I went out with Captain Fuzzy and Sam in April on a shared charter. We left at 11pm and made bait till about 2am as it was pretty slow then went off Lanai to a FAD buoy for grey light and started fishing just after 6am. It took all of 2 mins to hook up with our first mahi mahi.
Landed it then we hooked a triple, 2 of which we landed then hit another double. And repeat and repeat....awesome chaos doing figure 8's and donuts around the front side of the buoy trying to battle the crazy currents. We hit a 17-18lb YFT in between all the Mahi Mahi. Everything that stuck was on the live bait we made earlier in the night.
Once out of live bait we used something similar to pink hoochies jigging aggressively while trolling around the buoy and smashed some small YFT and 2 skippies.
The bite died at 8:20 when the sun was up a certain ways and we also had to start the long trek back. About 20 mins back we got another mahi mahi then around an hour later another one.
We pulled the lines and motored to port arriving at 11am with 15 mahi mahi ranging from 15 lbs to 33lbs, 10 tuna all 4-8 lbs except the one larger I mentioned around 17-18lbs.
All guests received 10 portions for fresh meals if they wanted it plus a monster plate of the most amazing tuna sashimi and the rest they throw on their backs and deliver to restaurants within walking distance to sell.
I knew this ahead of time about the portioning but asked the captain if I could buy some to share with some friends who live on the island but I also had brought my food saver vac packer with me
as there's no packing service on Maui.
Market prices are usually $3.50 to $5/lb and I offered $5/lb for a 17lb mahi and the 2 remaining small YFT which all looked amazing with a top quality fillet job. He said he'd throw in the tuna for free after he saw my tip.
Sam is probably one of the hardest working men I've seen in my life, he busts his butt non-stop. A man like that teamed up with an amazing captain like Fuzzy and you won't be disappointed with their effort, there's a reason why 9 out 10 overnight charters they don't get skunked.
This isn't for kids or anyone with physical limitations or tourists, no sleeping spot except sitting at the small table or longer bench with 6 guests rolling around overnight really sucks if you're not a mentally deranged fisherman like myself.
My sister went with me and could only handle one fish and that was with my help, another guest was done midway through her second and I had to begrudgingly take over to finish the job then another guest was done after 3 fish as their arms and legs were done from trying to stand in the rocking current while getting beaten up by feisty mahi. I had the pleasure of fighting 9 of the the 27 we landed.
