Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2007 i Hawaii Fishing News

■ In November 2006, I took my first trip to the island of Lana‘i for some rest, relaxation, and, yes, fishing. My fishing partner Derrick Kameoka and I accompanied our tour guide, Guy Akahoshi. Guy, a local boy born and raised on Lana‘i, coordinated the trip, which turned out to be a memorable one. It started off with a turbulent early evening flight to Lana‘i City, a delicious dinner, and an overnight stay with Guy’s parents, Gi and Flo. We started the next day with a local favorite breakfast of Spam, eggs and rice. After about an hour, we decided to fill the coolers with ice, load the truck with our gear, food and supplies and begin our trek up and over the mountain toward the North Shore. Road conditions…

‘Pacific Expeditions’ ■ “Pacific Expeditions-The HAWAII Show” is the only national outdoor sports TV series to originate from Hawai‘i. Hosts Jody Bright and Diana Van Sidener provide exclusive coverage of the $850,000 Maui Jim Hawaii Marlin Tournament Series. The Maui Jim Series tags and releases about 90 percent of the marlin caught. More marlin over 500 lbs are caught in this series than any other on national television. Episode One The Kona Classic is leg one of the sevenevent Maui Jim Series. Fifty-four teams kick off the five-month run of the series in search of biggame fish and $89,000 in cash and prizes. Catch all the big-fish action for tuna and marlin, including an 880-lb monster marlin caught by a mother-and-son team on board the SEA STRIKE. Episode Two Seventy-three…

Hi, Chuck: This past summer the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council organized a two-week Marine Fisheries and Resources bummer High School Course. One of the students wrote me attached article to be submitted to HFN. I was given the article to edit shortly after it was written and thought it was forwarded by the student to you, but was told today that it hadn’t. So here it is. I’ll send you some photos from the course in a separate Email. I hope you find the article to be of interest to your readers. The students from the course also produced a short video about the course that won second place at the Islands of World conference on sustainability held in Maui this summer. We will be making copies to…

■ Spring is approaching according to the calendar, but in Hawaii waters winter-type weather can still appear in March. But there will be more good weather days than bad weather days. There is always the possibility of the occurrence of any of the following severe weather events: cold front with strong Kona winds, upper trough with heavy rain, gusty trade winds and high northwest wave and surf. Trade winds should be present on more than half the days in March with the possibility of about eight to 14 days of gusty trades. Northwest swell activity should be noticeably less. There may be about five days of high surf greater than 10 feet along the north shores. There’s still a chance of surf greater than 25 feet high at Sunset Beach,…

■ The swell was dropping and trade winds were forecast to increase to more than 30 knots when I woke up early on Sunday the 14th of January. I trailered my Yamaha Waverunner around the corner to Wai‘anae to get out of the wind. I wanted to get out and catch some shibi, so I’d brought along sardines for bait, droplines, deep-jigging gear, king-kings and 60 lbs of ice in the fish bag stored on the sled. I left the harbor at dawn and soon arrived at the S-buoy. There were no birds or bait on the surface, so I jigged for a little while but got no bites. The buoy looked dead. I put everything away and decided to troll south toward the barge mooring in front of the…

Food For Thought ■ Feed ’em what they eat. That’s the first rule of bait selection. But does it really work? Last month, we looked at some surprising exceptions to the “match the hatch” convention. But you ain’t seen nothing yet. The best is yet to come. In mid-January, Robert Hudson, skipper of the Kona boat CAMELOT, cut open a mahimahi stomach and found a billfish inside. No mistake. The billfish was in the belly of the mahimahi, not vice versa, which you might expect. A few weeks later, Kona skipper Guy Terwilliger was cleaning an aku and noticed a strange, slender creature folded in thirds. When he straightened out the stomach contents of the aku, he unfolded a mystery. The aku had definitely eaten a billfish. Aboard his charterboat…

■ On Sunday, January 28, 35 members of the Alii Holo Kai (AHK) dive club participated in the annual Tako Hunt on the island of o‘ahu. This was a swim-out three-prong tournament. The day was successful for many who knew how the game is played. Why is it that familiar faces always appear as winners of this event? Read on. Next year maybe more divers will do their homework and find where, when and why to pick an area to dive in search of this camouflaged invertebrate, “da tako.” Brief Stats of the Hunt For the record, this was the second year in a row that Chris Paglinawan won first place in the total weight division. The rules state that no more than three of an individual’s heaviest tako are…

DLNR and Land Development ■ Why are fishermen blamed for Hawaii’s declining fish stocks? Is that like blaming the miner for the death of the canary brought underground to warn of environmental danger in the mine shaft? How about habitat degradation as a part of the fishery stock problem? Does development in Hawai‘i account for at least part of the loss of fish? Last month in “Splash!” we highlighted that the DLNR wears two hats: natural resource protection; and land development. The DLNR manages 1.3 million acres of land, one-quarter of the state. Is it time that fishermen began tracking the DLNR’s Land Division? Lawai‘a, on shore and at sea, know the big bucks are not in catching fish. The big bucks are in land development. The Honolulu Advertiser recently…

■ My brother, Ulysses, went to Belize about 20 years ago. Since then, he has done a lot of traveling in all parts of the world. However, the only time he has ever feared for his life was in Belize City. He had to pass through the city twice on his way to other destinations, and he vowed never to return. So, recently, after landing in Belize City, he and his girlfriend, Choeleen, hired a small charter flight to take them immediately to Dangriga and then took a taxi to the largest river in Belize, the Sittee. There they planned to meet a boat that would take them out to a remote island. When they stepped out of the taxi, they found a jungle paradise surrounding them. Enormous iguanas hung…

■ The fishing is beginning to pick up a little. Hopefully we are moving away from winter and into a busier fishing season. One hundred twenty-nine billfish were caught during the first month of this year, 77 of which were tagged and released. The striped marlin took over. Of the 129 billfish caught, 82 were striped marlin. We also saw a lot of spearfish. Only 14 spearfish were reported last December, but in January that number nearly tripled. We are also starting to see more big blues, although there were only three over 500 lbs caught during the month. These included a 611-pounder and two tagged-and-released fish estimated well over the 500-lb mark. The ‘ahi seem to have gone on their way. Only 14 ‘ahi weighing more than 100 lbs…

Dear Chuck, Enclosed are pictures of a 200-lb blue marlin that I caught single-handedly in my 14’ Achilles inflatable about halfway between Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau. This is the second marlin that I caught from an inflatable. I caught this marlin on October 7, 2006. I launched out of Kikia-Ola Harbor, Kekaha, Kaua‘i, at about 6:30 in the morning. It was a calm day, and my friend Glen Yoshida in his Radon was going to troll to Ni‘ihau. Knowing that I could rely on him if I got in trouble, I decided to shoot across to Ni‘ihau to do some trolling and try to get back to Kaua‘i waters before the wind picked up at about 11 a.m. Going to Ni‘ihau, I had five lines in the water and was going…

■ Taveuni and the outlying areas possess all the makings of an incredible destination for ulua fishing-especially for those anglers who like casting with poppers. Many of the islands in Fiji have dense, shallow shoreline fringe reefs that are exposed during low tide; these conditions are not the best for shoreline casting for G.T.s. The inside reefs are incredible for snorkeling and have an abundance of small reef fish that the locals depend on for sustenance. The larger predators like G.T.s and other species of ulua occasionally pass through on re-connaissance during high tide. However, once past the drop-off, the outlying areas are dappled with deeper reef systems and pinnacles that present the perfect conditions for some rock-and-roll ulua fishing with potential world records. Within 30 minutes from launching there…

■ You can see and feel the design and build quality of Elec-Tra-Mate’s new 1380-GH electric drive right out of the box. This unit is no lightweight; it’s constructed of stainless steel and anodized aluminum. Aesthetically, the combination of black, gold and bright stainless steel pleases the eye. I attached the drive onto a Shimano Tiagra 80W. Mounting the unit was easy enough. Once I read the instructions and familiarized myself with the parts and mounting sequence, it took around 30 minutes to install the drive onto the reel, using ordinarily available tools and working at a leisurely pace. I filled the Shimano Tiagra 80Wwith 180-lb test Dacron backing, then 300 fathoms of 200-lb test Spectra braided line. For bottom fishing, I keep the line about an inch below the…

Commissioners Reel in Ko Olina at Meeting ■ On February 2, 2007, the Hawai‘i State Land Use Commission met to receive a status report from Ko Olina Resort and Marina regarding the closure of the boat ramp at Ko Olina’s marina, and the shifting of public access to Phoenician LLC’s haul-out ramp across the harbor. Some of you may recall that EnviroWatch Inc. and the boating and fishing community petitioned to have the boat ramp at the Ko Olina Marina rebuilt and reopened. Mayor Mufi Hannemann refused to intervene in this matter on behalf of the public. He also refused to order Ko Olina Resort and Marina to rebuild and reopen the boat ramp per our request. In fact, Mayor Hannemann went on record to declare that Ko Olina was…

■ Aloha from the Friendly Isle of Moloka‘i. Offshore fishing has been super-slow here for the past several months. I sure wish I knew where all the mahimahi have gone to hide. All the fishermen who regularly work the ledges have been coming up empty. A single fish now and again has shown up, but for the most part it’s been very sparse, to say the least. It seems that there have been more small marlin than mahimahi caught. One nice February day, however, there seemed to be a little respite from the fishlessness. Sonny Tabilangan and his crew aboard his recently repowered 26’ Stamas ANGELLYN was fortunate enough to find a nice-sized mahimahi to put in his cooler. On the very same day, Keli‘i Mawae and his crew aboard…

For letters, with photos, received during March we’ll send you HFN’s 30th Anniversary embroidered cap, KAPU STICK-Fish Regulations Sticker… our way of saying thanks for sharing your catch!… Hana pa‘a, Chuck Send to: P.O. Box 25488, Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96825 or e-mail: <fishnews@hawaii.rr.com> Aloha Chuck, My grandson John Rylan Uakea Cosma-Contreras of Hana, Maui, would like to share his catch with you. Here is his story: My name is John Rylan Uakea Cosma-Contreras. I live in Heavenly Hana on the east side of Maui. I am 7 years old and my favorite thing to do is fishing. One night, my grandma Lehua and Uncle Honey Boy decided to go fishing on the wharf at Hana Bay. The moon was shining bright, the water was nice and calm. I thought I’d try…