On Capt. Will Lazenby’s charter boat, Golden Dragon, blue marlin are considered “by-catch.” Will and his guests are usually looking for kau kau fish to bring home for dinner. Marlin tend to interfere with those plans. On Capt. Will Lazenby’s
On Capt. Will Lazenby’s charter boat, Golden Dragon, blue marlin are considered “by-catch.” Will and his guests are usually looking for kau kau fish to bring home for dinner. Marlin tend to interfere with those plans.
On Monday, Will took out a party of friends for a late-start, half-day holo holo trip. Will himself had been the tardy one because of an early-morning dental appointment.
Phil Blackstone had volunteered to come along as a nonprofessional deckhand just to handle lines. After unsuccessfully trying for supper at F-Buoy, Will headed back toward shore and was soon surprised by a strike from a blue marlin estimated at 600 pounds or more.
Lisa Bates took on the angling duties while Phil steered the chair. That left Will to do “everything else.’’
Lisa had to take her time with the fish because it was hooked on a small jet lure set out for mahimahi, shortbill spearfish and striped marlin. She got it to the boat in around an hour. At Will’s estimate of 600 pounds, it was the largest marlin reported here last week.
Then Will had to deal with the leader, the lure, the hook, and the tag and the release.
Bye-bye, by-catch.
Bananas have no mercy
Writer Linda Lanterman fishes with her husband, Capt. Doug Lanterman, on their charter boat, No Mercy, and has had a lot of personal experience with what I call “The Great Banana Hoax.” Last week, the Lanterman’s were treated to a fishing adventure that ran counter to that old superstitious nonsense — proving again that bananas aren’t bad fishing luck.
Here’s Linda’s account in her own words, edited for length and West Hawaii Today style.
“The charter business has been slow, but Doug and I fish anyway,” Linda wrote. “On Saturday, we went to sea with our friends, Ken and Michelle Ferrier. Michelle bakes wonderful banana bread and brought it along. We know the banana curse, but baked bananas seem to be no problem as we’ve noticed in the past. They worked again!
“I usually take the No Mercy out of the harbor while the guys get the lures ready,” Linda wrote. “Saturday, the rain hit hard as we passed the green buoy. Michelle and I, on the bridge, got drenched while Capt. Doug and Ken hid out inside the cabin working on a lure. While they didn’t stay completely dry, they didn’t have rain running down their faces like we gals did. I headed for a sunny spot out farther and we joked about it — sort of.
“Doug assumed the helm, well out of the rainy area, so we headed south and occasionally nibbled on Michelle’s great banana bread,” Linda wrote. “South of Kealakekua Bay we had a strike. When Ken brought the fish in, it proved to be our best ono yet. At 59 pounds it beat our 55-pounder in the past. And, yes, the banana bread was yummy.”
Covering your bets
The runs of marlin, tuna, mahimahi and ono have been unpredictable all year, which makes life a challenge for tournament organizers. When you put on a fishing competition, you need to cover every possible situation you can think of and several dozen you might never have expected.
So far in 2012, Capt. Jody Bright of Konatournaments.com has been fully tested by events both planned and unplanned but has always managed to pass with honors.
Jody’s tournament production company has hosted a series of monthly events in conjunction with HFN Hawaii Petroleum Inc. and the Kona Fuel Dock. One of the most sought-after prizes in Jody’s Fuel Dock tournament series is the $1,000 in free fuel for the largest fish weighing more than 100 pounds.
No one won the prize in February and March, so the sponsors rolled the fuel forward and put $3,000 in fuel up for grabs in the April event. And that’s where things get complicated.
“Originally we had scheduled an ono tournament for April, but since there had been ono caught that did not win the fuel in earlier tournaments, we could not award it to an ono three months later,” Jody said. “So we held a tournament last week with the same format as earlier, that the largest fish over 100 pounds wins the fuel. We also held an ono tournament concurrently.”
Nine boats fished the 100-pound tourney and four fished the ono tournament for a total field of 10 boats. Three boats fished both, and one fished ono only.
Capt. Chuck Wigzell’s Hooked Up team caught the only fish over 100 pounds with a 280-pound blue, so Hooked Up won all the fuel plus about $10,000 in the jackpot.
The ono competition was closer. Billfisher II weighed a 50.5-pound ono to top a 50-pounder on the boat, In Deep. Team In Deep had collected most of the money in the Kona Classic in March by running down to Kauna Point and catching ono and mahimahi.
The In Deep team tried the same strategy and caught a mess of fish, but its biggest ono came up a half-pound shy.
“We weighed it several times, but it never got bigger,” Jody said wryly. “In fact, after 26 years of tournaments, I have not yet seen a fish increase in weight on the third or fourth time on the scale.
Billfisher II won the $1,800 for biggest ono.
Be prepared always
Be prepared is the Boy Scout motto, and it had a special fishing meaning for Josh Klein, 11. Josh and his family fished on Tropical Sun with Capt. Dennis Cintas and crew Ryan Lutes.
For his birthday, Josh said he wanted to catch “a really big mahimahi.” When Josh and his parents, Jeff and Tammy Klein, arrived at the Tropical Sun to fulfill Josh’s request, Dennis told them their best bet would be to head for OTEC buoy because the FAD had attracted mahimahi in the days before.
Dennis told them weather might be a problem for sensitive tummies out in the channel, where OTEC is anchored, but they said they had taken their Dramamine and were willing to chance it.
Indeed, the seas were 10 to 12 feet at OTEC with an occasional breaker to emphasize the power of the sea when the wind is relentless.
The area around the FAD was alive with bait, Dennis said, and the Kleins were soon busy catching aku and shibi. While Josh was pulling in a two-pound skipjack, he started yelling that he couldn’t reel any longer because something was pulling his line out very fast.
A big mahimahi had pounced on his aku and swallowed it. Josh’s rod was equipped with only 12-pound test line and a very tiny hook, so chances were good that the mahimahi would either break the line or spit out the baitfish without getting hooked.
Dennis has been in just that situation many times, so he asked Ryan to back off on the drag to minimize the chances of line breakage and they would hope the bait was swallowed too deep to get up-chucked.
Dennis put Tropical Sun through its paces to help young Josh deal with the running, jumping fish, and the maneuvers paid off. After 20 minutes of reeling, boat-handling and good luck, the Tropical Sun was close to the fish, and Ryan could reach it with the gaff.
Josh’s birthday mahimahi weighed 27 pounds.
Kona Iki Trollers Tourney May 19-20
The Kona Iki Trollers has scheduled its Manuahi Fishing Tournament for May 19-20. The event is for members only, but anyone can sign up to be a member of the club with just the payment of dues.
Entry forms and fees must be mailed to Kona Iki Trollers, P. O. Box 1221 Captain Cook, HI 96704 and postmarked by May 7. For more information, contact tournament chair Herb Naito at 889-6851.
