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

Brent was in town to celebrate his wife Jennifer’s 40th birthday!  They were here with their good friend Bree and her husband.  We only had a half day to fish so I headed north to the “Grounds”.  We trolled our way up without any bites.  There was plenty of bait and all the signs looked good for blue marlin but the predators just weren’t around.  Birds were working big schools of skipjack tuna so we caught a few live baits and sent them back.  No takers.  As the day came to an end We put up the greenstick to try and catch some of the larger skipjack busting under the birds.  Jennifer and Bree both caught a few nice skipjack tuna in the 15lb range!

Craig from Seattle, WA fished on the Lepika today.  He and his wife Pam spend time here once a year and sometimes vacation on Maui as well.  Craig has fished on Maui too and has caught a few mahimahi and ono but never anything big.  Our goal today was to catch a fish bigger than him (200lbs).  Since there had been a pretty good marlin bite we started trolling out front the harbor and headed south.  We trolled for about an hour without a bite and I spotted some birds on the horizon.  The birds were on porpoise and the pod was spread out for about 2 miles.  We trolled them for several hours without a bite.  Later in the afternoon the pile came together and the fish were in there.  I set up the greenstick and marked several fish on the sounder.  The ahi were shallow in the school and had lockjaw for about an hour.  Craig was patient and we worked the pile for about another hour.  As Craig ate lunch I worked the greenstick over a nice ahi mark on the sounder.  It bit!  Craig was downstairs and looked on as a big ahi cleared the water and inhaled the squid dangling from the rig.  Craig jumped in the chair and angled his first ahi over 100lbs to the boat in about 15 minutes.  His ahi weighed 174 1/2 lbs!  Although this was a really big ahi it wasn’t over 200lbs as Craig wanted so he talked Pam into fishing another day!  More action with Craig on Thursday Sept. 29th coming up!

Don fished with me about two years ago.  On that trip we caught a nice ahi about 150lbs and a blue marlin which we tagged and released.  Since I caught 4 ahi a few days ago in the south porpoise school I decided to head back that way.  We trolled for about two hours without a bite and found the porpoise about 15 miles south of the harbor.  At first I didn’t mark many ahi on the sounder but slowly the fish started to show in the school.  We were watching ahi roll on the surface ignoring our baits…incredibly frustrating!  Fianlly, at the tide change we had a nice ahi feed near our squids and after a few jigs on the greenstick it exploded on the last squid.  Don strapped into the chair and brought the ahi to leader in about 15 minutes.

I took my brother Duane out today.  We ran south of the harbor looking for the “South” porpoise school.  We were’nt far offshore but we found a big pile of porpoise off of Milolii, about 24 miles from the harbor.  We trolled the school for awhile but no luck.  I marked quite a few ahi on the sounder down deep and saw a few roll on the surface so we went to the greenstick.  It took several passes but on the tide change the ahi started to bite.  In about 2 hours Duane and I landed 4 ahi and pulling the hooks out of one on the leader.  Our ahi weighed from 98lbs to 123lbs.

Good friend Scott Craven hosted some clients from Las Vegas with me today.  Although we caught fish south of the harbor yesterday, reports were that the current was also good up north.  I took us up the the Grounds just outside the Kona Airport.  There was lots of bait jumping on the ledge so we decided to catch a small skipjack tuna and live bait.  We caught one pretty quick and sent it back.  Not long after the bait got real nervous and we saw something boil behind it.  We were bit!  We throttled forward and Kyle was in the chair.  By the looks of it I knew right away we hooked a shark.  In about 10 minutes Kyle angled a 6 foot galapagos shark to leader.  We took some quick photos and cut it loose.  We struggled for the next hour and a half to catch a bait.  Bait was jumping all around and we just couldn’t get one to bite.  Other boats in the area were having the same problem as well.  I decided to go to trolling lures.  After I got the spread set up I turned back into the top corner of the Grounds and as we passed the 300 fathom line a big blue marlin exploded on the short bait a few yards behind the boat.  Line was peeling off the 130lb class rod but the fish never showed itself.  As I franticly cleared lines it started a series of leaps more than 300yds out.  Kyle was up and strapped into the chair.  We were well into the dacron and had at least 400yards of line out by now.  I turned and chased the fish twice as Kyle cranked hard to gain line back.  The fish continued to jump and stayed on the surface most of the time.  We continued to back up hard on the fish and got it to the leader in about 20 minutes.  It was Kyle’s first blue marlin and it was a good one estimated at 500-550lbs!