I am sitting here in my island home on another beautiful day of shorts and T-shirts eating a fresh bowl of Ono poke, getting ready to go cut up some Keawe wood because fish smoking season is upon us. I feel so privileged to be living in Hawaii. Sometimes it still feels like a dream even after 21 years. I am one lucky Hoale as they say here. With summer quickly approaching the fishing season is really heating up. Fishing on oahu has been exceptional while the other islands are just now picking up. Mm mm, sip sip. Did I mention the spicy part of the ono poke, sip sip. As I was saying the fishing has been hot for oahu. I personally had one of my best days of Kayak fishing ever. More on that in a minute.

 I am very pleased to announce that I am a member of the Hobie Fishing Team. www.hobiecat.com I want to offer my congratulations to Dan Rouderbush fellow Hobie Team Member who made the cut along with me. Over the next year we will be competing for and representing the Hobie Fishing Team in Hawaii. All I have to say to the competition - is bring it on. Thanks for everything Hobie - you rock. The next big tournament will be in Kona at the end of the month. Everyone who is competing there is getting really excited now. Undoubtedly there will be some awesome fish brought to the scales. In the next months edition of KFM I will have the full report of the tournament with pictures.

Now back to my personal best day of kayak fishing ever. As you know I am competing in the Aqua Hunters makahiki state kayak fish tournament. It is a neck and neck battle for first place with Issac Brumaghim. He was just ahead of me in points when I strategically planned my 13th day of the allowable forty days to fish. The winds were gentle and the tides were strong. I was very execited as I rigged my Hobie AI in the dark. I was in the water 45 minutes before sunrise with some good fresh bait. I hit the surf and pulled the sail out. The breeze was perfect and my sails filled, within seconds I was flying towards the zone. When I reached the drop off, around 20 fathoms, I pulled in the sail and rigged my first bait. I let the sail back out, got to love those rolling furlings, and started to troll the ledge. Within minutes I was hooked into a good size mahi mahi. I knew this was going to be a good day. I dropped back another bait and started trolling again but I got no bites. The winds started to die out and I pulled the sail in and decided to drop my bottom pole down with a fresh opelu. As I was dropping my bait down my other pole with the opelu took off screaming. I clicked the bail over on my bottom pole and stopped the drop to fight the fish. I fought a fish for a while but it came off close to the kayak. As I was reeling that pole in my bottom pole that had been sitting idle in the mid column started screaming. Bam good hook set, game on. After a long fought battle I pulled in a 30+ pound giant trevally.

Now I was excited. I was close to the first ever tri-fecta in aqua hunter tournament. All I needed was some type of billfish species, tuna or an ono to complete the tri-fecta bonus. I decided to target ono, running steel for there sharp teeth. I sailed for a while with nothing. I decided to give my self a better shot at a fish by rigging two trolling poles with opelu. When the winds picked up and the current started pulling I was just about to give up when hana paa. Double hook up and chinese fire drill. It was all I could do to keep these two fish under control. When it was all over I ended up landing two Ahi (Yellow fin tuna). I did it. I completed the tri-fecta.  I hoisted the sail all the way out and flew back home to shore. Back on the beach I had 1 Mahi, 1 GT, and 2 Ahi in the cooler. What a great day and I am sure there will be many more good days of fishing before this season is over. Until next month, tight lines