Great Kona Fishing Defies Hurricanes

 

Sailfish 55 kayak
Kayakers continued to show their special ability to catch sailfish with this 55 pounder caught from a kayak by George Bonne. Photo courtesy of The Charter Desk at Honokohau Harbor.
ulua 88 Reel Screamer
Angler Brett Rough boated an 88-pound ulua (giant trevally) on Reel Screamer with Capt. Bob Beach while fishing out of Kawaihae. Photo courtesy Reel Screamer.

Thunder, lightning, torrential rain, flash flooding, roads turned into rivers, even some scattered blasts of hail — last week we had it all. How did Kona’s mini-monsoon affect your fishing?

As seen in many fishing stories last week, the answer is both surprising and important because it shows the uniqueness of fishing along the Kona Coast.

Take Friday, for example, because that was the day headlined in Saturday’s papers because of flooding and road closures.

Despite ominous warnings about the continuing impacts of three hurricanes (a first-ever phenomenon), Friday dawned bright, sunny and calm. Charterboats took out their scheduled parties knowing that they could reach good fishing spots quickly and get back to port in a half hour or less if the weather turned against them. Kona is one of the few places where you can get to blue marlin water and back in less time than it takes to go grocery shopping.

Indeed, by 8:30 am, the charterboat Luna had gotten to its favorite fishing grounds, hooked four blue marlin, reeled them to the boat, released them and reported the news back to the Charter Desk. The seas stayed calm for the rest of the day even as the skies over the island darkened, the nearby hillsides turned into waterfalls, and the county closed roads that had become impassable.Thunder, lightning, torrential rain, flash flooding, roads turned into rivers, even some scattered blasts of hail — last week we had it all. How did Kona’s mini-monsoon affect your fishing?

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