# 52731: Subject: Kona Coast, Hawaii

Submitted by Captain Chip Van Mols (ip 66.8.189.234)

• Fished on 9/26/2004

• Report received: 9/26/04

Water Temperature: 82
Water Clarity: cobalt blue
Seas: calm
Weather: Sunny, mid 80's
Fishing_for: Marlin and other palagics
Boat: Rod Bender
captain: Chip Van Mols

Report:
Kona Fish Report, September 24, 2004 Capt. Chip Van Mols reporting from the ROD BENDER

Yes, I know it’s been awhile! My apologies. We had a busy summer season on the Rod Bender but now the charters have slowed down and I’ve got a bit of time to type and catch up. My last report ended around July 7th and I’ll give a brief (hah hah) overview of our summer, which is still in progress, some years it’s hard to tell when summers over and winters starting!

From June 21st thru August 28th we fished a total of 52 full days, 2 ¾ days and 3 half days. For our efforts we tallied up31 blue marlin all caught on lures and released with the largest estimated at 750lb. 8 yellowfin tuna over the hundred pound mark with the largest weighing in at 188lb. 3 striped marlin, released. 9 spearfish, some released some for BBQ and 1 lonely lost sailfish, released. Not our finest summertime work but there it is for god and everyone to see. Very inconsistent currents and very little skipjack tuna around this July and August making it difficult to get the rhythm thing happening for more than a day or two. But, on the days when it came together we had a blast and most our parties this summer got see at least some good action. The big fish were a bit thin this summer and that may be because of the steady runs of them we had here all winter and spring, their migrations timing may have been a tad off, who knows. Anyway every spot has its ups and downs and so do we. September has been pretty fair so far and the skipjack are really finally starting to show up, Our live bait grounds look great for the first time this summer. Looks like we’ll fish well late probably right thru Oct., hope springs eternal!

Here’s the rundown of our trips from July 12 thru August 28th when my charter well dried up. I’m scolding myself for the lousy job I did in my logbook as I can see I didn’t write down all the details I could have but here we go. July12, full day with Nick Cortezi and gang. Tag a 120lb blue. July13, ½ day with Rory Dickens. 1 spearfish July 15, full day with returning friends Vince and Patty Carr. We found them today! We had a double header on blues jumping off an est. 600 pounder and catching and releasing the other est. 350lb. 2 for 5 on blues today also tagging one about 180lb. July 16, full day with Nick Cotezi and gang again. Same spot as the day before and we have a triple header going, the big one fell off again but we tagged 2 in the 180lb range for two sisters, their first blues and they caught them together. 2 from 5 shots for the day. July 17, Full day with Louie Botzac and his daughter age 13. Louie’s daughter had the honors on releasing her first blue marlin 150lbs but Louie’s marlin got away. July 18, Nick and friends again for the full day and Nick finally hopped in the chair and caught himself a 250lb blue. July 19th, full day with Richard Trotta and his 15 year old son Clinton. 0 for 4 on small blues today, rubber hooks! July 20th, full day with the Trotta team. There’s a story behind this day. Want to hear it? Ok, we’re trolling along in the flat water down by the lava flows. We’re rigged for bear with four 130’s out on the corners and riggers with big marlin lures and a stiff 80 rig with 100lb suffix tritanium down the middle long with a medium bullet, this rig I run from the bridge and off my center rigger if it’s really flat water. We catch most all our tuna, spearfish and small marlin on this. I’m in my bino’s and hear the center rigger let go, when I turn around the center line is flying back at the boat and my bullet is flying 25 feet high thru the air towards the boat. There is a hole in the water back there wider than our whole wake, hummmmm. About the same time the lure hits the water I see her back by the hole she made and she’s HUGE! As we come tight on the bullet again she starts heading in for it. As she closed in I wound the bullet away and she followed with earnest, all the way into the middle of my spread of beast killers, YES! All the way in to my long corner and she lunges…. on the fricking bullet… takes ten feet of line, comes off and I loose sight of her, for good, or for now anyway! She’s just a mark on my GPS now, 1000++ for sure, biggest I’ve seen in a couple years. I’ll stand by my decision to tease her into my more appropriate gear and look forward to our next meeting! Hopefully soon. A couple hours later a few miles away one about 4 or 500lb eats our long corner and starts going ballistic all over our spread, runs into our center rigger line and the runs back out of it, starts peeling off nicely then comes off. I was getting annoyed at our poor hookup ratio with these guys, Stevo (our decky) quickly checks the long corner lure and puts it back in the water as I start to crank in the center to check the line for damage, as I do a small marlin grabs the bullet and checks the line for me, immediately breaking off my bullet, NOW I WAS REALLY ANNOYED!!! We did tag a 150lb blue for Richards son Clinton toward the end of the day. Clinton’s first blue and hopefully the start of new roll. Hummm. July 21st, team Trotta again for the full day. We headed down south as I figured it might not be a bad idea to fish the same tide around the mark I put on GPS the day before. Richards’s son tagged his first spearfish on the way down and then about 200 yards from the mark of the huge fish, on the same tide as the day before, off goes the short corner with a nice one! 33 minutes later Richard Trotta hopped out of the chair and had a look at his catch, est. 750lb. blue marlin, nice fish indeed and it swam off nicely after the release! We missed another small one late in the day as well. July 23rd, ¾ day no hits, no runs, no errors, the current died July 24, full day with Jim Ferace, Zip, Nada, Zero, Where’d they all go? July 26, ½ day still can’t find’em. July 28th thru August 2nd, 6 full days Jodi Vanbeselear and his Fam. I have nothing written down for the first three days of this trip and think I forgot a few odds and ends, I know we had a few marlin bites but we didn’t catch any marlin for them yet although it seems we caught a spearfish or two and I think a big mahi mahi for the BBQ if memory serves. Day four I do remember, very well indeed!!! We hooked a spearfish on our long rigger, it didn’t go far at all on the 130 outfit and we were basically just dragging it to the boat down the center of the spread (which we left out) when a marlin about 800lb blasted it from the side. What a bite! There was a big bloody puff of pink mist, the marlin was doin 90mph and the top ¾ of her body was out of the water when it collided with the 6 foot bait.. err.. I mean spearfish. The impact broke the spearfish in half and the marlin promptly ate the back end and started looking for the rest. We had about 18 inches of the head and body with guts hanging out the back still on the long rigger single hook and the big fish followed it to the back of the boat where we intended to pull the remains on the boat and put them quickly on a large bait hook which we had readied and give them back to the eager marlin. The remains fell off the lure hook behind the boat and we got to watch the marlin swim leisurely up to them, slurp them down and leave, I think I could even hear it laughing it’s ass off as it slid out of site into the depths. Funny, just when you thought you’ve seen everything…Funny, I wasn’t laughing, quite a show nonetheless! They weren’t finished with me yet this day either, trolling our way home a few hours later, very near our mark from last week, a big one piles on our short corner and breaks us off when it comes rocketing out of the water on it’s first jump with about 300 yards of string buried in the water, we estimated that one about 700 or 800lb. Been at least 10 years since the last time I broke line on 130, hope it’s at least 10 more! Great day of big marlin watching! Place tail between legs here and go home to regroup. Ouch. Day 5, 1 for 3 on blues today and Jodi’s dad tags his first blue about 140lb. Step in the right direction! I’ll take a win of any kind right now! Day 6, 1 for 2 on blues today and Jodi himself hopped in the chair and did a great job on a blue about 400lb. Wish I had a couple more days for these folks to help them get even for the slow start etc… but we had a good time and finished with a bang. August 3 and 4, Gary Furness for two full days. Day one, 1 for 3 on blues today tagging one about 40lb, yep that’s right about 40lbs. One of the smallest I’ve ever caught. 0 for 2 on spearfish, darn, I wanted to rig one up and skip it! Day two went without a snap, all zeros. Aug. 5, full day. 1 for 2 on blues tagging a 150lb. Aug. 6, full day. 0 for 1 on blues today. Aug. 7 and 8, returning angler and friends Buddy Robertson, his 2 sons Lyle and Donny and lucky man Al Gaskil for the full days. We found the nest on day one! We started with tagging a 100lb striped marlin for Donny, his first marlin. Next it was Lyles turn on a blue about 150, his first too. Then we missed a small one and shortly after that we jump one off around 300 or so out of a double header, the other a small one, came off right away. Late tide today so we thought it might be prudent to hang in the very small area we had been getting all our shots thru the tide and fish a bit late, “there’s a big female around here I’ll bet”. I FEEL ANOTHER STORY COMING ON! About half an hour before the tide here she comes on the long rigger, 500+ and we’re on with Buddy in the chair. 10 or 15 minutes into it we have her jumping behind the boat just off the double with us steaming in reverse after her and my decky and I both readjust our estimates on the fish to upwards of 700lb maybe bigger but before we can get the leader in hand she makes a power dive about 300 feet down and starts sulking and trying to swim out to sea as they will do. Buddy works her up to about 200 feet, all is going well, we’re starting to get some good angle and she should pop up to the surface where we can go get her soon for the release then we start getting these violent head shakes, slack and tight, what’s up with that? Then a screaming run about 300yards back up to the surface and down sea. We chase that down and get about 50 yards away and back down deep the fish goes again but now the fight starts going all over the place, swimming in every which direction, shaking, rod pumping, going in circles, everything but coming to the surface. Like a whole different fight! This goes on for about 30 minutes, we’re getting close, the erratic swimming stops very close to the boat and a couple minutes later up comes a foul hooked (and dead) marlin about 275lbs hooked in the flesh just above the anal fin. There’s one for the marlin X-FILES. The male came in and started messing with our big female while we’re fighting her, she ends up released and he ends up snagged in the OKOLE! (That’s the part of your anatomy that you sit on in Hawaiian) That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!!!! Great day but weird. Just when you thought you’ve seen it all…! Day 2, we take the boys back down to the hole and make short work of a 150lb blue and then a 120lb yellowfin tuna but the area starts getting crowded so we do a bit of hunting the rest of the day and jump off a couple more 150lb blues, another good day! Great 2 days, we’re on a roll…I HOPE August 9 thru 13, Hawaiian Intl Billfish Tournament. We went nearly invisible this week, OUR ROLL rolled on down the road and right on to the Foxy Lady run by Capt. Boyd Decoito who wound up top boat with 4 or 5 tags and a weighed 605.5 blue on 50lb tackle, Congratulations to the crew of the Foxy Lady and the teams that fished her this week, well done! We had great teams, good fun, missed 3 or 4 small blues along the way and managed to tag 2 spearfish along the way blah blah blah. Long week for us, would have been nice to have a good showing in what was probably the last HIBT. That’s fishin blah blah… Aug. 14 thru 17, Buddy, Al and the gang back to finish up Buddy’s 6-day trip. Day 1, Donny’s wife caught her first spearfish. Day 2, 1 for 2 on blues, we tagged one about 140lbs ending a bit of a Rod Bender drought on the blue marlins. Day 3 Zip! Day 4, we tagged a 140lb blue and whacked a 152lb Yellowfin. The boy’s 6-day total looks like 6 marlin, 1 spearfish and 2 nice fat Ahi. That’ll work! August 19, full day with Dick Martin, 0 for 2 on blues. August 22 thru the 28th, Rod Bender owner, friend and ace angler Henry Potts with wife, photographer and cheerleader Linda. Day 1, 2 for 5 on blue marlin today tagging a150 blue and a blue just a tad under 400lbs that whacked me in the forehead HARD with it’s bill putting me on my OKOLE while I was trying to unhook the thing! The fish swam away fine after I got the hook out, I had a big goose egg on my head (lucky it hit in my visor strap above the brim or that would have been bloody). We jumped another 400+ off and missed a couple small blues too. 1 for 2 on striped marlins today also, pulling hook on a 100+ Mexican model and tagging a 65lb Hawaii model. Day 2, 0 for 3 on striped marlin, weird things happen in these light El Nino years. These stripeys don’t belong here for another 3 months. Day 3, 110lb ahi and a 40lb spearfish. Day 4, Zip. Day 5, 188lb ahi. Day 6, tag 170lb blue Day 7, 0 for 4 blues, the biggest looked about 350 maybe 400lb.

This is the part where I come up for air, regroup and sleep in a few days. We had a lot of luck this summer, just not as much of it GOOD as I’m used to! So far anyway.

I thought it was over but we picked up a few days on the water this September and here’s how they went.

Sept.11th. Full Day with Al “Lucky” Gaskil and his friends Nick and Bob. 2 for 2 on blue marlin today tagging a couple of 150lb models. Nicks first blue marlin. Sept. 12th. Al and Nick today for the full day. 2 for 5 on blues today tagging a 150 and 180 pounders for Al. 1 for 1 on striped marlin tagging a 100 pounder that I’m pretty sure I heard say “gracias cabrone” after I unhooked it. Nicks first stripey. Sept. 13th. Full day Kona Coffee Growers tourney. 2 for 2 on spearfish today both released. We had 2 boats hook up with blues right off our bow, one to a double header the other to a single. The boat with the single tagged a small blue and the other boated a 500 pounder. Hummm. They were snapping all around us for the other guys but the blues didn’t want us today. Sept. 14th. ¾ day, 1 for 2 on blues tagging one about 160lb. Sept. 18th. “Lucky” Al, Nick and Johnson for the full Day. We had a little morning mayhem when we connected with a triple-header on blues, tagging a 180 for Johnson and a 150 for Nick but Al’s fell off after a burning 300 yard run, I never saw that one but I’ll bet it was a nice one. We missed 2 other blues the rest of the day so 2 for 5. Sept. 19, Al and friends again, went 0 for 2 on blues; the ocean looked dead, today big change overnight the whole fleet was whining. Al’s 4 days here this month got him and his friends 6 blue marlin and one striped marlin, good trip! That’s more like it!

I have an empty calendar ahead of me now until I leave for Australia’s GBR for a little fishing with the Boss the first part of November. See what kind of trouble we can get into down there, hopefully BIG and black!

When I return in mid Nov. I would expect the beginning of our striped marlin run, spearfish and mahi-mahi not to mention blue marlin all to be biting here, the start of our wintertime variety season. We’ll be fired up and ready to rock so if your heading this way and looking to go fishing or just want info on what and where they’re biting feel free to email bvanmols@rod-bender.com or call me on my cell anytime 808-960-5954, I’m always happy to help! And if you’ld like a peak at the Rod Bender check out our web page www.konasportfishingcharters.com we’ll both be glad you did!

Good fishin, tight lines and Aloha!

Capt. Chip Van Mols

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