Lepika Sportfishing, Kailua Kona, HI 96740 • 808-960-0068

Jay from New Jersey has been on somewhat of a bad luck streak.  A few years ago he fished Mexico and the boat he chartered blew an engine.  Then he hunted a few days for whitetail and got skunked.  I found all this out about 4 hours into our full day charter without any bites.  We had found a nice porpoise school and saw big ahis swimming with them but just couldn’t get a bite.  Jay was pretty down, but I told him to be patient and our turn would come.  He was flipping thru my photo album looking at lucky charters who caught on some days 3-5 ahi.  I told him most of the time all those fish are caught in just and hour or two when the fish begin to flurry.  Then, about an hour later I marked an ahi on the sounder shallow in the school and it pounced on one of our squids.  Jay quickly got strapped into the chair and fought his first ahi of the day that weighedd 122lbs!  After a few quick photos we ran back to the school and set up.  On our next pass another big ahi came halfway out of the water as it inhaled another squid we were dragging off the greenstick.  This one was bigger than the first and Jay really put a lot of preesure on it.  He fought the fish for 20 minutes before I stuck the gaffs in her.  His second ahi weighed an impressive 178lbs!  Satisfied with our catch and running out of time we started our troll back to the harbor.  Finally, his bad luck streak was over!

Today was day two of parent teacher conferences so the kids and I decided to head back out since we had great results the day before.  My oldest son Fisher was gunning for a bigger blue than the one Kai caught yesterday and my daughter Marina was hoping for her chance as well.  We left a little earlier than yesterday, 7am, since Kai and Marina’s conferences were at 2pm.  I ran to the Top Corner of the Grounds and set up trying to catch some live bait.  The water was rougher today and the skipjack tunas were hard to catch.  It took us about an hour to finally catch one which I rigged up and sent back.  I decided to walk the bait farther off the ledge than normal and as I passed the 500 fathom line my phone rang.  It was another charter boat just a mile or two ahead of me.  He had the porpoise school!  Fisher quickly reeled in our bait and I readied the greenstick.  As I was on the phone with my friend he took a strike and abruptly hung up.  We ran to the school and worked it with the geenstick.  I marked one ahi on my sounder down at 40 fathoms but it didn’t bite.  The school was traveling so fast I couldn’t keep up with them pulling the greenstick so I had Fisher put out a small bullet lure on the 3rd wave behind the boat.  On our next pass I marked another ahi at 45 fathoms and as I watched the greenstick working a big ahi blew up on the bullet Fisher had just put out.  He got buckled into the chair and fought his ahi to the boat in about 20 minutes!  This was Fisher’s third ahi he has ever caught and hopefully it won’t be his last.  It wasn’t a big blue as he wanted but he was stoked to get it in!  We were pretty far from the harbor so we ran back and had lunch at the dock…in by 12pm!  Off to teacher conferences!

My children Fisher, Kai and Marina were off today for Parent Teacher Conferences.  My oldest son, Fisher, had his conference today at 3pm so all the kids decided to take a fishing trip with me.  The day before I commercial fished on the Grounds for opakapaka (pink snapper) and ended up catching a 300lb blue marlin in addition to some small opakapaka.  So, I decided to head up there and live bait.  We left the harbor late around 9am.  I ran to the grounds and we quickly caught two small skipjack tunas for bait.  We walked the baits up the ledge and then back down to the Top Corner.  At around 12pm, our long bait got nervous and a blue marlin swallowed the frantic bait.  My youngest son Kai (11 yrs old) has never caught a blue marlin so he was up in the chair first.  He buckled into the chair as the marlin took out 50 yards of line.  It surfaced a 100 yards back tail walking along the surface.  Kai spent the next 15 minutes fighting the blue to the boat.  The blue marlin was hooked pretty deep in the stomach so we elected to take it for the table.  His first blue marlin ended up weighing 171lbs!  Happy with our catch we headed back for the harbor to make Fisher’s teacher conference.  Fisher (13 yrs old) caught his first blue marlin when he was 10 years old and it weighed 135lbs.  Being as competitive as he is we plan on fishing tomorrow to try for a bigger fish than Kai’s!  Of course 7 year old Marina wants a shot but we’ll have to see about that!

Ron visited Kona last year for his son’s wedding.  On that trip we caught a nice 173lb ahi, a mahimahi and a big skipjack tuna.  Ron mounted the ahi for his son and it ow hangs on their wall as a reminder of their trip.  Today, Ron brought along Steve and Doug and we headed north looking for porpoise.  The water north of the harbor was really calm and the porpoise school was probably too far out of our range so we moved closer inshore where the blue marlin had been biting a few days ago.  We were on the 1000 fathom line right out front of the harbor when I marked a big fish at 40 fathoms on my sounder.  As I turned to look back a big blue marlin around 550lbs ate the short bait just a few yards behind the boat.  The big blue stalled out on the surface not sure of what just happened.  It barely took out 10 yards of line by the timeDoug jumped in the chair and then it figured out what was going on and headed for the horizon.  It made a series of big jumps as Steve and Ron strapped Doug into the chair.  Just as we got Doug buckled up the fish was off!  UGH!  Steve turned to me and said, “I didn’t see the fish but I knew it was big when all that line was disappearing off the reel!”  Frustrated, we set up again and worked the area hoping for another bite.  It was not meant to be, but we did manage to catch a mahimahi for the guys to take home for dinner!

Doug, Karen and her fiance James of Salem, Oregon, joined me for a full day of fishing on the Lepika.  We had some heavy showers during the night and some storm clouds still lingered on the horizon as we left the harbor.  There had been some striped marlin showing up in the deep so I headed out to the 1000 fathom line right out front of the harbor.  It wasn’t very long when a big dorsal appeared behind the long rigger bait.  Everyone watched as the stripey lunged after the lure and finally knocked it off the ourtigger clip.  It was on and then off!  The stripey tried the lure again and as we watched the fish try to eat the lure another stripey was all over the stinger bait as well…two stripeys up in the pattern!  I teased the stripey on the stinger but it kept missing the bait.  Finally the stripey on the long rigger got hooked up!  Karen was first up and buckled into the chair.  We got some great jumps out of this fish and some nice tail walks.  Karen did a great job fighting her first billfish to the boat in about 10 minutes.  James and Karen are getting married here in Kona on Friday so we decided to take the stripey for some sashimi for their guests.  Her striped marlin weighed an estimated 80lbs!