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

Since they couldn’t win the America’s Cup Yacht Race the Kiwis decided to try their luck fishing Kona!  Ha!  I couldn’t help but to give a lot of grief to New Zealanders Peter and his son Louis.  If you didn’t follow the Americas Cup the Kiwis led the series and needed one win to clinch the cup but instead lost to the Americans who came back and won 8 straight races!  Well, today we tried to get the Kiwis into some fish!  We ran south looking for porpoise and before we could even put a line in the water we spotted a boat zigzagging in front of a nice pile.  There were plenty of birds leading the pod and since the other boat had made several trolling passes I decided to go to the greenstick right away.  On our first pass I didn’t mark any fish in the school and with the sun coming up over Mauna Loa a big ahi blew up on one of our squids!  Louis was first up and caught his first ever ahi in about 15 minutes!  We reset and made several more passes in the school without a bite.  The past few days there has been a pretty decent blue marlin bite so I decided to leave and troll marlin on the ledge.  I took us inside and worked the ledge farther south.  For about an hour we tried without success.  As I headed back offshore I noticed more porpoise charging towards the other pod we had just left.  By the time I caught up to them they had joined up so again we went to the greenstick.  It didn’t take long as Peter and Louis saw a big ahi come blasting out of the water with one of our squids in its mouth!  Peter was up and caught his first tuna in about 10 minutes!  We quickly reset and made a pass in front of the school.  Again, another ahi came blasting out of the water and inhaled one of our squids!  The bite was on!  Louis got in the chair and battled his second ahi in about 15 minutes!  It was getting late and with three big ahi in the boat we called it a day an headed to the scales!

Russ and Kamleesh have fished with me for the last 3 years.  They’ve both caught some nice ahi and marlin with me on past trips.  They both are serious about their saltwater fishing and usually book me for several days during their vacation.  On this vacation they booked two full days with me to better their chances of getting into some action.  On day one we struggled.  We found a nice porpoise school that had some big ahi in it and got a bite on our first pass.  After that, it was down hill.  We ended the day with just the one bite and nothing in the box.  The second day looked like it was going to be the same.  We found another nice porpoise school and saw several ahi on the sounder but they didn’t want to bite.  We worked the school with the greenstick without a bite.  Soon, several other boats showed up and the fishing got tougher.  We switched to a live bait which we had caught earlier in the day.  It didn’t take long before a big ahi ate the bait as we pulled it just ahead of the porpoise.  Kam was in the chair and fought her ahi to the boat in about 20 minutes!  It weighed 110lbs.  We continued to work the school without another bite.  We trolled back to the harbor and got pounced on by a small blue marlin.  This time Russ was up and fought his blue to the boat in about 15 minutes!  We got a nice show from the fish as it tail walked for about 5 minutes behind the boat!  So, persistence paid off today and luck was on our side!

The marlin bite has been basically “ok” this month.  Usually, August brings good numbers of 150-200lb blue marlin.  You can count on at least one or two every trip but that wasn’t the case this month.  The current was folded over most of the month and the blues didn’t hold on the ledges like they usually do.  Don’t get me wrong, there were a decent number of blues but the ahi were here in full force.  We were catching them in the blind but most were holding in big porpoise schools offshore.  In early August I hosted Jeff and his son (pictured above).  We had a great day in the porpoise catching these nice ahi on live bait.  This is Jeff vacations here regularly and this was his 3rd trip with me.  Hopefully he will be back for more ahi action!  On another great trip, Bill from California chartered me for 5 consecutive days and landed 4 nice ahi over 100lbs!  Bill is a hardcore fisherman and a longtime Southern California long range fisherman.  He frequents the long range boats that travel south of San Diego searching for world class tuna.  His goal was blue marlin but since the blues were hard to come by during his trip we focused on ahi on three of his 5 charters.  No blues but nice ahi! Another great trip yielded 5 big ahi for Don from Kansas!  The biggest ahi of the 5 weighed 201lbs!  We caught his ahis on a combination of greensticking and live bait.  We just couldn’t do anything wrong on this day!  A few days later, Brian, Bill and Mary had a great day as well landing three ahi from 105-108lbs!  This was Bill’s second season fishing with me on the Lepika!  We really had such a great month on the tunas it’s hard to capture all the trips.  Here’s some pictures from the rest of August!