MEMORIES OF FISHING IN HAWAII

Growing up in Kakaako, a fishing village, fishing was an important of my childhood.  I can still remember the excitement and sense of achievement of those early days when I see small swarms of shoreline fishermen catching oama:

 or halalu:

during the early summer.  The baby goatfish is oama, about the size of a finger, and, while you still need to clean it, the fish is french fried, so you can eat the whole thing.  When this fish grows up, it is known as a weke, where the local record is 1 l/4 pounds:

The adult halalu is called akule or aji, and at least once a month I go to Tamashiro's and buy the largest one I can find.  Here is the local record (Titus Day, 2.03 lbs, East Maui):

Here are my top five personal experiences, most a half century ago:

1.  The type of fishing I most remember is for sayori in Kewalo Basin.  We chummed the waters with bread and two types of fish came, sayori and stickfish.  The latter was nearly useless, but a half pound sayori was valued:

Notice it has a beak, on the bottom, and thus is also known as a half-beak.  In those days, we did not even know about the type of sushi where you place the fish on top of the rice.  Today in Japan sayori is a rare and desired fish for sushi.  About that stickfish, it is called a giant needlefish (Shawn Heckler, 15 pounds 12 oz, Kaena Point, Oahu) and has two beaks:

2.  Samoan crab

That lagoon on the Ewa side of Ala Moana Park was particularly productive, as was crabbing from that bridge over the Ala Wai Canal.  No, that is not me, but Skye Manuel, who caught this local record 7 pound - 7 ounce monster on the Windward side just about three years ago:

3.  While I never succeeded in anything that large, something on the order of four pounds, maybe.  I have no photos of my catches, but I feel confident I got close to a the following aholehole (Ryan Okino, 2 lbs 1 oz, Puna) off the Hilo coastline:

4  Or, maybe a couple of pounds off this aweoweo (Christopher Kelley, 10 lbs 14 oz, Penguin Banks) from Kauai when I worked in the sugar industry:

5.  I caught a vicious barracuda once, but it was only about a foot long.  Here is the record (Dean Hayashi, 77 pounds, shorecasting off Olawalu, Maui):

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