For those of you that regularly follow Simply Outdoors’  blog you know that I recently relocated to Hawaii. It has been a hectic and crazy summer to say the least, but I did finally get to experience my first “island edition” outdoor excursion recently. Words and pictures probably won’t give the experience its due justice, but here it goes anyways.

The day trip was planned to consist of a hike and some fishing. No big deal, right? I’ve been on plenty of hikes and logged hundreds of hours with a rod and reel in my hand. Not quite! This was a fishing experience like I’ve never had before. We started our journey by hiking  3 miles along the coast to our fishing spot. Along the way we did some “whipping” which is the term used  for casting or whipping your lure out off the edge of the coast and retrieving it at a fairly high rate of speed. You usually won’t hook into any giants by any means, but you can catch some wahanui like I did. I managed to land two on our hike into the spot. One got thrown back and the smaller one was taken as bait for our next fishing tactic. Wahanui reminded me of a largemouth bass in looks, but with a little different colorization. There were several other hookups along the way; however,  it is tough to not only hook a fish, but bring it up the edge of the cliffs without losing it.

After taking in all the scenery and enjoying some fishing on the way in, we finally arrived at the spot. I was in awe. With the beautiful view of Mauna Loa behind us and the vast Pacific Ocean in front of us, this place was surreal. It was cool to realize that this was truly a rare place on this earth. Where else can you hike across 3 miles of hardened lava and still enjoy such beauty all around you? And, to top it all off, the weather was absolutely gorgeous.

Well, now that we had arrived, I was in for the treat of learning about “sliding”. Sliding is where you take a bigger pole and cast the line out with nothing but a lead weight on it. You let the weight get snagged on the bottom and then you slide additional small lines with your bait on them down the line. When a fish is hooked it will basically break off the line that has the lead weight and allow you to fight and bring in the fish without the hassle of the weight too. It is also best to attach a bell to your rod to notify you of any strikes. It was a completely new concept for me, but made sense for dealing with the conditions of the surf and the depth that you are trying to get down too. We set our sliders up with some white eel and the small wahanui. After setting up the sliders, I jumped right back into whipping and managed to snatch a nenue, which looks like a giant bluegill. We added this to one of the slider setups as an additional meal for a larger gamefish. I did not manage to take a pic of the nenue, but just imagine a bluegill on steroids.

After several hours of whipping and several false alarms from the slider rod we finally got some action on one of the sliders. The bell started going crazy and then all of a sudden stopped. The line and the rod seemed to be greatly relaxed so we decided to check it out and see what was going on. After reeling the setup in we were stunned to see that the nenue (which was not tiny) had been bitten completely in half and the piece of white eel was gone. To top it off, the steel leaders that were used to slide the bait down had been mangled and twisted together as if they were pieces of yarn! After seeing the evidence of power we knew that whatever had decided to grab our bait was no small fish. It was definitely exciting!

During the afternoon, while hanging around our spot, I did manage to land several of these guys. Apparently they are equivalent to a sucker fish or carp. So, why did I even mention the catch? Ah, glad you asked. These little guys make quite an interesting sound which I was unaware of. So, after catching the first one and trying to remove the hook from him, I first noticed that the little guy had an amazing set of teeth. His mouth was very small, but the teeth quickly caught my attention. Secondly, I was abruptly introduced to the loud chattering sound these guys make. I will be perfectly honest here. Between the teeth and the chattering sound, I was a little intimated by this 10-12 inch fish. It was quite the experience for me!

As our fishing time was coming to a close we decided to take a little swim on this tiny remote black sand beach. After spend most of the morning and afternoon in the hot sun, it was a great way to cool off. Of course as soon as we decided to take a dip the cloud cover did roll in, but it was a great way to re-energize for the 3 mile hike back out.

We did manage one other spectacular tidbit on our hike out. We managed to discover a natural spring that was merely feet from the ocean. It was down in a large crack in the hardened lava and was completely shut out from the saltwater. It was epic! It was the highlight of the day and allowed us to take a dip in the cool water and rinse off all of the saltwater from swimming earlier. Just as a sidenote, I will not divulge any information pertaining to the location of the spring!

Well, I can honestly say that I was truly impressed with my first island adventure. Thanks to Paul McCarty (a former Michigander) and his son Kaikoa for taking me on this amazing trip. It was a long day, but worth every ounce of energy. I thoroughly enjoyed every second. Who knows whats in store next? I can’t wait!

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