It’s not common for something to be going so well that superlatives don’t do it justice, but that’s pretty much what is happening with the fishing along the Kona Coast right now. Fishermen are often associated with exaggeration, so let’s let the numbers do the talking here.
Capt. Joe Thrasher on the charter boat Mauna Loa has been keeping track and he reports that at least 65 marlin over 500 pounds have been caught in Kona waters — just since last Tuesday. Even if you don’t know much about marlin fishing, you can tell that statistic is astounding by simply looking around the world for another location posting a number like that. You won’t find one.
You could also ask Pat Tooley, co-owner of the boat Legend. A resident of Los Angeles, Pat has been fishing Kona for more than 40 years. A lot of guys like to think that they are able to drop everything and catch a plane to Kona when the fishing gets good, but not many ever actually do it. Pat did just that last week, and the fishing report that launched him was so good, he even pulled his sons out of school to come along too. Incredibly, they have been rewarded.
Pat has caught and released two marlin estimated by veteran skipper Randy Parker to be well over 800 pounds and oldest son Boyer caught his very first marlin, estimated at 650 pounds. As of this writing younger son Parker was on deck to try and catch one before they jump a plane back for the big city Sunday afternoon.
“My dad first brought us over in 1976 and we fished with Capt. George Mulholm on White Rock. I have never seen or even heard of fishing this good in all those years. It’s just been incredible,” said Tooley.
This once in a life time bite has been going on for about a week now. Capt. Dan Holt on Sea Baby III reported catching four out of seven marlin last Monday, with the largest estimated to be over 900 pounds. The other three weren’t exactly rats either, coming in at 500, 650 and 700 pounds.
Since then it has been off to the races up and down the coast, just ask anyone who has been out. I’m in the process of trying to assemble a fairly accurate list of catches, but suffice to say there are many anglers with tales to tell like wahine angler Windi Robinson who caught two marlin over 600 pounds on Friday.
To even the most discerning eye, the conditions on the surface would not indicate that anything special was afoot, but every sonar and sounder has painted a different picture, showing massive shoals of life down below. The shoals are reported to be almost unbroken from Pine Trees to Capt. Cook, with hungry predators marking on the screen in the telltale upside down boomerang shapes.
Massive amounts of life are common in summer time, as are high counts of marlin catches, but in summer most of of the marlin caught are small males. Having this many big females concentrated in one area is beyond rare, something only fairly common with black marlin along the Great Barrier Reef in October and November. However, the numbers being bandied about here and now would even be spectacular down under.
In three and a half days Capt. Parker and the Tooleys, along with Greg Marsolai and family have had at least 11 marlin bites, released two over 800 and two over 650, had two more over 600 come unhooked while also getting bites from a handful of other fish — all over 400 pounds.
A number of other boats reported releasing blues around the 800 mark and of course, a hand full of fish thought to be well over the magic number of 1,000 pounds have made their escape good. Fishermen rarely agree about anything, but one thing everyone seems to agree upon now is that if these shoals of food continue to get pushed up along the Kona coast, it is inevitable that a “grander” will be caught sooner rather than later.