We set out this morning on the SUP boards in Kaneohe Bay. I badly wanted to catch a fish, but right away I had three strikes against me: It was more cloudy and more windy than was forecast, and the low tide was already too deep to wade (see my previous post about the tides). But fishing isn’t baseball, thank goodness, so we weren’t out of the game completely.
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I had a specific area in mind, and when we arrived I did see a two or three fish, but nothing that I could cast at. We checked a few nearby flats too, but there was nothing. Sometimes you just got to stop for a snack and some more sunscreen.
After a nice pit-stop amid the mangroves, we returned to the first flat and anchored the boards. Each time a cloud passed and the sun returned I scanned the area for fish. I saw one, far off, but quickly lost it when a new cloud moved to block the light. When the light returned I saw another. I made a quick cast, a little short, but the fish seemed to be interested. I made some short strips and saw the fish follow, but there was no take. I stripped again, and again the fish followed. By now though, the game was up. The fish spotted our boards and made a swift exit towards deeper water. I almost gave up then, but I knew my best chance was to stay in that spot. So we stayed put a little longer.
In the next interval of sunshine I saw another fish, moving slowly away from us. I stripped about forty feet of line off the reel, but the fish moved into the glare and I lost sight of it. However, Kaneohe Bay bonefish, with some exceptions, are not terribly educated, so I blind cast in the general direction the fish was heading. After a pause to let the fly settle on the bottom, I made a couple of short strips and then felt the oh so gratifying tap-tap of a bonefish on my fly.
It wasn’t a big fish, by Hawaii standards, but even with my drag tight it ran into the channel and chewed my leader up pretty good on the reef.
Besides the bonefish, we also had a close encounter with a couple of squid who took a post under our anchor line for a time.
Tomorrow I will head out again to fish with Makani. His boat is in the shop, and today I discovered that one of our SUP boards has a small leak which needs repairing, so our plan is to fish the incoming tide on foot.
The Fishing Dojo 