The summer marlin bite is kicking into gear so marlin are now a daily sight on the catch board. Mostly blue marlin but the striped marlin are also making a showing. Last summer we had more striped marlin show up in the summer than we did in that previous winter even though the winter months are the peak season for them. It’s very possible that we will see the same thing happen again this summer because this last winter, there were very few around. The spearfish bite has been in a real state of flux this season with them showing up in numbers for a while, leaving, showing up again and then leaving again.
Big Yellowfin tuna are remaining a regular catch on the board with some days good and some days not so good. These are one of the most fickle of the pelagics. While working the porpoise schools, you can mark them on your finder but only they decide when feeding time is. I had one customer insist we go work the school all day because he had heard that the bite was good. We worked the school for many hours along with several other boats and several methods were being used. Green stick, dropping bait, trolling and during all that time, we saw only one boat catch one tuna. The customer realized that the fishery wasn’t what he thought it would be (pulling in 100+ tunas all day long) but the day before, almost everyone who fished the porpoise school caught tunas no matter what method they were using. The customer was basing the fishery on the best bite day we saw all this month. The day we fished was more typical of the fishery. The ono bite isn’t much different with some days being really good and on other days you can spend your whole day trying without a single bite. Mixing up the day targeting all kinds of fish and switching methods is the best way to have a successful trip.
The bottom bite has been fantastic due to several commercial fishermen dumping tons of anchovies and chunk bait as chum while targeting the smaller “shibi” size yellowfin tuna near the airport. I’ve been catching and dropping small skipjack tuna in the same area and the bites have been almost instantaneous! GT, amberjack, almaco jack and sharks abound in this area right now. Big tiger sharks are among the group and we’ve been hooking ‘em but as yet haven’t been able to get one up to the boat for the photo and release this month. Last March in that same area we caught and released a tiger just under 2000 lbs. and just this last week we had another tiger follow up our catch that looked to be about ½ that size. It’s hard to tell how big they are while they’re still under water so I need a volunteer with mask, snorkel, fins, measuring tape and a good life insurance policy with me as the beneficiary.
