July 2026
Thad Nakajima’s Oio
Aloha Taggers,
Happy July. We had more than expected rain in June, but it seems like it didn’t stop many of you from getting out and catching and tagging some great fish.
As we enter peak summer months - we hope you can take some time off to get out and catch some good fish, we also expect to see more recoveries happen. Did you know that PIFG sends a T-Shirt to anyone that recovers a tagged fish?
We welcome all the new taggers to the program and hope to engage and hear from both new and long-time taggers on how we can improve and support you and our fisheries.
We also welcomed a new intern this summer, Dash Dicksion, who will be engaging and working with our taggers to improve our program. Please help support him if he reaches out. To start - he has created a survey with a purpose of understanding why and when our taggers tag fish.
Recaptures:
We had two recoveries in June, one on the Big Island and one on Oahu.
The first being a 15” Omilu Tag Number A14787 originally tagged by Darren Ishikawa on 5/14/26 in Kaneohe Bay. The fish was recovered also in Kaneohe after 45 days at liberty by Steffen Onaga and did not show any growth. Congrats to both Darren and Steffen on a successful fish.
Zayden Lewis Left and Davin Sumic Right
The second fish tagged and recovered was a 22” omilu tagged by Zayden Lewis on Big Island. The fish was recovered 9 days later by Davin Sumic. The Omilu was released to fight again and we hope to see it in the future. Thank you to both Zayden and Davin for their efforts and sharing awesome photos.
We are still working on the Omilu data from April. The data is tag is A6494 and was recaptured by Isaiah Toledo with a weight of 9.5 lbs. This is one area all around we hope to improve. With our current system, we encourage all taggers to submit data as soon as possible to ensure we can accurately track recoveries. We will continue to seek data on this fish and from the original tagger as each recovery tells its own unique story.
2026 Recognition and Tag It Tournament
June (Nanko’s Giveaway / Set of 10 tags / PIFG Tagging Shirt)
Most Omilu tagged (Nanko’s Special Whipping rod combo) Rossten Arakaki with 3 Omilu from 13 to 21”
Most Ulua Tagged (Set of 10 tags) - Bert Oshiro with a 36.5” Ulua
Random Raffle (PIFG Tagging Shirt) - Kevin Mita
Upcoming Recognition
July (Fish Scale / Set of 10 tags / PIFG Special Recognition Item)
Clean Sweep (one of each species)
Random Raffle
Keiki tagger (tagger under 16 - please leave a note in notes section so we know!)
August (set of 3 Promar Ahi Jigs / set of 10 tags / PIFG Tag It Hat)
Random Raffle
Best tagged fish photo
Most omilu one day
September (Penn Battle Reel / set of 10 tags / PIFG Tag It Hat)
Random Raffle
Most oio and omilu tagged in the month
Kaku Random raffle
October (Coast Lantern / set of 10 tags / Lawaia Shirt)
Random Raffle
Most oio tagged in one day
Moi Random raffle
November (Coast Lantern / set of 10 tags / Lawaia Shirt)
Random Raffle
Kaku random raffle
Best papio photo
December (combined Year Tagged Fish) Prizes TBD
Grand slam (1 Moi, 1 Ulua, 1 Papio, 1 Oio, 1 Kaku)
Largest Ulua (Shore)
Largest Ulua (all)
Most Oio tagged
Most Kaku tagged
Most Moi tagged
Most Papio tagged
Most total fish tagged
Most fish tagged in one day
Best tagged fish photo (crowd favorite)
Highest new tagger in 2026
*Recognition will be announced the following month, all data must be submitted timely to be recognized. All ties and disposition will be awarded to the earliest submitter.
Other Great Catches this Month
Clayton York with a nice omilu! Good Going
Alan Higa’s 20” Oio
Chris Demarke with a nice Papio
Matt Mita’s Papio - check out the eyes on this fish. Awesome picture!
Scott Oshiro with a nice Omilu. Good going Scott!
Chris Lewis’s 24.5” Omilu - awesome fish and picture. The Lewis Ohana tagged a bunch of fish on the S. Tokunaga Outing, supporting C&R!
Dreg'n Roque-Lewis with a 17.5” Omilu
Landon Lewis with a great release action shot!
Amazing shot from Thad of a nice white papio
Thad’s 13.25” Papio
Tommy with a big Omilu!
We also had a few other great catches including - Eugene with a 29” Omilu and Dash putting some nice Omilu on the board. Good going to all! Please reach out if you want to talk story, get involved, or need anything at all.
Interested in joining the tagging community or being a sponsor?
Email us at: pacificfisheries@gmail.com or you can order a tagging kit here: Tagging Kit info
Do you want to be a sponsor? Reach out to Pacificfisheries@gmail.com
Mahalo for supporting Tag It
PIFG Tag It Team
