WaveRunner Fishing In Hawaii Growing As Anglers Bring Home Big Catches

 
By Will James

This summer in Hawaii has seen spectacular fishing, with huge runs of large yellowfin tuna infesting the waters off of Kauai and West Oahu, while the currents moving through the calm waters of Kona on the Big Island attracted an all out infestation of small (under 200#) “rat” marlin.

PWC fishing is going big here- what was considered nuts a few years ago is now commonplace, with guys bringing home some great catches every month.

I trolled exclusively for marlin and managed six fish over the course of the summer.  I landed five and released one.

The PWC contingent has been out in force these last months. Several guys have made some really incredible catches. It’s really satisfying for me personally to see so many people having success fishing off their PWCs. When I started this I was the only person fishing from my Yamaha WaveRunner on a regular basis, but now it’s not uncommon to see a couple others out there fishing tuna at the bouys, running the ledges for wahoo and mahi mahi, or fishing skipjack tuna on the grounds on a daily basis.

Moe Pukahi and Chelsea Carrol hooked up to an Otado (skipjack tuna over 10 pounds) on the grounds off Kona, on the Big Island.

Pro surfers Stephen Koehne and Dustin Barca strapped a pole onto their PWC and managed to best this huge 170# ahi off Kauai their first day out!

While off Oahu’s West Side Alex Reinprecht, producer of Hawaiian Extreme Sports TV, picked up this nice 145# ahi trolling off the power plant.

 

J. Robertson joined the PWC billfish club with this blue caught trolling off Milolii on the Big Island.