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

Scott from Los Angeles, CA brought along his 10 year old son Ben with him today in search of some Kona deep sea fishing action.  It was their first time fishing kona so our game plan was to troll in search of striped marlin and short nose spearfish, something Ben could handle on his own.  We headed out early and saw a 100lb blue marlin feed right next to the boat but wasn’t interested in our lures.  We searched the deep for several more hours with only one mystery bite which knocked the outrigger down and quickly came off.  Ben had hopes of hooking something big so I turned towards a nearby FAD (Fish Aggregating Device) that had been holding small tunas and Ben’s dream fish – sharks. 

We caught several small tunas and dropped them down for a blue marlin or an oceanic white tip which frequent the buoys.  No luck, so we went to lighter tackle and caught some nice size yellow-tuna from 10-40lbs.  Of course, as Scott is fighting a nice 40lb ahi a big white tip came in and took two big bites from his ahi. 

Thunderstorms loomed on the horizon so we decided to high speed troll back to the harbor.  As we cleared lines at the harbor mouth we had a nice 20lb ono eat the long bullet. 

It was Scott’s first ono and we cut it up for them to take home along with some nice ahi fillets.  I’m sure they’re having a great dinner tonight!

I took the weekend off to spend with the family.  My parents are in town and we decided to give it a try offshore.  We headed out trolling for marlin but no takers.  Eventually we found a nice porpoise school which was holding some fish.  On our first pass we had a nice 100lb plus ahi engulf the stinger lure but it came unbuttoned shortly after we clipped my dad into the harness.  We worked the porpoise school for several hours with the greenstick with no luck so I decided to put out a small bullet on the longer corner rod.  Usually the long corner is reserved for my heavy 130lb gear but since I recently acquired a Fin-Nor Santiago 80 I decided to run it there instead.  It didn’t take long before my brother saw a nice ahi roll on the lure just inside the prop wash.  My dad was in the chair and he had the ahi to leader in about 15 minutes.  He’s caught several ahi with me before but he really liked the performance of the Fin-Nor 80.  His ahi weighed an estimated 110 lbs.

Fin-Nor VP of Product Development and Manufacturing David Martin along with colleagues Jim and Daniel fished with me today in search of something to test against their new prototype Fin-Nor Santiago 130.  We left the harbor around 10am and headed to the porpoise school which had been holding some nice ahi to try the greenstick.  The ahi were there but holding a little deeper than I like but we stayed with it and finally got one to jump completely out of the water and grab one of the squids.  Jim got in the chair and landed a nice 110lb ahi in about 15 minutes.  I’ve been using the prototype Sanitago 130 for about 2 months now and it has performed flawlessly! We’ve landed several nice ahi up to 180lbs on this reel and time after time the drag system remains smooth and consistent. 

I was lucky enough to get a pair of Santiago 80s and I’m excited to see how they perform in the upcoming months of marlin season.  So far I’m really impressed!

Aaron from Tulalip, Washington fished with me today looking for something bigger than a salmon.  He found it!  We headed offshore and found a small pod of porpoise.  Hoping for  a big ahi we made our first pass but the porpoise wouldn’t let us get close.  They stayed just ahead of the boat swimming erratically.  We found out why when a 400lb blue marlin blew up on short bait and in a heart beat peeled off 300 yards of line.  Aaron jumped in the chair and brought the fish to leader in about 20 minutes.  We successfully released it in excellent condition to fight another day.  It was his first blue marlin and it was a nice one!