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If you pay any attention to catch reports on social media, you’ll know that the bite has been epic off the coast of Kona, Hawaii, this summer. Reports of big numbers for both blue marlin and spearfish have been coming in consistently throughout the season.
“Our numbers have been off the charts this year,” said Capt. Bryan Toney of Snafu in late June. “We started fishing on March 8, and as of July 30, we already had more than 230 blues, 18 grand slams and even a super slam, which comprised a black marlin of around 900 pounds, a blue, a stripey and a spearfish.”
Yet even the early-season bite couldn’t have prepared Toney for June 21, when he led his two charter anglers to a record-shattering day. Fishing a straightforward spread of Kona hardheads as teasers and two hooked lures on the riggers, with pitch baits at the ready, Toney put his anglers on 18 blue marlin during an action-packed day. The pair battled 14 of the blues to a successful release, easily crushing the Hawaii record for blue marlin releases in a single day, which previously sat at seven based on unofficial reports. As a bonus, the team went two for three on spearfish as well.
“We were really close to 16 for 18 on the blues, but we pulled the hook on two of the fish before we could get the leader,” Toney says. “The bite was hot pretty much all day, and almost every fish we went over bit.”
Toney had tied the daily record of seven three times earlier in the season before finally obliterating it. Angler Brady Wild caught 10 of the blue marlin, while Alan Corbeille got the other four. All the fish were singles; no double- or triple-headers contributed to the final tally. Mates Jessie Rudolf and Brandon Wilder kept the cockpit running smoothly amid the chaos.
Snafu is a 50-foot G&S that Toney put in service in Kona three years ago; it was previously in operation in New Zealand, with John Batterton at the helm. “We have been doing very well with the G&S,” he says. “Every year we’ve been catching more fish over 500 pounds, including a 964-pounder this year. We are breaking every record you can think of, except the all-tackle record, which we’re still chasing. We take a lot of effort to teach anglers to hook their own fish and transfer the rod for themselves.”
Among the upgrades Toney enjoys on the G&S is the Furuno 8 omni sonar model CSH8LMK2. When asked how much of a role the sonar played on his record day, and in this year’s hot bite in general, Toney just laughed. “It’s huge. No way it would have happened without it,” he says. “I mean, we’re having a great bite with more fish around this year than ever, but the sonar is just lethal. Kona is the perfect spot to use it too, with calm, deep water and not a lot of other things swimming around to clutter the screen. There is definitely a learning curve, but once you get it, it’s almost not fair.”
The effectiveness of sonar in putting the baits in front of fish plays a role in Toney’s spread design, which is optimized to hook fish rather than attract them from afar. No elaborate teasers, dredges or daisy chains are deployed; his pattern typically includes just four lures in the water. On the week of his record day, with experienced anglers in the cockpit, he switched things up to more of a bait-and-switch focus, keeping a couple of Softhead Wide Range lures ready to pitch. “We had been using mackerel as our pitch baits previously but weren’t doing that well on the hookups, so we switched to the soft lures and have been getting better numbers.”
Toney anticipates the hot bite continuing throughout the season. “We’re fortunate that we have good fishing and calm water nine months of the year,” he says. “Even so, though, I’m not sure we’ll ever see a day like that again.”
