July 13, 2012 Mike and Nick Almost A Clean Sweep! Day 3

Mike and Nick are back for day 3!  They both really wanted to catch a blue marlin so instead of look for porpoise we trolled the ledges and put out some bigger lures.  It didn’t take long before a small dorsal popped up behind the stinger lure…a short nose spearfish eyed the lure and gave it a half hearted tap and left.  I continued down the coast and not too much longer the long rigger came down and a mahimahi came leaping out of the water!  Nick made quick work of it and in the fishbox it went.  I headed offshore and we found a small porpoise school.  I worked it for about an hour but only saw one ahi on my sounder.  Since Mike and Nick wanted a blue marlin I decided to back up to where we had the spearfish bite earlier.  As we neared the area another spearfish ate the stinger lure!  Nick got harnessed into the chair and made quick work of his first short nose spearfish that weighed about 30lbs!  We continued on when suddenly a HUGE fish exploded on the stinger causing Mike and I to leap out of our chairs and scream some expletives!  It missed the lure completely and never came back which led me to think it was a big ahi but in hind site I think it was a big blue marlin that decided at the last second to not eat the lure.  We had found the fish so I stayed in the area.  About 30 minutes later, a blue marlin popped up behind the long corner lure.  Mike and I watched as the blue eyed it from the side and then piled on!  The fish took off on a blistering run leaping several times going away!  Nick again got in the chair and watched as line disappeared off the Fin Nor 130.  Nick had a lot of practice fighting fish the past two days and did another great job fighting his first ever est. 200lb blue marlin!  His fight time was just shy of 15 minutes and we safely released him to fight another day!  I started to set up the spread and only had two lures out when the long rigger came down!  Nick again got in the chair and fought a 20lb ono to the boat!  We were definitely in a fishy area so I pounded the spot relentlessly.  Not much later another blue marlin ate the long rigger and quickly came off!  UGH!  It would be our last bite of the day.  Mike and Nick’s three day total concluded with two big ahi from 121lbs-124lbs, two onos from 20lbs-52lbs, one mahimahi, a 30lb short nose spearfish and a 200lb blue marlin!  That’s every pelagic fish you can catch in Kona and had we caught an ahi today could have been a Kona Clean Sweep!