Higa tops North Shore fishing tourney

William Higa’s crew aboard the Meleana was the top producer at the North Shore Fishing Tournament July 12, capturing top honors in both the mahi and ono categories.

William Higa’s crew topped the mahi division with a 31.6-pounder followed by Duncan McDonald aboard the Trogzilla (12.4 pounds) and Steve Fountain aboard the Joy Malia at 11.8 pounds, just .2 pound heavier than Mobey Derek’s submission at 11.6 pounds.

Higa also went on to win the ono category with a 37.2-pounder from the Meleana followed by Glen Yero (32.8 pounds), and Gary Ziegler rounding out the leaderboard at 32.2 pounds from the Z-3.

Terry Teves captained the team aboard the Nalani L which snared the ahi that scaled in at 234.8 pounds to earn first place honors in the ahi division. Teves’ team was followed by Troy Furugen aboard the Leilani M which submitted a 199.6-pounder with Lance Tamura skippering the third place team aboard the Tamura who came in with 192 pounds, 30 pounds more than the fourth-place entry which weighed in at 162 pounds from Teves and the Nalani L crew.

Lloyd Haraguchi captained the team aboard White Lightning who topped the marlin division with a fish that tipped the scale at 421.6 pounds. Second place went to Glen Yero aboard El Vasco who weighed in at 368.4 pounds with the team led by Stephen Koehne aboard the Kanai K weighing in at 191.8 pounds.

Chris Kam and the team aboard the Ouilani was just .4 pound better than the team captained by Ryan Paik aboard the Stephanie K with their aku that captured top honors at 20.4 pounds over Paik’s 20.0 pounds. Eddie Soltren aboard the Rascal settled in third with an 18.6-pound submission, just .2 pound better than the 18.4-pound fish from the Stephanie K.

Gary Pacheco, longtime organizer of the popular North Shore fishing tournament said this was a record year with more than 70 boats entered.