KILA KILA takes biggest Ahi of the year 6/29/09

Right out of the harbor this morning started of well.  I ran out to the 500 fathom ledge and Josh put the lines in the water.  I spotted a group of shear waters winging over a particular area and turned out to make a pass near them.  Shortly before reaching the middle of the birds Josh's morning lesson was spoiled.  Angler Justin Johnson, from Seattle, soon got his heart pumping when the line started ripping out from the rod and reel he was already clipped into the chair with.  Josh was teaching him what to expect and techniques on angling when the fish struck.  After a 15 minute fight we had it within sight.  The long Allison yellow-fins streaming from the tuna were the first sign it was a bigger fish.  The fish gave Josh a good tug on leader before we secured it with the gaffs.  The beautiful Ahi weighed in at 233 1/2 lbs.  largest of the year on rod and reel for 2009.  

Aloha, Capt. Teddy Hoogs

www.kilakilasportfishing.com

Kona Classic Tournament 6/27/09 -to- 6/28/09

David Pilgrim of Texas started off his string of tournaments with us with a bang.  We tagged one of the first blues of the tournament getting us in contention to win some money.  We didn't know at the time of releasing a 200# blue that it would be worth as much as it was.  Turned out fishing was a little on the slow side and if you had one of the first blues released you were sitting in the money.  Sunday we lost a fish around 300#s and then hooked another blue in the afternoon only to lose it at the back of the boat.  If one of those two fish held on we could have doubled our winnings.  We tied for second and can't complain with our winnings totaling $26,622.00.

Aloha, Capt. Teddy Hoogs

www.kilakilasportfishing.com  

Repeat Clients 6/25/09

The Conboy's have fished with us for a number of years.  This year was pretty special, we started the morning off with marking a cluster of marlin, yes a cluster.  At first I didn't know what I was looking at on the depth sounder, but I soon learned my first guess was correct.  We raised a blue up on the short-bait, shortly after one was up on the short rigger, and before I knew it we had one up on every single lure.  That something I've never seen from blue marlin before, having more then two up at once is pretty rare, and five up at once is pretty special.  One of the five we had up looked to be around 500#'s, one female and 4 males.  We managed to only stick one of the five and tag & release it.  We went through the day to miss a couple more marlin, and see another special sight.  We came across one of the smallest whale sharks I've seen, about 12 feet in length.  We got Mr. Conboy and Josh in the water swimming with it.  They were pretty excited to end the day swimming with a whale shark!

Aloha, Capt. Teddy Hoogs

www.kilakilasportfishing.com 

3/4 day off the cruise ship 6/24/09

Morning started out uneventful, but we got lucky around 11:30 a.m. hooking a 166# Ahi on a lure.  We had one other bite around 2:00 p.m. before they had to be in to meet the ship.  We hooked a blue around 300#'s but pulled hook near the boat.  The fish put on a great show and a good fight.  Everyone got to see it, and experience the thrill of the fight to make it a successful trip.

1/2 day 6/22/09

Lost a big Ahi early on a lure, signs of life are still showing.  Saw a couple marlin caught around us and marked a few with no luck.  Last half an hour of our trip we caught a nice 30# short-nose spearfish, just what our local customers wanted, something to put on the grill.  Spearfish are very tasty, one of the best eating fish here.  We sent the clients home with bags of fish to go around.

Aloha, Capt. Teddy Hoogs

www.kilakilasportfishing.com

2nd place Rock-n-Reel Tournament 6/20/09 -to- 6/21/09

We decided to enter the Rock-n-Reel fishing tournament this weekend our selfs.  The tournament this year fell on Father's Day so Josh and I thought how better to spend it then with both our fathers fishing with us.  We got together my Father, Capt. Peter Hoogs and Josh's Father, Duayne Bunch (our angler) to join us for the weekend.  We have been fishing pretty well so I wasn't worried betting on our selfs, knowing we had a good chance to win our money back.  

Saturday morning started off slow but by the 10:00 round up we started to see our action.  Shortly after missing a little one on the short bait, I spotted a feeder on the surface.  As soon as I got near it, the small blue grabbed our short bait.  Duane made short work of the little blue to get us on the board with one tag.  10 minutes after getting the lures back in the water we hooked our second blue and successfully tagged and released it.  Now were leading the tournament with two tags.  We then preceded to raise three more blues, one of which looked every bit of 500 lbs.  We also tagged another blue after stop fishing to give us three tagged blues for the day.  Unfortunately our lead slipped away to the FIVE STAR releasing four blues for the day.   

Sunday morning we knew we had some catching up to do, we missed one early then hooked our first blue around 10:30 a.m.  We got it all the way to leader reaching out to tag it the fish shook of the hook making it not count as a release.  Fishing the same grounds as we did the day before we weren't seeing the same results.  By 1:00 p.m. I knew the fish had moved to another area, so I went looking.  It payed off, about 2 miles south of where we were working all morning signs of life started to show again.  We tagged two more blues that afternoon to lock us in second place with four tags, and to win over $9,000.