Aku, a few Marlin (plus a few more lost at the boat), some released Spears, and at least ten Ahi’s over 100 pounds.

Next week is the Hana Pa’a Tournament in Haleiwa, so some of the reports will include fish from around that side.

Depending on who you talked with this week, the fishing was either great or terrible. Some guys went out and caught a bunch of fish, others caught just a few but made them count in size, and still others got nothing to show for their efforts. Radical (by Hawaii standards, anyway) tides and flat calm weather made for feast or famine type fishing, and those who found the fish and got them to bite did very well.

Kamome got the week off right with a nice 458 Blue Marlin between HH and BO buoys on the 7th. The area was pretty productive all week, mostly for smaller Aku, but a few other boats reported some good knockdowns in the area as well. Sea Verse got another shark out there in the same area, so there was definitely fish around. Good sized Aku schools were seen outside Makua about 10 miles out during the week, and there were also some big Ahi caught just before the weekend along the same line and down towards BO.

All eyes were on Waianae for the weekend as the Ahi Fever Tournament took place. Unfortunately this 260 boat event, despite it’s third straight year setting records for attendance, didn’t have too many fish to report. Only 30 yellowfin were weighed, the largest at 175.4 lbs caught on the Magic by Russell Tanaka. Several were in the 100 - 150 lb range, and most of the strikes were reported as blind hits all up and down the Waianae coast out about 5-8 miles. Many of the other anglers who said they found schools of Ahi said they couldn’t get the fish to bite, so it made for some frustration. There was also some nice Marlin caught in the tournament even though they aren’t really targeted as much. A 424 was the largest in the tourney this time around, and a bunch came in around 150 - 200 lbs. Lots of Spears, too.

There were a ton of Onos caught this week and in the tournament, and they were found both on the 40 fathom ledges and in the deep water. Chances are the Ono fishing will be the best bet for the coming week, too. Bottomfishing was also good, and several boats found Uku (grey snapper) out on the Penguin Banks, which, on flat calm days, is as fun as can be.

As expected, the fish showed up in real numbers and size this week, and we see much of the same continuing for quite awhile. With the Ahi Fever tournament just around the corner we would have liked to see some more action on the yellowfins, but not to worry, because everything else was hitting home. The big Marlin were here, and we had reports of several nice catches. Kahuna Kai got a 214.5 in the King Kam tournament on Saturday (caught right out in front of Kewalo Basin late in the afternoon thus proving Marlin do come in close, and Mazel Tov was able to bring one in just over 700 pounds (no report on where just yet).

The Sea Verse went on a three day trip to Molokai and had some great Mahimahi action on the Banks going, unreal bottomfish action out at Kalaupapa, then tied into a bunch of Uku back on the Banks coming back. They also caught a 140lb thresher shark out by the HH buoy on live bait and a bunch more Mahimahi later in the week.

Also recorded in the tournament over the weekend was several Spears caught all over (mostly toward BO and Waianae, perhaps because the channel was rough), Ono’s on the Pine Trees ledge between Ewa and Barbers, open school Mahimahi, and the sailboat 20/20 managed to boat 9 small Aku and Shibi in some good bait schools towards BO.

Highlight of the week was on June 3rd. Although the nation’s holiday isn’t for another month, it was patriot’s day down at Kewalo Basin. As we passed by the harbor we saw enough fish flags flying on the boats to disrupt the wind flow on the other side of the harbor. It was almost as if everyone decided it was laundry day and decided to wash and drip dry their flags. Marlin flags, Ono flags, Mahi flags, Tag flags, you name it....they were flying.