Whirlwind

Like his name implies, my friend Makani is a bit of a whirlwind of a human being. His enthusiasm and energy seem almost boundless at times, so I wasn’t surprised that he agreed to come visit for two days on his way from Hawaii to Alaska. I watched his plane land from the cell phone waiting lot and we drove up the Gorge in the early morning light, arriving home in time for breakfast.

We weren’t super lucky with the weather. It was too windy to fish from the skiff, and the wildfire smoke affected visibility in some spots, but we made the most of our two days of fishing.

Makani has the best eyes of anyone I have ever fished with. He really excels at spotting fish that are just faint shadows, or blobs of color, out at the very edges of visibility. Needless to say, he was a quick study when I pointed out some carp and showed him the drag-and-drop. Although we didn’t have the best conditions, or see as many carp as I had hoped, we did manage to get into some fish.

We actually ended our second day with a double hookup, but I lost my fish pretty quickly to some weeds. Makani brought his almost all the way in, but just as I got the net ready, his fish popped off too! You can watch some of the action, and see Makani’s other crazy adventures, on his YouTube channel.

Makani also has some serious business skills. He promotes and maintains his brand with truly impressive hustle, from social media, to corporate relationships, to developing a new, signature fly rod. In fact, on our way out of Oregon together, we walked past the Columbia Sportswear outlet in the Portland airport and spotted a giant ad with a picture taken on Makani’s boat! Apparently the company had to cancel their original trip to the Caribbean due to bad weather and called Makani to salvage the photoshoot!