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

Jeff fished with me last year and we did really good that day.  We caught two really nice ahis, a spearfish and a blue marlin.  On this trip to Kona Jeff booked two full days.  Today, he brought along his friends Mike and Jim.  The bite on the Grounds has been pretty good and the current was right for a good bite up there.  We trolled our way north and as we passed the airport the long rigger took a solid bite.  Jim was first up and fought his first ever short nose spearfish tot he boat.  Since they wanted some fish to take home we decided to take it for the grill!  Jim’s spearfish weighed about 30lbs!  We continued on and saw good signs of bait on the ledge.  We caught a few live baits and walked them up the ledge.  It didn’t take long when a big blue came in and ate the long bait.  We fed the blue and then set the hooks!  The fish came up briefly and shook it’s head on the surface.  It looked to be about 300lbs but unfortunately it came off.  We would miss another short nose spearfish today and watched as a 200lb blue marlin swam down the side of the boat and ignored our lures!  UGH…Good news is the blue marlin have arrived!

Mike and Linda from Minneapolis fished a few days ago with me and they were back for more offshore action.  Linda decided to enjoy the sun and spa on our next two days of fishing so Mike and I headed out to see what we could raise.

On day 2 I decided to stay out in the deep as we had done a few days before.  On day 1, we caught 3 shortnose spearfish, missed another and caught a nice mahimahi.  Today I decided to take a similar route and fish far offshore.  We ran to the 1000 fathom line and started trolling.  It took a while, but we managed to catch a nice striped marlin about 60lbs.  A good friend of mine needed a fish for his daughters party so we decided to take it and give it to  him.  Later in the day we missed another striped marlin and that was it.  Day 3 the bite went wide open!

On day 3 Mike and I headed out to the deep again in the same area we had been fishing the last few days.  The fish were there!  Early in the day a nice spearfish showed up on the stinger…Mike got in the chair and fought our first spearfish to the boat.  We quickly reset our lines and about 10 minutes later the short rigger, stinger and long rigger came crashing down!  Mike and I both watched as the water erupted behind each lure…it was a triple!  At first I thought it maybe a triple striped marlin bite but the fish dove deep like tuna.  Mike and I worked together and boated three nice ahi about 1o-15lbs each…perfect for eating!  We set up again and I worked the area searching for more fish.  Again, it didn’t take long before another nice shortnose spearfish inhaled the long rigger lure…Mike fought his second spearfish of the day which weighed about 25lbs.  The fish were in this area so we continued trolling in a 2 mile by one mile area.  Again, the long rigger came crashing down and Mike fought his second spearfish of about 30lbs to the boat!  We definitely had the fish located and I wasn’t going to move far from this spot.  Shortly there after, we missed a short nose spearfish on the same long rigger lure.  This lure on this position has been hot the last few days and the fish were definitely choosing this lure over the others.  I had heard of some bites a little shallower so we headed into the ledge.  On our first pass on the ledge the long rigger again came down with a solid bite!  Mike got buckled into the chair as a nice striped marlin came up jumping a few hundred yards behind the boat!  Mike worked the fish to the boat and we quickly released our third billfish of the day in about 10 minutes!  His stripey was about 70lbs!  We continued to work the ledge and missed another striped marlin.  As we headed back to the harbor we had a double mahimahi strike and managed to get one of them in…unfortunately it was the smaller of the two!  The other looked a little over 20lbs!  We would end the day releasing one striped marlin, two shortnose spearfish, a nice mahimahi and three ahi!

Overall, Mike and Linda had three really good fishing days!  They would end their three days with five shortnose spearfish, two striped marlin, two mahimahi and three ahi!  We did fish the Love to Fish Tournament the next day but things definitely changed.  We only had one bite and missed it and the rest of the fleet struggled to even get a bite.  The current as of now has changed for the better and the bite has improved!  Mike and Linda will be back in May and hopefully we can get them into a nice blue marlin and a big ahi!

Mike and Linda joined me today for their first day of a three day charter. Mike and Linda come here almost every Spring and have fished on a few other boats so the pressure was on to get them into fish.  The short nose spearfish bite has been pretty good the last few days so that’s what we decided to target.  We headed north out into the deep well past the 1000 fathom line and trolled the deep.  As we passed the 1200 fathom line the longrigger came down with a solid bite.  Linda was first up and strapped herself into the chair.  Right-off-the-bat we knew it was a short nose spearfish just by the way it fought.  As I grabbed the leader I saw that this was a big spearfish of at least 40lbs.  We decided to take it since they were staying at a condo and wanted some fillets to take home.  Linda landed her first ever billfish in about 10 minutes!  We reset the lines and continued out into the deep.  About 30 minutes later the long rigger again came crashing down with another spearfish bite.  This time Mike was up and angled a smaller spearfish about 30lbs to the boat.  Since we already had one in the boat we decided to release this one to fight another day!  As I started to reset the lines the short rigger came down but whatever it was we missed it.  I got all the lines set-up once again and a few minutes later another short nose spearfish ate the long rigger and came off!  It dropped back to the stinger and this time the hooks set solid!  Mike was still sitting in the fighting chair so he got buckled onto the rod.  He fought his second short nose spearfish to the boat in about 10 minutes.  Again, we decided to release the spearfish, his second of the day which weighed about 25lbs.  With three short nose spearfish under our belt we decided to pound the area.  I worked and area about 2 miles by one mile.  Our third bite came in the same area, another spearfish but it soon came off!  Our next bite came a little later in the day and Mike fought a nice mahimahi to the boat.  This one went into the fish box for them to take home for dinner!  It weighed about 18lbs!  We would continue trolling for the rest of the day and end up with three nice short nose spearfish from 25-40lbs and one 18lb mahimahi!  We also missed three other short nose spearfish!  The bite is really good right now and hopefully we continue to get more bites in Mike and Linda’s next 2 trips this week!

K.C and her husband Sheldon joined me for a full day.  It was their first time to Hawaii and their first time deep sea fishing.  They showed up to the dock at 7am and we got ready to push off when I realized I didn’t have my boat keys!  I was in a panic as I tried to remember where I had put them.  They weren’t on my key chain so I decided to drive home and look for them…UGH!  I got to the harbor stop light and realized I didn’t check my flybridge so I turned around and sure enough there they were!  We were off at 7:15!  We headed out into the deep since most of the bites have been coming outside the 1000 fathom line.  We headed south for a few hours without a bite and then I headed even deeper inhopes of running into some spearfish or striped marlin which have been on a pretty good bite lately.  A splash on the horizon got my attention and we headed that way.  It was big pod of porpoise!  We made our first pass thru the pod and as I got near the end of the pile I marked two ahi on my sounder at 40 and 35 fathoms.  I told KC and Sheldon to watch the lures and maybe we could get one to bite.  a few seconds later a big ahi exploded on the short bait just thirty feet behind the boat.  Line was leaving the reel fast and Sheldon got buckled into the harness!  He worked the fish for about 15  minutes before getting me to the leader.  His first ahi would scale out at 119lbs!  We ran back to the porpoise and set-up the greenstick.  By now several other boats had spotted us and were working the pod.  I knew there was at least one more fish so we started our second pass.  It didn’t take long before another ahi blasted completely out of the water and ate one of the squids!  KC saw the whole thing happen and she yelled out “Holy S#$T!”  As Sheldon and I turned around all we saw was the huge hole it left as it landed back in the water.  This time KC was up and she got to work on her first fish of the day.  She did a great job and was surprised how hard these big tunas can fight.  She landed her first ahi in about 10 minutes and it weighed 79lbs!  We set up again and worked the pile but I didn’t see any more fish in them on the sounder.  There were now about 8 other boats fishing the pod so I decided to look for something better.  As we trolled farther south we had a spearfish attack one of our lures about 8 times and the hooks just didn’t stick.  As we headed back up the line a nice mahimahi ate the long rigger and gave us a series of nice jumps.  Sheldon was up again and fought his first mahi to the boat that weighed about 17lbs!  It was a great day with some real quality fish!  The bite is on and should only get better!

Today, Chris, his wife Diane and children joined me for some flyfishing action.  My boat has been out of commission for the last few days because the dive boat in the slip next to me got tangled up in one of my outrigger lines and as he left his slip completely folded my outrigger in half!  Not a pretty picture!  Needless to say, Chris contacted me and wanted to do some flyfishing so I didn’t need the outrigger on the port side anyway…perfect!  My friend Mark joined me since I would need some help teasing fish within flycasting range.  We met at the dock a little later as usual since the swell has been pretty big along the shoreline.  Chris has caught several tarpon and other large gamefish on the fly so I knew he could handle throwing big flies on heavier rods.  We practiced a few times on the way out and Chris made perfect cast after perfect cast.  All we had to do was raise a fish or two which would be the more difficult job …  We started off in front of the harbor and saw a boat fighting a nice 300-400lb blue arlin which they broke off on the leader.  We worked south along the 500-700 fathom line for most of the day without a bite.  We had marked 2 fish down deep so they were in the area but not ready to bite.  Mark and I were up top stressing out about not raising a fish when a spearfish boiled on the long teaser!  Mark quickly got to the rod and started teasing the fish in as Diane cleared one of the other teasers.  Chris dropped his fly back and got ready to cast as Mark teased the fish right to his fly.  As I pulled the boat out of gear Mark yanked the teaser out of the water and Chris made a perfect cast.  He stripped twice and the spearfish piled on his fly.  He was on!  The spearfish made a short run and came off!  I yelled to him to trip it back in and the spearfish made repeated attempts to eat the fly.  Finally, after what seemed to be 5-6 bites, Chris set the hook deep and the spearfish made a series of jumps towards the boat!  After a 10 minutes battle Chris successfully landed his first billfish on a fly!  We estimated the spearfish to weigh between 20-25lbs!  We have been seeing more and more of these fish along with striped marlin so the next few weeks should be excellent fishing!