Kona Hawaii Fishing Report - July 2022 wrap-up.
There was certainly a lot of marlin tournament action going on this month. At the beginning of the month, the big female marlin just weren't around but some did move in by the middle of the month. There are more tournaments coming in August and I expect some more BIG girls will be caught and weighed in. Some people are claiming foul play in the tournaments. Well, it's not foul play if it's currently legal. What I'm referring to is a possible unfair advantage in electronics. Some of the boats now have Omnidirectional sonar that lets them see any fish, anywhere around their boat. Regular sonar only shows you what's under your boat. Unfair? There's a marlin tournament coming up in a little over a week and only "non-omni" boats are allowed to participate. There's also talk of making separate categories in future tournaments for omni and non-omni boats. This could get interesting. Standby.
Striped marlin season is in the winter time but every once in a while, there is an oddball or two caught in the summer. Recently, there have been several striped marlin caught. Last winter, the striped marlin bite kind of sucked so it's a head-scratcher trying to figure out what's going on with them showing up now. I guess they need to swim somewhere, right? The spearfish season is pretty much over but there are still a few showing up.
The ahi bite hasn't been that good to us day-time trollers this season but the night-time commercial guys are still enjoying a pretty good bite with them. I usually rely on catching tunas along the ledges, especially this time of the year but the currents have been wishy-washy so the ledges have been fairly bare.
The ono bite slowed down and when that big surf arrived, you know, the waves that hit Kona and made national news? I thought that the ono would disappear because they hate big surf but they are still around. It's not as good of a bite as it was in June but not bad. There have been some mahi mahi around too.
I didn't do much bottom fishing this month for a couple of reasons. One was the wishy-washy currents and lack of bait. The other was that I couldn't fish for half of the month. I figure that if you're still reading this report this far in, you're either really bored or you're one of my regular readers that like my reports. Back in April, I had cancer surgery that took me out of the action for half of the month. Then I had more cancer surgery near the end of June that took me out for half of July. I'm going back to Honolulu Monday for more cancer surgery and again will be out of action for half a month. I should be finished with the surgeries after this one. Then shortly down the road, the chemo starts. I've fished through chemo (and radiation) before but this next chemo will be a new one for me so I have no idea if I'll be able to keep fishing. I think so, I'm going to try because even a bad day fishing is better than......
Go catch some fish,
Capt. Jeff Rogers,
http://fishinkona.com
