January 4, 2012 – First Ahi’s of 2012!

As mentioned in my prior post, the fishing has been tough the last several days.  So tough, that on my last 3 charters we were skunked and missed only one short nose spearfish in the 3 days of trying.  On these three charters my good friend Dave helped crew and after the third day of “skunk” he started to feel as if he was the cause of my bad luck streak.  So at 5:30am today he met me at the boat with an arsenal of good luck charms.  His three daughters Kealaula, Pomaika’i and Maluhia each gave him their good luck.  It consisted of a teddy bear, crystal charm and a shark tooth necklace.  Dave’s wife Mindy threw in some mochi and a tangerine to scare away the bad spirits – a japanese belief.  Dave took it to another level and even brought some rock salt and ti leaves for good luck.  We hoped this would do the trick but as we left the slip to meet our charter at the fuel dock, one of our hoses got caught on the outrigger line and “kapow!”, we snapped one of the tag lines!  Hopefully that was the end of the bad luck streak!Today, we hosted Gerry, his friend Steve and his daughter Desiree.  Last year, they fished with me and had a great trip.  We caught 3 short nose spearfish, a striped marlin and a nice mahimahi.  That being said, I was worried how today would turn out considering the last  three days.  We ran far south looking for signs of life.  There wasn’t much but off of Kealakekua we found a pod of porpoise.  There were 6 boats working the pile so we decided to go right to the greenstick.  After several passes I didn’t mark any fish in the school…not a good sign and I started to worry about how the day would end up.  It was already 11am and we had to make something happen soon because Gerry had to fly back at 5pm.  I went to the outside of the school and noticed 5 porpoise break off from the pod and head straight offshore away from the pod.  This is a little unusual and sometimes means another pile is nearby.  I scanned the horizon with my binoculars searching for more porpoise and right in the middle of my view screen a porpoise jumped about 2 miles away!  I yelled to Dave to pull up the rig and we ran full speed to the deeper pile.  Dave started to let the greenstick out and as I looked at my sounder it lit up with signs of big ahi.  I told Dave to “Hurry up!” since we were right over the fish.  He had the rig up really fast and I bumped the boat forward.  I jigged the greenstick maybe four times when we all witnessed what was the MOST AMAZING greenstick bite I have ever seen!  Not one but three 100+lb ahi crashed the squids!  The first ahi came vertical out of the water as it ate the second squid back and easily cleared 9 feet out of the water!  The second ahi also jumped clear out of the water in the opposite direction and ate the farthest squid.  A third ahi blew up on the 3rd squid and the whole greenstick rig came crashing down and line dumped off the Fin-Nor 130.  Desiree jumped in the chair and almost got pulled in the water.  She steadied herself and with the help of her father Steve and Dave, started to work on her fish.  In about 15 minutes the first ahi was at the leader and Dave and I quickly leadered and gaffed it.  She continued to work the rod since she still had another ahi on the same line.  10 minutes later Desiree had landed her second ahi on the same line!  Unfortunately, the third ahi broke off which may have been a blessing in disguise.  Desiree’s ahi would end up weighing 121lbs and 128lbs – a total of 249lbs of ahi on one line!  I guess those charms worked but Dave’s daughters won’t let me keep any of them!  Bummer…..