Malihini Sportfishing

Dirt boat, deck hands smoking all day and throwing cigarette butts overboard. Bathrooms out of order and to top it off no fish. Captain mid way through decided to go look for fish. Never again.

To captain Mike. Don’t go driving around all day looking for kelp when all the other boats are catching limits at the same spot everyday, including this day. I noticed that there were more rental rod fisherman on this overloaded boat than I ever thought possible, and I know there were a lot of boats at that spot, but don’t avoid good fishing to make work easier for you and your crew. That was my one chance this year to catch some tuna.

Best fishing trip EVER!!! Love the crew. Alex, Michael and Daniel. Best experience EVER!!! Gotta do it again. You guys have to go on this boat. It’s the best!!!

This boat has a beautiful scam working for them that more and more anglers are staring to take notice of. You will notice a common thread amongst the negative reviews of this boat, and its Captain, which is too much of a coincidence to ignore…
It would seem that this Captain and his crew use a packed (30+ anglers) Malihini to maximize profit and satiate their need to catch yellowtail without having to do a good job in assisting the paying customers on their boat. Expect less than 4 hours fishing on this boat. There will be no fishing for anything other than yellowtail with a run and gun pursuit; the Captain is only interested in keeping yellowtail numbers up — he does not care that you paid over $ 100 to fish.
Run and gunning for yellowtail is all fine and good, but when the captain positions the bow 100′ off the school, he’s not exactly setting everyone up for success. You see, the captain and his crew really enjoy catching yellowtail. And they love to throw surface iron out to maximize their excitement. Step one, tell everyone to move to one side of the boat (opposite the school). Step two, tell them all to drop yo-​yo or dropper rigs. Step three, have your crew position on the opposite side of the boat, with plenty of room, to cast surface iron right on top of the school and haul in the fish.
In order to be successful on this boat, follow this advice:
Bring an 8ft+ jig stick, and associated reel, capable of 100′ casts.
Be assertive and muscle into the bow
Bring surface iron (it’s the only thing the captain fishes with)
Always take the side of the bow opposite the captain tells everyone else to fish (fish the side his crew is fishing on).
If you do not have the gear, the skill, and will to stand your ground, do not board this boat. But, if you like watching the deck hands high-​five each other after landing a yellowtail, while three paying customers are holding up other anglers trying to figure out how to untangle their lines, then you’ll love this boat!

I went out with my uncles a couple of months ago and I had a blast. The only reason why I gave 4 stars is because there was one person (I am not sure if he is a crew member or not, but the crew seemed to know him) was going to cut my line because he said I crossed his. He was very rude and it turned out that he crossed my line and I had the fish. This was a small issue and everything else was great. There were two younger guys that were the deck hands and they were running around helping everyone out. I would absolutely book with the Malihini again. BTW, everyone I went with caught at least 2 yellowtail, among other fish.

I have fished often off the Malihini and it’s been just ok until now, Lately the fish count has been high and that’s why I chose this boat. But after the last trip i saw why the fish count was high. There werer lots of deck hands fishing at the front of the ship where I like to cast iron. they were the ones catching all the fish leaving their guest to take the alternate method which was not effective. They left no room for others. I thought deck hands were to help their guest catch fish. They (the deck hands) were very rude and not helpful at all with the exception of one honest deck hand who was the only one who asked if I needed any help. This was the last time I step foot on the Malihini. This was an expensive whale watching trip.

The report they had for this boat said they caught 171 fish the day before my trip. However, that was not to be the case when we went out to sea. The total haul for that trip was only 18 fish. 5 of those were from so called deck hands and even though most of our group left empty handed. These guys didn’t share their catch. That’s over $ 100 a person and we just paid for these guys to have a fishing trip. Waste of money and a Saturday.

Online Reservation process for our ¾ day trip on the Malihini was easy. We enjoyed being able to check the daily fish count leading up to the trip.
The crew was patient and did an excellent job managing the chaos that can happen with inexperienced anglers on these trips. Captain Mike put us right on the fish and knew exactly when to move to a new hot bite. The crew were friendly and helpful and handed fresh bites off to some of those who weren’t having luck to make sure most had a good time.
I could have caught a limit if my arms weren’t burning. 4 yellowfin for my first try = can’t complain. It was Epic!
Tip: if you are renting gear at the landing be sure to check it before you load up to make sure it works properly.
Credit cards are accepted for reservations and rod rentals at the landing but cash is required for on boat purchases (food, drinks, fish filleting).

Good food from the galley. Very professional and helpful crew — Captain Bill is the man! We always come home with fishies ;)