February 11, 2013 Keith Gets 3 Big Ahi and A Spearfish!

Keith is back in Kona and enjoying the warm air but more importantly the fishing.  He visits here every year for about a month and a half and fishes several days with me.  Today we decided to look for porpoise and hopefully find the big ahi that follow them.  For the past two months the ahi haven’t been with the porpoise so our expectations weren’t very high.  Since the spearfish and marlin bite has been pretty good so we had a chance of at least catching something.  We headed straight out of the harbor and then north out in the deep.  About midday a friend of mine had found some porpoise just a little south of the harbor so we headed his way.  The porpoise were pretty spread out and I didn’t see any fish right away with them.  We put up the greenstick and decided to stay with them until they came a little tighter and maybe then we would start seeing the fish.  About an hour later the pod came together tight and I marked a fish on the sounder at 40 fathoms.  It didn’t bite but on our next pass the water beneath the third squid exploded as a nice ahi piled on the bait!  Keith got in the chair and quickly landed our first ahi of the day of about 80lbs!  We set back up and by this time several boats had joined us.  We worked the school with about 4 other boats when out of no where another ahi came blasting about 6 feet out of the water swallowing the squid.  We were on again!  Keith again made quick work of our second ahi which weighed 91lbs!  After packing the fish in ice we again ran back up and deployed the greenstick.  It took a long time to mark more fish in the pod.  By now there were about seven boats fishing with us and none of them had a bite.  We came back into the pod and put a small bullet lure out as we trolled the greenstick.  Sometimes the ahi like a slow lure trolled close to the boat.  As I came into the school the lazy bullet took a strike and line peeled from the Fin Nor 130.  We both thought it was an ahi but a small shortnose spearfish came up jumping behind the boat!  Keith quickly brought the fish close and we took it for the grill.  His shortnose spearfish would weigh 23lbs!  As I made a pass on the front part of the pod I marked an ahi at 40 fathoms but it didn’t bite.  I swung back around that part of the pod when a nice ahi came skyrocketing out of the water and missed the squid!  I continued to jig the squids as it again came blasting out of the water only to again miss the squid!  I continued jigging and on the third try the ahi blew up on the squid and we were on!  Keith would fight our third ahi to the boat in about 15 minutes!  We were happy with three and a spearfish so we decided to call it a day!  We ran home and were back at the dock by 2pm!  The big ahi are here and fishing is picking up!