Finally the weather in Kona settled down a notch. For the past few weeks our wind pattern has been out of the NE and its been making for rough fishing conditions. The wind switched to a more easterly direction today and we were able to get up to an area called the grounds. The bite started early today, while Tracy was giving the run down to our 5 doctors a nice fish dozered in behind the long rigger bait.
The Weather has been getting worse and our charter for yesterday canceled. The weather today made for bumpy seas but noting that wasn’t fish able. Mark and Lynn joined us for their last day and we headed south to find calmer waters. The trolling was slow in the morning but that all changed around noon. As we made our way back north from C buoy Mark noticed a spearfish speeding its way into the lure pattern.
Its not very often in Kona that the weather limits where we can fish, but Hawaii’s weather pattern for the last week has been very unstable. As we started our morning run up to the grounds the seas started to grow as well as the wind. Hal Westbrook a good return client joined us for the day, unknowing we would be taking him into Kona’s version of the Bering sea. A few other boats followed us up to the fishing grounds but the message came loud and clear that the ocean wanted no part of us this morning. Our 37′ Merritt was definably not built to handle rough water, so we were forced to make the decision to high tail south into the calm. On our way out of the grounds we watched marlin tail down sea and marked at least five others on our depth recorder. We made in effort to catch a bait but with all the blues around the bait just wouldn’t bite.
After a great previous day on the grounds we headed back up there with a few local return clients of ours. After hearing the live bait bite worked well for others yesterday we decided to do the same. Bait was hard to catch, but after 40 minutes of trying we finally got our first set of baits. It took longer than we expected to get bit but after a few hours of trolling the live tunas our long bait went off. Shortly into the fight we recognized the pattern of a shark and soon enough our instincts were proved correct and we released an unwanted bronze whaler.
The weather had been snotty for a few days, and we were unable to fish up north where we’d been having good luck. On this sunny Monday morning the wind finally backed off and let us get to the fishing grounds where we’d been dying to get to most of last week. On our very first pass up the ledge an estimated 500 pound blue ate our Polukai caveman lure on the long rigger. Mark being such curtious guy let his friend take the first fish in the chair.
Day five started out with a wild little blue right of the bat but then fizzle to nothing more than just a nice boat ride. Some days the fish bite better than others and this was just an off day. Other than catching the blue in the morning we wouldn’t see another thing all day. The spearfish would have to wait till the last day.
