Kona Blue Marlin Fishing: Current, Ledges and Lures

Kona blue marlin fishing is trolling lures over deep water that starts a few miles off the leeward coast of Hawaii's Big Island, out of Honokohau Harbor near Kailua-Kona. Blue marlin are caught year round, and the big females come through from about April to August. The crews who do it well read one thing first: which way the current runs, and whether it is pushing into the ledge or pulling off the island.

When I decided to film blue marlin for In The Spread, Kona topped my list, and I wasn't interested in FAD fishing. I wanted a captain who trolls lures for big fish and can explain every call he makes. The name that kept coming back was Captain Kevin Hibbard of the 2nd Offense, who has run boats from the bridge and wired fish in the cockpit from Kona and Australia to Cabo, the Azores and Cape Verde.

I was on the boat with Kevin for every one of his videos, and I later sat down with Marlin Parker, whose father's 1,002 pound fish in 1954 was the first grander landed in U.S. waters. For the species itself, start with our blue marlin fishing pillar. This is how Kona gets fished.

Why Is Kona One of the Best Places to Catch a Big Blue Marlin?

Kona puts deep water within minutes of the harbor on the calmest coast in Hawaii. The 100 fathom line is about a minute out, 1,000 fathoms sits roughly three miles off the beach, and the seas stay fishable almost every day. Blue marlin bite in every month, and a 1,000 pound fish can eat on any of them.

Three mountains do the work. Hualalai rises 8,000 feet behind the coast, and Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa top out just under 14,000, high enough to block the trade winds, so the only weather that reaches Kona comes from the south. Marlin Parker, who fished it 250 to 300 days a year for decades, calls it "probably the most favorable sports fishing destination in the world" for weather and sea conditions. Most days, Kevin says, it's "like a mill pond."

The island itself is the structure: a mountain 32,000 feet from the sea floor to the summit, about 2,500 miles from anywhere. "We are the FAD," Kevin said. "It's basically like McDonald's off the highway." The morning we filmed off his favorite point, where 1,000 fathoms is three miles offshore, a nearby boat was backing down on a fish before, by Kevin's guess, its whole pattern was out. Granders have come off this coast since the 1950s. How Kona compares with other big fish grounds is in our top blue marlin destinations for big fish.

Which Way Should the Current Run for Kona Blue Marlin?

Kona current should run straight into the ledge, north and in or south and in. Current that hits a ledge head on pushes water from the bottom to the top, and that upwelling lifts plankton, bait and skipjack toward the surface. Current running out, or along the ledge instead of into it, sweeps marlin off the island.

The Big Island is big enough to split the current. Water hitting the far side wraps around and eddies back up the west coast, so Kona has a north and a south current at the same time, a rip in Kevin's words. Parker puts the split around the middle of the west side, and says the best current off the harbor is a north current hitting the ledge that runs three to three and a half miles out from the airport: "You get all the upwelling, all the skipjack." It runs more in summer.

The day we filmed his favorite area, Kevin knew the current was running north and stopped at a buoy to see whether it was pulling in or out before choosing where to fish. "Current is pretty much everything," he told me.

Where the common advice breaks: temperature breaks

Most marlin advice starts with temperature breaks on a satellite map. Kevin checks the maps, but says they give "a guesstimation" of Hawaii's currents and temperatures, so it's on the crew to find the water. He's comfortable at 80 to 82 F and searches harder below it, but temperature comes second. The day we filmed his structure video the current ran a full knot, and our one blue came right on the moonrise. How the read changes from Kona to Costa Rica and El Salvador is on our blue marlin fishing videos page.

When Do the Biggest Blue Marlin Come Through Kona?

Kona marlin fishing produces blue marlin every month, and most charter crews call June through September the peak. The biggest fish, mostly big females, come through from about April to August, depending on the year. Day to day, the bite follows the tides and the moon more than the clock.

Big females taken years ago were full of eggs, which told Parker blue marlin spawn off Kona, and he thinks the calm water draws them. One season a longline crew warned him that big marlin were raiding their bigeye offshore and would reach the coast within a month; they did, and his 1,400 came with them. He tells it in Big Game Legends: Marlin Parker Part 1.

Kevin counts six feeding windows in every 24 hours: the peak of the high tide, the bottom of the low, moonrise, moonset, and the moon straight overhead and straight underneath. "Those phases are their breakfast, lunch, and dinner," he said. The morning we filmed his favorite point, boats were hooking up as the tide changed, so he stayed through it before heading south.

Where the common advice breaks: the barometer

The usual rule says stable or rising pressure fishes best. Kevin sees fish "climb on and eat before" a front, then go into lockjaw. Right before a storm, "it can get really radical, big bites, a lot of fish."

Where Do Kona Captains Find Blue Marlin on the Water?

Blue marlin off Kona follow the forage, which here is flying fish, skipjack, yellowfin and mahi rather than the sardines and anchovies of Mexico or Costa Rica. Kona crews look for birds, bait, porpoise schools carrying yellowfin, anything floating, and clean blue water over a ledge, and they work any sign of life they find.

Leeward Kona gets so little wind that three, four or five birds in one spot means something; off Oahu, Kevin says, it takes a couple of hundred. Porpoise schools get a figure eight in front: the tuna run ahead, the porpoise behind, and the marlin hang behind the school picking off straggler ahi. "Big mamas sitting behind the school," Parker said, "dart in, and grab a yellowfin." Tuna busting on the surface are different. "They're like barking dogs," Kevin said. "They're not going to bite." He goes the other way.

Color is the other Kona rule. Milky blue-green water after big surf means "I'm exiting stage left"; Kevin wants blue-purple. Yet in Costa Rica and Mexico, over a shallower thermocline, he has caught plenty of blues in pea green water.

Working a bite once you find one

"One fish is there for a reason," Kevin said. "Two fish are there, there's something going on." Searching, he runs in and out on a straight track with the engines synced so every lure holds its wave. A bite at 700 fathoms means setting up on the 700 with parallel runs or a widening figure eight: "you almost become a bird dog." Lining up one cinder cone with another still finds the ko'a, the rips in the ledge that hold skipjack, ahi and marlin. "I use those marks more than I use my GPS," he said.

The Kona Lure Spread: Four Lines, No Shotgun

Trolling for blue marlin in most fisheries means five to seven lines: riggers, corners, a shotgun down the middle and often dredges, at roughly 7.5 to 9 knots. Kona crews pull fewer lines, set by the waves of the wake, at whatever speed makes each lure swim right.

Kevin runs four lures, two a side, with no dredge and no shotgun. "It's a handcuff to you when you get the bite," he said. With four lines the crew clears one and he can run after a big fish while it's still taking line. The 2nd Offense also turns hard on its 360 degree sonar, which would tangle a center line. Some days the crew adds a hookless tuna silhouette teaser on the second wave, and the longest line always goes out first.

Bullets are the Kona surprise. "I've had so many big fish eat little six-inch and nine-inch bullets," Kevin said; in Hawaii, "it's like candy to them." The crew now runs a heavier bullet because big fish were pushing light ones out of the way. Hooks are single 9/0 to 11/0 sized to the lure, on leaders of about 26 feet of 530 pound hard mono over 900 pound cable. That morning a blue ate the small Hibby on the long rigger, a 9/0 Kona cut Sta-Stuk in it, before 8 o'clock. Wave by wave placement for any boat is in rigging blue marlin lures and setting the spread.

Why do Kona captains troll lures instead of live bait?

Calm seas made Kona's lure fishermen, Parker says, starting with Henry Chee's skipjack-imitating lures, while rough water in Australia meant "they master dead baiting." Kona fish also "don't necessarily switch like they do elsewhere," and lures cover about 10 times the ground of live bait.

Kevin adds a newer reason: state FADs and a kampachi pen pulled the skipjack off their natural migration routes, and the Grounds up north no longer hold massive bait. He live baits only where bait has held on a ledge for days, in 600 feet or deeper, working outside the school, because fish coming in bite harder than fish already in it. The lures themselves are in our marlin lure rigging videos.

Kona Blue Marlin Tackle and Drag

Kona blue marlin tackle is 130 pound class every day and in the big tournaments. The Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament is fished on 50 and 80, with more points for 50, and the 2nd Offense runs straight 50s. On 50, Kevin says, the fish "doesn't feel the pressure as much" and stays up; 130 with 40 to 45 pounds of drag makes it sound.

His rods are Seeker blanks cut from the top down, stiff two thirds of the way with a working tip, because a parabolic rod loses its lift under heavy drag. Each Shimano two-speed holds about 1,200 yards of 200 pound PowerPro Hollow Ace under 250 to 300 yards of 130 pound mono. Strike drag is where the captains don't agree:

• Kevin marks three tapes on the lever: strike, which he called about 40 pounds and set nearer 28 on camera, white at 25, the middle at about 15, and red as close to free spool as he can get.
• His deckhand sets 30 pounds, "a little bit tighter than most people do."
• In his hooks video Kevin runs 28 to 35, with a third of breaking strength as the rule: about 16 on 50 and 40 on 130.
• Parker marks 40 at the button and 75 at sunset.

They agree on when to stop. "Are you getting any line? Yes. There's no reason to put more drag on it," Kevin said. Why he leaves his favorite hook off the 50s is in Blue Marlin Hooks with Kevin Hibbard.

How Long Does It Take to Reel In a Marlin in Kona?

Reeling in a blue marlin usually takes 20 minutes to an hour, and a big fish on heavy tackle can take two or three hours. Kona fish often go longer. They can sound 400 yards and run out to sea for three or four hours at a time, and Marlin Parker has fought many past eight hours.

Parker says some of the toughest blue marlin he has seen anywhere are in Kona. His longest fight lasted 23 hours, and at 21 hours the fish "started jumping like it was its first run." His first grander, a 1,257 hooked off Kaiwi on 80 pound line, ran him to 50 yards on the reel before the rocks turned it, and he had a gaff in it in an hour and a half. Line drag works against you too: on a fish that surfaced far out with a big belly, "just pulling that 130 through the water, that diameter alone is going to snap it."

How the boat shortens the fight

"Keep the fight close" is Kevin's first rule, and "play it like it's hooked" is the second. On a big first run he backs the drag off almost to free spool, because 28 pounds at strike climbs toward 45 as the spool empties. Parker calls it down the lever: "Slack at the 30, slack at the 20, slack at the 10. Go ahead and go to free spool." When a fish goes straight down, Kevin drives away into the current to put an angle and a belly on it, and he fights fish off the corner with the chair turned. The angler lifts with body weight, left hand on the reel; Kevin says kids and women make the best anglers for that reason. More of Parker's fights are in Big Game Legends: Marlin Parker Part 2.

Questions About Kona Blue Marlin Fishing

Fishing Kona the Way the Captains Do

Kona rewards the crew that reads the current before the first lure goes out, picks its depth from that, fishes the windows, and keeps the spread simple enough to clear the moment a big fish eats. When it works, Kevin says, "you're a genius. If it doesn't, you're not."

How to turn more of those strikes into hooked fish is in blue marlin trolling tactics that convert strikes.

Kevin's lure choices, head by head, are in Blue Marlin Trolling Lures with Kevin Hibbard.

Seth Horne Founder and CEO