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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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