Some of my best days started as busted ahi plans. Here is how I find and work floating rubbish in Hawaii, from hunting speed between piles to the six inch lures and Aku Bones that go in the water first when I break down.
I run a 9-inch spread during ahi season, but the 7-inch and 6-inch lures earn their spot in the box for everything else. Here is how I use each size, when I reach for the Ali’i heavy series in rough water, and why I pull them all out once that 3-month ahi window opens.
We sell or give away the best cuts of every ahi, and the fisherman keeps the rest. Here is how I smoke the head, why the meat around the eyes smells like crab, and how what is left turns into a really good head soup.
I run all 9-inch lures during ahi season and nothing smaller, and the reason comes down to bycatch. Here's the spread I've been running for four years and why bullets and inverts stay where you put them in rough water.
I fish slower than most guides recommend, and almost all of my bites come on the downwind pass. Here is the zone system I use, including the exact speeds and the two-mile radius rule that keeps me in the fish.
I spend two to three days before every trip calling my network, logging positions, and picking a zone. The intel you gather before you leave the dock is what separates a consistent fisherman from someone who just goes looking.
My actual drag numbers for ahi, how I handle the boat after the bite, and why I tell my gaff man to aim for the pec fin instead of the head. This is the part of ahi fishing nobody writes down.
If you are just getting into trolling, the fastest way to start catching fish is to run smaller lures. Here is what I tell less experienced fishermen about lure size, leader, speed, and keeping the spread simple.
The exact lures I ran on our last ahi trips and why each one went out: how I match my line count to my crew, pick colors off the week's reports, and read the teeth marks an ahi leaves on a lure head.
These are the exact skirt combinations we run on our ahi lures, with the Yamashita and Yo-Zuri codes for each one. I also cover the two skirt shortcuts and the rigging catch you need to know before you run a flashabou skirt.
Most of the fish we find offshore in Hawaii, we find because of birds. This is how I tell the flutter birds from the boss birds, which piles are worth working, and when to leave a pile alone.
Most guides pick leader by species. I pick it by lure size: 300 pound test on all the big lures, 130 or 200 on the small ones depending on the season, and every leader cut to three arm spans.
Every boat bites differently. Here is my baseline spread, 320 feet on the riggers and 200 on the corners, and how I compress or stretch it depending on where the ahi bites come.
Skirts are the number one thing guys ask us about. Here is how we tie two and three skirt lures at the shop, the exact skirt codes behind our standard colors, and the trick for rebuilding a chomped skirt instead of throwing it away.
Ahi don't behave the same way year-round. Water temperature, bait migration, and current patterns all affect what's working on any given day. Here's what we've learned about matching lures to conditions in Hawaiian waters.
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