Kona Hawaii fishing report - Archive -

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