Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2016 i Hawaii Fishing News

Hilo Trollers Year-End Awards ■ This issue of HFN went to press before the Hilo Trollers Annual Awards Ceremony and all of the awards will have been given before this issue reaches publication, so I will list the annual year-end awards in this month’s column and note highlights from the banquet next month. The Hilo Trollers club is a small all-volunteer club that runs monthly tournaments from April to September, the height of the trolling season. The Trollers have been organizing tournaments for at least 40 years. Membership fees are quite low, as are the monthly tournament entry fees. The Trollers are not like a single big-money tournament organizer with heavy competition for a few top prizes. The club likes to spread the prizes and the recognition widely. The Trollers…

■ Standing Committees of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (Council) met recently to consider management measures for fisheries in the expanded Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI); 2017 longline-caught bigeye tuna catch limits in American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI); and other offshore fishery management issues. The full Council considered recommendations from the Standing Committees and its advisory bodies in October in Honolulu. Among the advisory bodies providing recommendations is the Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC), which met recently in Honolulu. Regarding the NWHI monument, the SSC recommended the acquisition of historic fishing activity data in the expanded monument area, which includes waters 50 to 200 miles offshore. The SSC also recommended that the Council consider the use…

■ The DLNR Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR) has finalized the management plan for the Kauai’s Ha‘ena Community-Based Subsistence Fishing Area (CBSFA) and will brief the Hawaii Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) on the outcomes of the public comment process and the final management plan at its regular meeting on August 26th, 2016. Administrative Rules for the Ha‘ena CBSFA were approved by the BLNR in October 2014, and took effect a year ago after being signed into law by Governor David Ige. DAR has installed signs at access points along the Ha‘ena coastline informing people about the rules, and has developed a draft management plan in consultation with Ha‘ena residents and other interested parties as required by statute and the Ha‘ena CBSFA rules. After a draft management plan…

■ News flash from Kona, Hawai‘i: Flashabou skirts on bullets and jets are a brilliant success with billfish, tuna, mahimahi and ono. The shiny stuff looks like it only belongs on a Christmas tree, but you will see it lighting up game fish of every kind in every season. Don’t scoff at how flimsy the filaments may look. If you tie the bright strands securely enough, Flashabou will outlast skirts made of more traditional vinyl and plastic materials. The thin fibers even hold up against an ono’s sharp teeth. Indeed, for ono, Capt. Neal Isaac quipped that it acted like dental floss. On a daily basis, Neal has been trolling one or two “flashy” lures in his spread on the Anxious with results like the 573-lb blue marlin he boated…

Longline-Caught Bigeye Tuna Limits Remain at 2,000 Metric Tons ■ The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (Council) recently recommended that the U.S. Participating Territory longline-caught bigeye tuna limits remain at 2,000 metric tons (mt) per territory for 2017. Pending approval by the Secretary of Commerce, the Territories of American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marina Islands (CNMI) are authorized to allocate up to 1,000 mt of their limit to U.S. fishermen through specified fishing agreements as authorized under Amendment 7 of the Pelagic Fishery Ecosystem Plan for the Western Pacific Region. The amendment, which has been in place since 2014, requires that the territory longline-caught bigeye tuna limits be reviewed and recommended on an annual basis. Transference of a portion of their quota provides the territories…

■ At the beginning of this summer, I was lucky enough to meet a fellow female fisherman named Tasha Ferriman. I had heard about an ‘ahi she’d caught a few months before while she was fishing with her mom, and I instantly wanted to know her. After talking to her, I found out she had caught ‘ahi solo (my dream), as well as an impressive list of catches with her 19-year-old female deckhand, Nawai Pu‘u. She was officially my new hero. Since then, Tasha and I, along with our friend and excellent water woman Desiree Higa, have continued to fish with an “all-girls” crew every Wednesday that we have the chance. The relentless hustle of Capt. Tasha is unbelievable. Out of the seven total days I have fished with Tasha,…

Summertime Billfish Tally ■ The four-month summertime billfish run produced an average amount of small blue marlin, but the big females were almost non-existent. June saw only three blue marlin weighed and another eight released for a total of 11 marlin. Out of the three weighed and sexed, only one was female. It weighed 475.5 lbs. This was the harbor’s fifth largest blue of the year to date and the largest of the four-month summer season. The other two blues scaled were males weighing 108.4 and 212.8 lbs. The eight blues released were estimated to weigh between 100 and 350 lbs. There were no striped marlin caught during the month. The 16 shortbill spearfish captured made up the majority of the 19 billfish weighed and the 27 billfish captured during…

KONA SEPTEMBER Catch and Consume Report Kona’s charter catch reports are limited to tuna (‘ahi) weighing over 100 lbs and billfish catches of any size, any species: (S)=Striped Marlin, (B)=Black Marlin. Fish Wt. Angler Capt. Boat Sept 2- Ahi 149 Egley Isaacs..................................... ANXIOUS Spearfish 35 Egley Isaacs..................................... ANXIOUS Marlin 134 Knoll Ventura .............................. LIL ALLEX II Ahi 125 Zealand Cherry............................ CHERRY PIT II Spearfish 30 Patterson Parker........................ MARLIN MAGIC II Sept 3- Marlin 174 Segovia Fukuyama....................................... MIKI Marlin (S) 120 Grant Holtz........................................ PURSUIT Sept 4- Ahi 138 Vogt Vogt......................................... KAPAKAI Marlin 123 Cimino Heintz.............................. LINDA SUE IV Ahi 155 Iisey Fogarty................................ HULA GIRL Marlin 134 Kualaau Kualaau.......................... KAMALIA’OHA Sept 5- Ahi 154 Kalamau Kalamau................................ KALAMAU Marlin 221 Carpenter Terwilliger........................... HIGH FLIER Marlin 140 Ross Ross.......................................... BRANDI Marlin 185 Probost Heintz..............................…

For letters, with photos, received during November we will send you these great gifts from HFN—our way of saying “thanks for sharing your catch!” … Hana pa‘a, Chuck Send to: P.O. Box 25488, Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96825 or e-mail: <fishnews@hawaii.rr.com> Hi Chuck, Wanted to share a picture of my wife Jennie’s first ono. She caught it off the Kohala coast, out of Kawaihae Harbor. Big thanks to our friend Symon for captaining the boat. Mahalo, Bruce WilsonKohala Ranch Uncle Chuck, In September, three miles from MM buoy, I had a one hour fight with a 250-lb. marlin. It was hell at the rear of boat—tail wrapped rope and fish pulled boat for about ten minutes. Capt. Tommy DeDona Uncle Chuck, Aloha from Maui this Labor Day weekend and making my West…