Hilo Bay Bonito

[Stan Wright]

See a catch of striped bonito which are now biting in Hilo Bay. We landed 34 fish from sundown to 10:30pm. May go again on Tues.nite.
MikeS

[bsp]

Cool, bonita are in Hawaii too. Looks like they have a different name in Hawaii as well. How do you guys usually cook them because everytime I catch one of the bone-heads it goes right back in the water.

[OO7:BASSINASSASSIN]

Hey Stan, are those dog tooth tuna? I thought those were rare in Hawaii.

[Stan Wright]

I thought they were Kawakawa. I remember stories about them flooding Hilo bay and hundreds of people line the shore whipping for them. I'll e-mail Mike and see if he can give us more information. I called him and he was "out of the office" for a while. Yea right.

[Stan Wright]

Got this from Mike:
To Stan:
We were using cut shrimp. The leader was a simple egg sinker connected to a small swivel and then about 2-ft. of 10#mono leader. Small hook. Fished midwater in about 50'. Terrific fight and good eating. I cleaned and dried a bunch yesterday. Delicious. Probably going again Wed. nite.
Going to try whipping for them tomorrow night too. I did the other night, but it was biting soooo good that I gave up & stuck with just the bait.
I was fishing with Harvey and he was getting upset when he was re-rigging his 2nd pole and just couldn't do it cause he kept on getting bit. He bitched and bitched. Some people just can't be happy with lots of strikes.
MikeS
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[bsp]

Hey Stan, are those dog tooth tuna? I thought those were rare in Hawaii.

Nope, they are their own unique species of fish officially Pacific Bonito (or Bonita in California). Bonita belong to the smae family as mackeral and tuna and are supposed to be pound-for-pound the strongest fish in the ocean. They are also nicknamed bone-heads because they have hard skulls. I have a really good time catching them on 8lb line. I did not know that they were good to eat though.