Family and I heading to Maui in a few months, I've already got an Axis and Ram hunt booked, but my wife wants to do some offshore fishing. Not a big excursion or anything, like 1/2 day to 1 day.

Any of y'all globetrotting fisherman have recommendations for where to fish or who to fish with in Maui? We are staying in the Wailea area if that matters. Thanks!!!

The fishing in Maui is terrible....especially for a half day. Full day will be a $1200 boat ride and a cool view of the
Island. The fishing in most of Hawaii is terrible....

Unless you are going out of Kona the fishing in Hawaii is not good at all. If you get yourself a jumper to Kona do a full day on the Humdinger.

Otherwise spend your precious time in that beautiful place doing anything else.

i can confirm. deep reef fishing for smaller fish was not that fruitful when we went last year out of maui.

Thanks Grem and Grams for your replies, I highly respect both of yall and appreciate the honest responses.

If anyone has actually had a positive experience fishing around Maui let me know how you did it, otherwise it may not be worth digging into further.

Fish off the beach in the rocks. You'll catch about 20 species of fish.

The fish market on the NW side is awesome if you'll have a kitchen to cook the fresh fish.

Maui and the surrounding islands west/south of Maui -- being Lanai, Moloka'i and Kaho'olawe -- used to be one large island called Maui Nui so the channels between them are shallow in terms of the Pacific Ocean. The one good thing about that area is it is a world-class whale nursery.

You can look into charters that offer inshore/near shore giant and bluefin trevally trips but I would not go to Maui to kill two birds with one stone - vacation and fishing. Those sound like a lot of fun to target from a nearshore reef charter but I want to get them both on fly one of these days in a traditional flats stalking scenario.

There is a guy that takes clients out for bonefish fly fishing on the "flats" off Kihei, Maui named Jon Jon Tobon. I quoted flats because he has anglers stand on a ladder because the proper tide for bonefish on the flat is too high for regular sight fishing. I've been tempted to try that out and may next time I'm there but it sure seems like high risk/high reward.

Sorry to derail, but the island is an interesting place and the difficulties fishing it are tempting just not sure it's worth it.

This was 10+ years ago so I can't recommend a name, but we went fishing out of Maui and caught a Marlin and a number of Mahi.

Either we got lucky, or its not as bad as some are making it out to be.

While on my honeymoon with my wife a couple years ago we were walking past a marina in Hawaii, we had no plans for the following day and were talking about what we would do when I looked up and saw a sport fishing charter sign with maroon AGGIES next to it. Had to call and sure enough the captain was open and ready to fish the next day.

Captain was a Dutch man who had gone to Texas A&M - nice guy. Wildly, as my wife was just about to step aboard the boat, the captain stopped her as somehow he just knew she had a banana in her purse and outed her for it. (I tried to tell her before but that didn't work…)

Anyways we caught 1 wahoo that day, saw some whales, and had a fun time. Would recommend giving him a call if you end up in Waikiki.

Take a puddle jumper over to the big island and fish 1/2 day out of Honokhau Marina. You drop lines in right out of the harbor and you are protected from the trade winds, so it won't be rough. Tell your captain you want to catch a wahoo, they are pretty consistent there and you can get a local restaurant to cook your catch before you hop back to Maui. Would make for a great day!