Kona Firecracker Open puts ahi in July Fourth payout mix

Ahi sat squarely in Kona’s July Fourth money race as the Firecracker Open opened July 3 with a base purse split between blue marlin and tuna. The four-day event set fishing days for July 4 and July 5, then closed with an awards banquet and presentation July 6, making it one of the busiest holiday-weekend checkpoints on the Kona offshore calendar.

The opening day brought registration, a captains’ meeting and the official briefing at the Hawaii Big Game Fishing Club house in Honokohau Harbor, the historic home base for many of Kona’s biggest summer runs. The schedule also laid out the practical details crews care about most, including when boats could leave Honokohau Harbor, when lines went in and came out, and when tag-and-release videos had to be submitted.

That structure turned ahi into more than a side pot. Teams could buy into optional jackpots for both weighed and tagged fish, which kept tuna and billfish in the same conversation for the whole weekend. In a fishery where one clean bite can change a crew’s math, the Firecracker Open made ahi a core payout category rather than a consolation prize.

The tournament also ran alongside the Blue Marlin World Cup, adding another layer of pressure and prestige to the Kona fleet. The World Cup bills itself as the only worldwide blue marlin fishing tournament and is held every July 4; in 2025 it drew 167 teams from nine countries and paid a record $1.3 million to the winner, Ultimate Lady.

The Firecracker Open sits inside the Hawaii Marlin Tournament Series, which was founded in 1987 and includes eight tournaments from March through August, with most of the action packed into July. HMTS season points are awarded for tag-and-release blue and striped marlin, large weighed blue marlin and weighed ahi, and titles such as Top Boat, Top Angler and Biggest Marlin keep one weekend connected to the rest of the summer.

That is what gives this Kona stop extra weight for tuna crews. The 2025 Firecracker Open ended with four teams tied at 330 points before Huntress won on time, and the event’s radio logs showed ahi and yellowfin tuna being weighed during competition. With the Blue Marlin World Cup in the mix and ahi on the purse sheet, the July 3-6 window again put tuna right in the middle of Kona’s biggest offshore week.