Innholdsfortegnelse for May 1982 i Hawaii Fishing News

HAWAIIAN WATERS WEATHER ■ May signals better weather for Hawaiian waters—there is less chance of severe weather, like strong Kona winds, thunderstorms or heavy rain. There is still a small chance of bad weather in May, but normally it is a well-behaved month. Trade winds will blow about 86% of the time and one should expect about four to fen days of gusty trades. Northwest swell activity will continue to decrease. Surf at Sunset Beach, Oahu, will not rise above five feet on most days, but there is a chance that 10- to 15-foot surf can occur. Higher-than-normal swell and surf on the southern shores will be increasing through the month as storms in the Southern Hemisphere become stronger. Tropical cyclones do not normally occur in Hawaiian waters in May.…

■ It was the “Year of the Granders” at the Fourth Annual Pokai Bay Bonanza Jackpot Fishing Tournament. Two Pacific blue marlin of over 1000 pounds were Captured in three days of fishing! Fish of this magnitude definitely establish Waianae as one of the prime places in the world to fish. The tournament, sponsored by the Pokai Bay Boat Club, was held out of the Waianae Boat Harbor on March 31st, April 1st and April 2nd. Not only are the gigantic fish here off Waianae, but the waters along the coastline are on the leeward side of Oahu. This protection from the Waianae mountain range helps to flatten water conditions during the tradewind weather. In the past, Waianae has had no “grounds” where anglers can find small tuna and use…

■ The Air New Zealand Bay of Islands International Billfish Tournament has attracted teams from Hawaii virtually since its inception ten years ago. This March, teams representing the Maalaea Boat and Fish Club, the Kona Mauka Trollers and the Ladies Pacific Billfish Club ventured to the salty seaside resort of Russell on the gorgeous Bay of Islands to do battle with some of the largest striped marlin in the world. One of the crusty old captains commented on how he couldn’t understand why those “wee sweet lassies” (Ladies Pacific Billfish Club) would want to waste their time at something for which they were so ill prepared. He changed his tune, as did most others, when those “wee sweet lassies” landed two substantial marlin on 30-pound-test line—the only two billfish in…

■ It had to happen sooner or later, but can you believe two “granders” in the same tournament? The Pokai Bay Bonanza Jackpot Fishing Tournament not only set a new record for Hawaiian tournament competition by producing the first 1000-pound fish ever taken in any Hawaiian fishing contest—but it duplicated that feat the next day with another even larger fish! Alana McKinney has detailed those catches in her tournament results. The odds? Well, everyone knows that 1000-pound marlin are captured in Island waters. Captain Cornelius Choy’s 1805-pound Pacific blue, taken off Oahu, is the largest marlin ever taken on rod and reel anywhere in the world. Captain Tom Rogers was at the helm of the KONA SEAFARI when an angler landed a 1450-pound blue on 80-pound-test line—the largest marlin of…

■ I woke to the frozen boxes of bait clunking on the deck and the closing of the hatch. 4:20 am and I wanted to go back to sleep—the gentle rocking of the boat, a warm bunk, a good catch yesterday and ahi at $7.00 a pound in Honolulu. I rolled out like a fireman and was into my boots just as the last watch came to wake us. The TAURUS had a 5-man crew—the engineer, the fishing master, two fishermen who’d been fishing longline since their teens and me, the sportfisherman turned commercial captain. I went to the helm to check the Loran as the auto-pilot clicked and buzzed, guiding the boat along the 7-knot course set the night before. With this information the current or drift of the…

KONA COAST REPORT Total Marlin Catch in March—113 Total Marlin Catch of 1982 (To Date)—348 by James Sloan…

■ The cruel evening darkness seemed to hold over the crusty lawa field like an impenetrable omen. Some evenings just never feel right and this was definitely one of those. Even the sounds of the sea seemed to set a systematic, eerie breathing rhythm as it crashed against the brown seaweed-covered boulders and withdrew, sighing, over the pebbly shoreline. The rumbling of the incoming surf also set the ghostly feeling with strange guttural moans and groans. The night was ink dark and even the powerful Coleman lantern helped very little to open up some of the blindness of the evening. The colorful reflections of the distant ulua poles, as they dipped and swayed with each passing wave, were vague and almost imaginary. The night was ominous and forbidding. To the…

■ A 70-year-old master diver and former naval officer, Ellis R. Cross, was honored by the Navy in being chosen as their guest speaker at the Submarine-Escape Training Golden Anniversary celebration, Friday, March 26th. Cross, in his 50th year in the diving field, has made major contributions to the development of training methods and safety techniques of diving during his career. E.R. made his first dive in 1934 while in the Navy. He graduated from the Navy’s School of Deep-Sea Diving in Washington, D.C., where he qualified in diving to depths in excess of 300 feet. From there he served in naval activities in both the Pacific and Atlantic. He was flag secretary to the commander of the Ship Salvage Unit at Bikini Atoll during atom bomb tests. While there…

■ Some of you may be of the opinion that a columnist for a great fishing journal such as the Hawaii Fishing News has his mailbox filled to overflowing with letters from satisfied readers extolling the excellence of the scribe’s deathless prose! Alas! Such is not the case! Once in a while I will meet somebody who will say, “Hey, Deal, I liked your last article!” Les Walls, the sage of Waialua, holder of a Ph.D. in economics and a good fisherman, drops me a line every so often with a nice compliment to buoy up my flagging spirits! Darrel Skelton, the Pearl Harbor piscatorial panther, called me to say he was invited to be a member of a crew of one of the participants in the recent Pokai Bay…

■ It was Wayne Jacintho’s idea, improbabilities not withstanding. “Look, you guys, how’s this for an idea? I hear the moi and ‘o‘io are biting like crazy out on the west side, so we oughta go there for our next outing. The first weekend in March looks really great, and I should be back from my trip too.” There was an appreciable pause as everyone started digesting that idea with not a few grains of salt. Actually, it wasn’t a bad idea. With all the rain we’ve been having, the west side was still the driest part of the island. There are also miles of beaches to fish for both dunking and spinning. Then, too, a lot of our club members have never been fishing out that way and were…

■ Jane Britton of Kula, Maui, relayed the following story and pictures to me last month. A bit late to get in the last issue, but better late than never. As Jane puts it: “What started out to be a slow, uneventful morning of our weekend fishing trip turned out to be a truly exciting day. We watched with awe, and perhaps a little envy, as two scuba divers entered the water and returned ten to twelve minutes later with a huge ulua. We were cooking our breakfast over a keawe fire when a truck approached and drove out a little further past where we were fishing on the Kaupo side of Maui. Two men jumped out of the truck, quickly put on their scuba gear and without delay were…

Pokai Bay Bonanza Jackpot Fishing Tournament March 31st thru April 2nd ……………. Phone: (808) 696-7264 Sauza Senoritas Women’s Fishins Tournament April 24th & 25th ……………. Phone: (808) 949-4622 Kona A’Lure Hawaiian Wahine Fishing Tournament May 1st ……………. Phone: (808) 322-3339 Kona Gold Jackpot Fishing Tournament May 7th thru 9th ……………. Phone: (808) 322-3832 Wee Guys ’82 May 22nd & 23rd ……………. Phone (808) 322-9371 Garden Isle Mokihana Bonanza June 19th & 20th ……………. Phone (808) 822-9137 Golden Goddess Tournament June 19th & 20th ……………. Phone (808) 322-3832 Haleiwa Hanapa‘a Jackpot Fishing Tournament June 23rd thru 25th ……………. Phone (808) 637-6301 or 637-6959 Miller Beer Jackpot Fishing Tournament July 3rd & 4th ……………. Phone (808) 373-3021 Kona Ahi Tournament July 17th & 18th ……………. Phone (808) 322-3832 Hawaiian Invitational Allison Tuna…

■ It takes a creative mind to design an effective fly. I really don’t know who actually designed the fly, but Mickey Ghio of Bellingham, Washington, who introduced me to the fly, said that it was originally created for catching bonito. Much like the tunas of Hawaii, the bonito feeds almost extensively on a small baitfish called an anchovy. Consequently, the Beer Belly was designed to imitate this delectable baitfish. The anchovy is rather slender and glittery, much like the local Marquesan sardine (Sardinella marquesensis), the Japanese herring (Etrumeus micropus) and the Hawaiian anchovy (Stolephorus purpureus), which is indigenous to Hawaii. The Beer Belly’s construction is almost identical to the shape of an anchovy. Its body shape is wide from a side view, but yet very slender when viewed from…

■ This month, another grab bag of fishing tips. Search through it for ideas and you are sure to find one that will help you catch more fish or make fishing easier and more enjoyable. If you’ve got some tips to share, we’d be very glad to hear from you. Plus HFN will send you an original Bob Neuweiler Hula Makau deepwater jig, our way of saying thanks! 1. When whipping with a jig, spoon or plug, make your rig a double-threat by using a dropper fly. One of the most remarkable shorefishing catches made anywhere in the world in the last two decades was taken on a dropper fly, a 73-pound striped bass—the new world record for surf-casters. We don’t have striped bass in Hawaii, but we’ve got a…

■ A group of local businessmen along with the Keehi Lagoon Fishing Club have formed a committee to conduct an annual fishing tournament for the Honolulu area. Mr. Ken Smith has been selected as the president of the nonprofit corporation, assisted by long-time sportfishing enthusiast Tom Hawkins, as chairman of the committee. Jackpot headquarters will be located on the 2nd floor in the Conference Room of the Am Fac Marine Supply Store, 1125 Ala Moana Blvd. Registration and briefing are scheduled for Wednesday, July 7th. Fishing will commence Thursday, July 8th, and continue through Saturday, July 10th, starting on a line outside Kewalo Basin. Fish will tentatively be boated to, and weighed at, one of the two scales at Kewalo dock side. Large cash prizes will be awarded to the…

■ When we think of commercial fishing, the things that come to mind are huge factory ships, superseiners with half-mile-wide nets, or longliners with mega-ton fish holds, laying miles of line and hundreds of hooks. It’s true that these sophisticated 100-ton-plus fish-catching machines get a lot of publicity but, contrary to popular belief, they don’t catch the lion’s share of profit. Smallboat fishermen operating on boats of 50 feet or less compete well with the big-time commercial operators, not only because of lower expenses but also because of the high-quality fish that they catch. The Volcano Isle’s akamai ika-shibi handliners incur about $100 in expenses per trip and their “hooked, gaffed, landed, bled and put-on-ice-in-ten-minutes ahi” are living proof of the high-quality fish that smallboat men bring to market. The…

Entertains Nightly at the Waikiki Malia ■ Aloha kakou! In our April issue, we completed the story of Ku‘ula‘s son, ‘Ai’ai, killing the wicked puhi (eel) of Moloka‘i. The success of ‘Ai‘ai’s heroic feat made him an instant hero in Hana. Residents of the town recognized ‘Ai‘ai’s accomplishments in following in his dad’s footsteps. The famous story spread so rapidly that the eel’s kahu (keeper) saw the spirit of the eel in his dreams, indicating that his ‘aumakua (family god), the eel, had been killed in Hana. He went over to Hana himself to get the detailed information of his ‘aumakua’s death and to plot the death of Ku’ula and his family. The kahu of the puhi planned to turn King Kamohoali‘i against his head fisherman, Ku’ula. The kahu delivered…

■ Aloha from the “Friendly Isle” of Molokai! Well, one thing surely hasn’t changed and, of course, that has got to be the weather. It is still as unpredictable as ever but there have been a few nice days, although these have been a bit on the rare side. On one of these nice days Captain George Peabody, aboard the WELAKAHAO, a twin-I/O-powered 25-foot Radon, was able to get out and catch some fish. He ended up with eight mahimahi caught off Halawa buoy and said he caught them all on lures too! Nice catch! (See photo.) Incidentally, his boat is up for charter with rates of $175 for a half-day trip and $275 for a full day. (These rates are negotiable, of course, friendly, eh?) His charters don’t necessarily…

Old-time Hawaii fishermen were shocked to hear recently of the death of Charley Cooke, captain of the KAIHULOA, at his Kula, Maui, home. Charley Cooke was one of Hawaii’s leading sportsmen. Years ago, he collaborated with Dr. Eddie Hosaka in writing “Sport Fishing in Hawaii,” for many years the fishing bible for thousands of Hawaii fishermen. Although it has been reprinted, the original copies are collectors’ items. (Will the culprit who borrowed but never returned my copy some 20 years ago please give it back!) In this excellent book was a summary of all the fishing methods, both deep-sea and inshore, as well as illustrations of all Hawaii reef and deep-sea fish, fishing methods, and even different fishes’ edible qualities. Charley loved Molokai. His family’s Molokai Ranch was his playground.…

AROUND THE LAKE ■ There is no truth to the rumor that the name of Lake Wilson is going to be changed to Lake Yo Yo. The up-and-down fluctuation of the water is making it rough on the fishermen, but in the longrun it will prove to be worth the trouble it’s causing us now. There were no real bragging-size fish weighed in last month, but there were an unusual number of small 2- to 3-pound fish caught. There’s also a lot of small tuc around. They especially like floating rapalas fished along the edge of the grass. Maybe the muddy water and rainy weather turned off the bass fishermen as much as the bass. The fingerlings have a lot of cover to hide in, and the adults seem to…