Innholdsfortegnelse for June 1989 i Hawaii Fishing News

Conservation Battle On the Horizon ■ Batten down the hatches, and raise the gale flags; storm clouds are gathering. Our fisheries are noticeably depleted, and fishermen are beginning to call for immediate enforcement to preserve the remaining fish stocks. Longliners, deep-sea mining, ocean tour activities, marina development, cruise ships, commuter ferry boats and transshipping of tuna are all big issues, and everyone you talk to has an opinion. The consensus is that these events are all working together to destroy what is left of cur once abundant fish resource. Action is being requested by fishermen of all types, and according to one group, Malama Na Fa, the legislature is moving too slowly. The qroup, headed by Mike Markrich, met recently with Department of Land and Natural Resources Director Bill Paty…

Unsure Inshore ■ The decline in Hawaii’s shore fishery, described in this and other columns recently, has its parallels, throughout the world. Pick up any national or international outdoor magazine, and count the number of articles devoted to saltwater shorefishing. You’ll find very few. From Maine to Florida, from Alaska to Baja, there no longer is much shorefishing to write about. Over the past several months, the editors of two major national outdoor publications have told me they are eliminating or drastically reducing coverage of shorefishing. (The information is confidential, so I’m not at liberty to mention names of editors or publications. In the meantime, HFN remains firmly committed to covering shorefishing.) Other magazines, such as SPORTFISHING and MARLIN, never have covered surfcasting and other shoreline pursuits. Scan the magazine…

■ Bill Morris comes from a gambling town, and on May 13 Lady Luck was with him as he boated a 667i-lb Pacific blue marlin to take the $20,000 top prize in the 12th Annual Kona Gold Jackpot Tournament held in Kona from May 12 to 14. Bill, an architect from Reno, Nevada, caught the winning fish while on board the FOXY LADY, skippered by Capt. Bobby Erickson, on the afternoon of the second day of the three-day event. Bill fought the marlin for only 55 minutes on 1304b test line and used an artificial bait. For Bill, who has fished with Capt. Erickson on the FOXY LADY many times since 1982, the catch ended a frustrating three-year drought of no fish and also put him in the money for…

■ Question: What is the most colorful spectacle in Hawai’i? (a) Aloha Week Parade (b) Festival of Trees (c) Fourth of Juiy fireworks (d) Russ’ collection of plastic Ribworms Answer: The answer is (d). Russ’ collection of plastic Ribworms is the most colorful sight in the state. Its colors surpass anything you’ve ever seen in your s life. He has those plastic 4-inchers in colors that span the entire color spectrum. It’s been said that when he opens his tackle box, the colors burst out like the colors in a kaleidoscope, in exuberant shades and hues. So colorful and brilliant is this collection that he has to contain it in a locked, smoke-lidded, black tackle box to prevent it from creating an atmospheric hallucination. It’s a plastic high. It’s far…

■ Consistent best describes this past month’s fishing action. Large and medium-sized aku Schools roamed up and down the Wai’anae Coast. If you were lucky enough to find one of these aku piles when the fish; were feeding, you might have been rewarded with a multiple hookup. Quite often, open schools of mahimahi could be found mixed in with or in near proximity to these aku schools. The largest mahimahi brought back to the harbor this month weighed in at a hefty 64 lbs. This huge bull mahimahi was caught aboard Capt. Dale Simmond’s charterboat, the LIVE BAIT. Marlin catches continued to dominate the catch report. Surprisingly for this time of year, more blue marlin than striped marlin are being caught. Normally the reverse is true. Perhaps we are experiencing…

Honokohau Catch Report Due to the limited space available and the large number or fish caught, eaten reports are limited to tuna over 100 ibs and billfish of any size, any species. (S) = Striped marlin, (B) = Black marlin and (T) = Tag and release, weight estimated.…

Club Outing ■ On April 1, the Hilo Casting Club held their club outing at Hawaii Volcano National Park. The outing started at noon, although some members went there in the morning to find a good spot. The weather was cloudy with a few showers, and the sea conditions were, normal. The club invited Mike Sakamoto from “Fishing Tales.” and he and his cameramen were there from noon. By 4 p.m. most of the members were there: their poles were cast and baited, and they waited for that one strike Time flew by, and soon Kinney Louie rang the bell for dinner. We had steaks cooked over charcoal, and thev were good. As the day came to a close, the stars came out and some members got their spinning rods…

■ Ulua season is upon us, and as most anglers know, one of the best baits to use for catching the king of the shoreline is octopus, or, as it is referred to by locals, taKo. Octopus is known throughout, the world, and there are species that can have an armspread of 30 feet and weigh as much as 120 lbs. The giant octopus is a comparatively slow-moving cold-water species that is found in the northwest Pacific waters off of Seattle, Washington. The species found in Hawai’i doesn’t reach such fantastic proportions, but can weigh well over 10 lbs and is the much more aggressive and quicker of the two species. Jacques Yves Cousteau, famous French oceanographer, captured the northern Pacific octopus for research and described it as being a…

■ Just before 11 a.m., when the morning sun was nearly at its peak, the 30-lb test reel sang out again signaling the sixth billfish hookup in less than four hours. The Mexican captain began to spin the 28’ T1O ARTURO toward the spot where a fish had taken the Australian-made Pakula Lure; just then an iridescent Pacific sailfish leaped out of the water. Ten minutes later the sailfish was brought to the boat, tagged and released. It was all in a morning’s work in Baja California, Mexico, where the beer is cold, the tequila cheap and the fishing waters plentiful. Located on the serene side of the Baja California Peninsula, near the end of a chain of spiky ridged’ mountains, at the base of austere desert slopes, and bordered…

■ Lahaina Town’s newest sportfisher, the PAILOLO, captured top honors in this year’s Spring Wahine Tournament. Janet Six wrestled to leader her 349-lb Pacific blue mariin in 50 minutes. Janet was fishing with Capt. Roy Dickey and crewman Kevin McLaughlin, and they hooked up with less than an hour till stop fishing. Capt. Roy was down on the deck walking a 3-lb aku around MC-buoy when the fish got quite nervous and jerked the line from his hand. Roy shouted to Janet and told her that it felt like a shark bite. He free-spooled the reel for about 10 seconds before locking it up; the line continued to leave the reel in short bursts. Janet climbed into the chair, and crewman McLaughlin snapped her in. The 130-lb test line started…

■ The medium-sized white crab lay motionless on the soft muddy bottom as I watched it intently. The crab moved several inches, and then suddenly I noticed its body shell beginning to pop open at the back seams. The crab was beginning to molt, and it would take five to 10 minutes for it to escape the confines of its old shell. 1 waited patiently for the crab to slowly work its way out of the old shell and out into the open. The body was the first to come out, and the legs closely followed. Last but not least were the pincers, which were normally the hardest for a crab to free because of their size and weight. The crab had changed its whole body chemistry to make molting…

■ There’s always someone who thinks the opposite way that you do. For instance, I normally fish a surface popper like a PILI lure with a fast retrieve and concentrate on making the lure move in a dodge-dart pattern. To me this retrieve is one of the most important things when it comes to successfully hooking into fish like big ulua or ‘omilu. But then I met a Texan by the name of Pete Smith. An ex-Texas bass guide, Pete worked the plug in the same manner that you would use to catch big largemouth bass. In other words, he fished it painfully s-l-o-w-l-y! He’d cast it, and then, amazingly, he’d let the ripples settle; then he’d “pop” the lure once and then let it sit. He’d wait for a…

■ Maui resident Christopher Newbert, one of the world’s most honored underwater photographers, will present a one-man show of his work at the Waikiki Aquarium. The exhibit will feature many of the original photographs from Newbert’s award-winning book, Within a Rainbowed Sea. Now in its fourth printing, the book continues to gather critical acclaim as one of the most beautiful photographic books ever published. Within a Rainbowed Sea is available in three editions, including a hand-bound collector’s edition limited to 995 copies. The limited edition of the book was selected by the White House as an official Presidential Gift of State. On May 4, 1986, President Ronald Reagan presented copy number 85 of the limited edition to then Emperor Hirohito of Japan to mark his 85th birthday and the 60th…

by the Hawaiian International Billfish Association This year the Magnuson Fishery Conser: vation and Management Act (MFCMA) must. be reauthorized. The magic date is 30 September 1989. If not reauthorized by that date, it will no longer exist and presumably the eight regional councils it requires will be eliminated. The MFCMA is the law established in 1976 giving the U.S. jurisdiction over all fish (except highly migratory species) in federal waters of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The EEZ consists of the waters extending to a distance of 200 nautical miles from the continental United States and possessions. The main tasks of the regional councils are to manage the fisheries within the EEZ, to prevent overfishing while encouraging economic development and to see that commercial and recreational interests are equally…

■ Shannon Doorly serves a lot of fish, but she proved she could also catch a lot of fish when she reeled in a giant 631^-lb Pacific blue marlin and took the first-place prize in the 10th Annual Golden Goddess Jackpot Tournament held May 6 and 7 in Kona. Shannon, who, with her husband, owns and manages McGurk’s Fish and Chips Restaurant in Kailua Village, boated the winning fish while on board the TROPICAL SUN skippered by Capt. John Kuhn. The petite but tough Kona angler hooked up to the marlin in front of the Kona Surf Hotel on the morning of May 7 and then fought the fish on 130-lb test line for three hours before bringing it to gaff. “There were at least 600 yards of line out,”…

■ The most frequent request we receive from readers is for more elementary information-the kind of basic fundamentals some folks call “deep background.” Periodically, we’ll try to do that. Item 1, this month, is an example. 1. For novices and experts alike, here’s some deep background on summer fishing. June is the heart of ulua season. Shorefishing for giant trevally peaks during the summer months, and the most prestigious of the casting tournaments is held in mid-June. Each year since its inception m 1976, the Hilo Casting Club’s annual Big Island Fishing Tournament has drawn shorefishermen from throughout the islands. The Big Island produces the best fishing tor ulua, and the HCC contest generally brings in huge fish. In 1987, for exampie, the two largest ulua landed weighed 115 and…

■ Joe Yee’s big-game trolling lures are Hawaiian classics. They combine the best traditional ideas with refinements perfect through three decades of fishing success. Joe’s lures have at least four certified “gran-ders” to their credit, as well as numerous tournament winners and IGFA world records. All of Joe’s lures are custom-made, by hand. Many feature lustrous shell inserts similar to those glowing from the insides of the innovative plugs Hawai’i skippers introduced to the world back in the 1950s. Those original trolling lures changed the pace and the performance of marlin fishing around the globe. Joe’s refinements and developments have greatly contributed to the acceptance of Hawaiian-style fishing from the Bahamas to Japan, from the African Coast to Australia. New developments in lure design from Joe’s custom molds gain quick…

■ Recently I had-the opportunity to address a women’s group. The topic was fishing in Hawai’i, and at the activity I was taken by surprise to find that many women are fishing enthusiasts who read HAWAII FISHING NEWS. The group’s request, which I am honoring, was that HFN should feature more articles on women and fishing in ancient as well as modern Hawai’i. Those of you who have been reading this column in 1989 might recall the recent article I did on Hawaii’s kapu system in the April issue. In the article, I pointed out that the ancient Hawaiian feudal society, coupled with the kapu system, put heavy restrictions on the maka’ainana (commoners) and kauwa (outcasts). Included in this group with tons of limitations were na wahine o Hawai’i. The…

■ a The crew of the KALOHI echoed the recent cries of fishermen on O’ahu, “Where are the marlin?” But the mahimahi were around in schools, with sometimes as many as 20 fish to a school, but these schools came and went. Some days you’d see the gold and blue colors of mahimahi al! over the place, and the next day none were in sight Gusty trades and high surf kept a Jot of fishermen dose to or on shore. The KALOH1 crew reported catching mahimahi on nearly every trip during April. Capt. Walt Johnson and Dan, his first mate, said the small ‘ahi and aku provided plenty of action on the days when larger fish were not to be found. Capt. Ron Gates was particularly proud of the bull…

■ Eleven of the top 20 billfish caught so far this year were landed during the month. There were 39 blues, 23 stripers and 11 spearfish boated. Four other billfish were tagged and released for a total of 77 billfish of ail species. This brought the Lahaina Town billfish count up to 359, all species, for the first four months of the year. A short three-day ‘ahi run produced eight fish weighing between 80 and 100 lbs each. The ABSOLUTE weighed in the top marlin for the month and the fifth largest of the year, a 376-Ib blue caught by Joe Fass. Capt. Charlie Sims and Co-capt. Rich Newcomb were fishing at the MC-buoy. They had two nice aku in the water, and a marlin came in and hit the…

Pumping Ulua ■ My old friend and partner Joel Santo of the Big Island Casting Club finally came out of his retreat and instantly caught a good-sized ulua on his first day back. Joel’s recent catches prove that you need not go camping overnight to land the “big one.” His first fish, 44 lbs, was caught right after lunch on a day’s outing at South Point off “Sewer Rock.” Exactly one week later, Joel was at the same place for only a few hours and he again caught an ulua at the same time. That ulua weighed about 30 lbs. Both ulua were caught on live bait (waha-nui). Joel is on a roll and is preparing himself for the upcoming casting tournaments. There’s also a twosome on a roll. Clay…

Send a lew and photo in the month of done. and we wili send you a Luhr-Jensen Krocodile casting and jigging lure. Our way of saying thanks for sharing your catch … Chuck Send to: P.P. Box 25413, Honolulu, Hwawai’i 96825 Dear Chuck, Well, finally I have a picture of me fighting a small (13-lb) ‘ahi. Ty Fukumitsu is waiting to net the fish. It was fun catching it on light tackle. Equipment used is a Shimano level wind reel filled with Berkley 14-lb XT line on a Shimano graphite light BeastMaster rod. The photo was taken by Stan Wright from his boat at the “R” buoy at Wai’anae. Thanks Stan. Mahalo, Vern Okamura, Kalihi Kai, O’ahu Dear Chuck, Here’s a picture of the remnants of the last of the…