Bait

These are a couple of good-sized night tako caught on a variable-wind, low-tide night, at a not-so-secret spot. They ended up being used for bait which produced two fat ulua. Just for the record, my turn's next guys. Haha, I hope. :-)

jed

Ronwyn's Turn

This is my sister's boyfriend Ronwyn, their son Ronin, and a 34 lb. white ulua caught at the same location as Derek's biggie.
Ronwyn's first ulua was caught about a week after D's. This time though, the ulua bit at about 6:30 a.m.-almost an hour after first light, on a rising tide. Hungry and looking for a last minute meal on his way back to his cave, the ulua found a fat, juicy, night tako leg attached to Ronwyn's hook.
Under-gunned again, we came armed with only spinning tackle. But here's where it gets really interesting... Ronwyn caught this beauty on his oooooold, trusty, penn 650-loaded with 60 lb. test power pro. A penn 650... I think the ulua could have eaten the reel if it wanted to.
After emptying about 3/4ths of the small reel on the initial run, the ulua slowed down and Ronwyn was able to turn him. Luckily, this big, white, bad-boy ran to the left and didn't get hung up on any rocks or coral heads. After a hard-fought 15-20 minute battle, Ronwyn was able to bring the ulua close enough for me to net that fat buggah (always the net man, never the angler....sigh....), in one shot. Lucky for Ronwyn and unlucky for the fish, as soon as the ulua was in the net, the 50 lb. test leader broke. Unreal. This fish had Ronwyn's name written all over it.
After making a beautiful Naoki gyotaku and getting the negative on the ciguatera test, we grinded. Onolicious.
jed

Knots

I was going to post a selection of fishing knot illustrations, but the post was too big. Instead, here is a great link with a variety of helpful knots (illustrations included) :
http://www.netknots.com/html/fishing_knots.html

And just for your viewing pleasure, a picture of my brother Micah, his daughter Lexie, and a two pound papio he caught dunking a live oama. Pan-fried, hot rice, and kim chee. Making me hungry just thinking about it.........

Big Al's ono shoyu poke

Big Al's ono shoyu poke. Cut fish into bite size pieces. Prepare sauce using Kikoman shoyu, Maui onion, green oinion. chili pepper, roasted sesame seed and grated ginger to taste. Pour sauce over fish just prior to serving (do not pour sauce over fish till ready to serve, this is the key step). Enjoy!
-Big Al

Kauai Style

Hi Jed,

Got three lost five!!! This is what you call KAUA'I fishing.

Aloha!

Auntie Jo & Uncle Sal

Dad's super-tender tako

tako (octopus) recipe

clean tako, pour rock salt and massage to get slime off, no need to beat tako for it to be tender; rinse well as tako will lose water while cooking and salt will be concentrated. Place tako in pot with no water. Set heat on high. The heat will cause water to bleed from tako. When the water begins to boil, cover pot and reduce heat to low. Let tako cook for approximately 30 minutes, check for tenderness. If still rubbery, let tako cook further, checking every 5-8 minutes. Remove pot from heat and pour out liquid when tako is tender, cut and serve. Further cooking will make the tako mushy! Guarantee tender tako when cooked this way. Remember, use no water and slow cook and enjoy!

-dad
Tako cooked this way can be enjoyed plain or with your favorite dipping sauce. One popular choice in my household is a basic miso dipping sauce. The recipe is as follows: miso, sugar, a little rice wine vinegar-no exact proportions, all to personal taste.
-jed

Big Island

A couple of summers ago, my brother Micah and his wife Kristie, along with my girlfriend Gerrainne and myself, were lucky enough to manage a quick weekend getaway to the Big Island. We were graciously treated to a day of fishing on our friend Gavin and his partner Mikey's boat, the Joi Ride. We headed south out of hilo harbor and got some fun bottom fishing action outside of Pohoiki. We picked up a bunch of moana and ran into a school of yellow-spot papio. Good fun. We then headed out to the buoy to try and bait for some rats (small aku and shibi). After luring some of our target fish to the boat by chumming with anchovies, we started tossing out the spinning tackle baited with the small sardine-type fish. This was my first time doing this type of fishing, as I usually fish the shorelines of Oahu. So....to say we were "stoked" is a complete understatement.
We were having an unreal time and it was all fun and games, until I hooked into the leader of the small pack we were fishing. When the 34 lb. ahi first took the bait, it started peeling out line from the penn 850 (80lb. powerpro) slow and smooth. The little chubby didn't even realize it was hooked until I gave a quick yank to set the hook. That's when the fun began. Hanapa'a!! The shibi ripped line out of that reel like nothing I've ever encountered from shore (yet...), even after locking the drag down to its' near limits. After about 15 minutes into the fight (and a ton of good-willed badgering from the boys), I reached a stale mate with the ahi. With about 3/4 of the spool out and down deep, I couldn't bring the fish up. When I tried to lift the rod, line would simply come off the reel. The only solution would be to hold the spool, lift, and reel. With only 40 lb. leader though, and this being my first ahi (besides the 5-6 pounders we just caught), I didn't want to take any chances of breaking off. Luckily, the ahi was pretty much spent and I began to gain line back, a little at a time. After a total of about 25 min. we were able to land the big football and bring him into the boat. My arms were pretty much jello, but we headed back to the buoy to try again. We lost the little pile we brought up earlier and were only able to hook a couple more little aku jigging with some diamond jigs.
We headed back in after an extremely fun fishing expedition with a respectable catch of an assortment of bottom fish, some 2-4 lb. aku, a couple of 5 lb. ahi, and the 34 lb. ahi that gave me sore back (but was gooood eats).
Thanks Gavin and Ross , for bringing us out. And Mikey too, who wasn't able to come out, but let us fish his boat.
-jed

D's ulua

This past summer, my cousin Joshua was reporting good action at one of his secret spots on Oahu's windward coast. He and his crew were bringing up good-sized white papio and I wanted to jump on the bandwagon and try my luck at bringing home some fresh sashimi. I gave Derek a call on the cell and it was on.

We arrived at the "spot" just after sundown and quickly set up for the night. The tide was dropping, but would bottom out at about 11 pm, giving us plenty of time to fish the rising tide throughout the night. Our target fish was papio in the 3-5lb. range so we only brought our lighter shorecasting gear (biggest rig was penn 950). After casting out our poles baited with fresh night-tako, we settled in and started on some liquid refreshments (green bottles-cheehuu). As the stars came out and the beers went down, we had only the occasional puhi to our name and thoughts of coming home empty-handed began to creep in. Little did we know we were in for a big surprise.

At about 10:30 pm Derek's 12' nitro (which happened to be 10 feet from our camp) took a big hit. His pole practically bent in half as his penn 850 loaded with 30lb. test j-line screamed in protest. Hanapa'a!!! D rushed to his pole, yanked it out of the sandspike, and basically just held on as line poured out of his reel. "It's a biggie!", I yelled out in excitment as the ulua's initial run instantly gave us both the notion this was no 5-pounder.

The fish headed out and to the right, seemingly making a beeline for open water. Just as thoughts of sashimi and fried-panko-coated fillets entered my mind, D's mainline got hung upon a coral head waaaay out there. About a week or two earlier, I had a similar strike which ended up in the same situation. Hung up on the coral head my fish broke off much to my disappointment. Realizing the similarity of the situation, I suggested he head right around the point to get a better angle on the fish and possibly get off that coral head. After stumbling through the shorebreak and rocks, Derek was able to get a good angle on this mini-beast. Although the angle was good, the line was still hung up. We stood in the darkness praying that every rub on that piece of coral was not the last. It was a stale mate as D could not apply too much pressure for fear of breaking off, yet not wanting to give up any more line. Just as frustration and fatigue began to set in (20 min. fight so far), Derek felt a "pop" as the mainline released from the coral head. Cheehuu! It was on. D began to pump the rod and the 30 lb. test mono began to refill the spool. By this time the ulua was pretty spent and Derek said it felt like dead weight, a lot of it.
After a tiring 30 min battle, the fish was close to shore and we caught our first glimpse of the fish as its side shimmered in the beams of our head lamps. Whoooweeee!!!! I did a pretty bad job of being the net man (tail first, then just drag em' up on the beach by the leader), but who told D to catch a fish bigger than the net. Haha.

30 min, sore arms, and lost buzz-on later, we shouted out into the night as the ulua lay gasping on the sand.

D's ulua ended up weighing in at a hair under 40 lbs. Not monstrous, but definitly good-sized and unreal for spinning tackle.

Plenty sashimi for everyone.

Jed

Small Kine Bottom Fish Bounty

Brother Micah, brother-in-law Justin, and Dad went bottom fishing on a variable-wind day at a secret east Oahu location. Looks like they got some good-fun action. Toau, table boss, moana, papio, uku and even a 4 lb. tako.

Big Bonefish

This is a big 9.6 lb. oio caught by Kurt "poker legend" Murata on the east side of oahu. Using a 12' nitro and a penn 850 loaded with power pro, this big boy (the fish) fell for a sand turtle and a basic dunking set up. 40lb. test leader, #20 maruto circle hook, 5oz lead. mmmmmmmmmm...... fish cake.

Hau'ula Toa'u

I wanted to share a photo and story of my wife, Michele. She caught this nice size toa’u while night fishing during a stay at a beach house in Hau’ula. There was a little lagoon area in front of the house not more than 15 yards off shore. It looked like a nice place for some fish to come in on the high tide. She decided to make a little dunking setup with her 6’6” ugly stick pole using ika. Not more than 10 minutes later, her bell started going off! She was in the house at the time so I started calling her to come outside. You should seen the look of excitement on her face as she ran out of the house, grabbed the pole, and began to reel in her catch. It was cool. That ended up being the only catch of the night. We ended up steaming it Chinese style with green onion, ginger, chung choy, shoyu, and hot peanut oil and needless to say it was ono. I think Chinese style if one of the best ways to make this type of fish!


Mahalo,
Cory
Kahaluu, Oahu

keiki

These are my boys with some fun-fighting tilipia caught in a private reservoir on the island of kauai. Caught with bamboo poles and earthworms they now reside in their grandpa's koi pond (might be crab bait by now).

Moana Kali

This is a 3-4 lb. moana kali caught outside of Kaneohe bay. Bottom fishing with ika(squid) and aku belly brought this baby to the steamer. Steamed with ginger, chinese parsely, etc..., then hot peanut oil all over. Onolicious!!!!!!

Shoreline Kahala

This is a nice-sized Kahala (amberjack) which my friend Derrick caught shorecasting on the east side of Oahu. Chumming with dead halalu (juvenile "akule"-big eye scad) and sardine chunks brought this beast in close to shore where it took a dead halalu less than 10 yards from shore. After a 15 mininute battle, Derrick was able to land the kahala on his 12' nitro and penn 850 setup. The fish was released to fight another day.