Back in January, after several intense weeks at work, I finally got out on the water for my first full day of fishing of 2022. I really wanted to catch my first bonefish of the year, and I did. It was a 3-4 pound fish that bit my small mantis shrimp fly on the edge of the flat. But before that, something crazy happened!
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The halalu (baby scad) have been schooling in the lagoon and the shoreline is busy every day. It’s another example of how the seasons in Hawaii are marked by changes in the ocean.
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There are several important variables when it comes to choosing what fly to use: how heavy, and how the fly is weighted, the size and shape of the hook, the size and profile of the fly, and color. In my experience, the actual fly pattern is probably the least important variable when it comes to catching bonefish. The final variable I consider in my fly selection is confidence. Even the best fly will falter unless the angler is fishing it with confidence.
Continue readingI have been fishing almost every week recently. Most days we have gone out, everyone has hooked something, so it’s fair to say that the fishing has been good, but it hasn’t been great. If you asked, I would say that nothing particularly noteworthy has happened. But when I sit down and start to look through photographs from the past few months, I see that a lot has happened. Nothing noteworthy, perhaps, but a lot of really wonderful details. Things that are in danger of being overlooked.
Continue readingWe paddled out to look for bonefish on a nice day in January. I couldn’t get any bonefish to eat, but on the walk back to where the SUP boards were anchored I spotted a barracuda, lurking hungrily on the reef.
Continue readingI think we can all agree that 2020 was not the best year, with a smorgasbord of tragedy and disappointments, globally, nationally, and close to home. Looking back however, I am slightly stunned to realize that 2020 was, against all odds, a pretty good fishing year for me personally. I have written about most of the highlights already, but here are a few things I left out:
Continue readingWe 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.
Continue readingLast weekend I went papio fishing with my friend Chris. The surf was small and the early morning low tide looked ideal, but the reality was totally different than predicted.
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Many of the bonefish flats here on Oahu include mangroves. In some areas, the mangroves line the shore and in others they have grown up around small, sandy islets. The mangroves are not native to Hawaii, but they are happy here and have spread steadily over the past decade. Recently, the government made the decision to remove the mangroves from one of the main fishing areas near Honolulu.
Continue readingA few months back I wrote a post about fishing for trevally during our trip to the Leeward Islands of French Polynesia last summer. Summer in Hawaii is the best time of year for trevally, or ulua, as we call them locally. In the spirit of looking forward to the upcoming season, I thought I would point out some of the differences I noticed between fishing for trevally in Tahiti, and fishing for trevally here in Hawaii.
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The Fishing Dojo 