17 July 2011
Double The Fun!
07/22/11 04:35 PM
Went fishing on our fully rigged Hobie Mirage Tandem Island (Newly named Megatron) on Sunday, July 22, 2011 at one of our favorite spots. Launched just after sunrise after having a nice talk with our friends on the beach.
Paddled (I always say “paddled”, but now it’s pedaled w/the Hobie Mirage Drive) to a spot that we call Walters or Uncle Walters to look for bait. There usually are Opelu, various goat fish, and other fish we use as live bait at Walter, BUT there wasn’t anyone home when we got there. I (Kevin) rigged up this OLD opelu that we had frozen, thawed, frozen, thawed, frozen, and thawed. Needless to say, this bait was HORRIBLE, but I needed to put something on the line, so this Opelu had to do until we got something fresh. Minutes later our rod starts to bend and the reel starts to SCREAM zzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! We just switched all our reels over to Blackwater Hollow Braid line and it sounds a lot different than PowerPro does. The Blackwater line is silky smooth and doesn’t make so much of a whistling sound when going through the guides.
Back to the story... The reel starts to SCREAM and line is flying out of the reel. I grab the rod, set the hook, and the battle is on! I pass the rod to Gareth after he cleared our other lines and set up his fighting station on the right trampoline. The Shibi puts up a great fight and we’re laughing and screaming like little kids while the battle wages on. We finally get the Shibi circling under the kayak, then when he’s finally close enough, Ahnkochee Kage shot to the head! I pull the fish into my lap and start to bleed it out. We cleaned up our areas, Gar packed the fish into our fishbag, and we rerigged another bait.
Fished for a couple hours and got bait, but nothing would take it. The wind picked up, so we decided to do a little slow trolling, and almost immediately take a strike, but it didn’t stick. I reeled in the bait, rerigged again, and let the bait out. As soon as we started slow trolling again, we take another strike and it’s reel singing time again (something that puts a smile on every fisherman’s face). This one is a little spunkier than the first Shibi, so we know it’s a little bigger. The battle goes on and we eventually land this fish and tuck it away into our bag.
We fished for the rest of the day and picked up some valuable bait that we’re saving for our next outing, but no big fish. Weighed the fish at the beach (20.8 lbs and 17.2 lbs), gave one to our friends at the beach, packed up, and went home. Fun day of fishing!
It’s almost the end of our summer break. School starts up on Tuesday, July 26 for us. I guess it’s back to once a week fishing for us. =(
Enjoy the Day!
Aloha,
The Uyeda Brothers
Paddled (I always say “paddled”, but now it’s pedaled w/the Hobie Mirage Drive) to a spot that we call Walters or Uncle Walters to look for bait. There usually are Opelu, various goat fish, and other fish we use as live bait at Walter, BUT there wasn’t anyone home when we got there. I (Kevin) rigged up this OLD opelu that we had frozen, thawed, frozen, thawed, frozen, and thawed. Needless to say, this bait was HORRIBLE, but I needed to put something on the line, so this Opelu had to do until we got something fresh. Minutes later our rod starts to bend and the reel starts to SCREAM zzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! We just switched all our reels over to Blackwater Hollow Braid line and it sounds a lot different than PowerPro does. The Blackwater line is silky smooth and doesn’t make so much of a whistling sound when going through the guides.
Back to the story... The reel starts to SCREAM and line is flying out of the reel. I grab the rod, set the hook, and the battle is on! I pass the rod to Gareth after he cleared our other lines and set up his fighting station on the right trampoline. The Shibi puts up a great fight and we’re laughing and screaming like little kids while the battle wages on. We finally get the Shibi circling under the kayak, then when he’s finally close enough, Ahnkochee Kage shot to the head! I pull the fish into my lap and start to bleed it out. We cleaned up our areas, Gar packed the fish into our fishbag, and we rerigged another bait.
Fished for a couple hours and got bait, but nothing would take it. The wind picked up, so we decided to do a little slow trolling, and almost immediately take a strike, but it didn’t stick. I reeled in the bait, rerigged again, and let the bait out. As soon as we started slow trolling again, we take another strike and it’s reel singing time again (something that puts a smile on every fisherman’s face). This one is a little spunkier than the first Shibi, so we know it’s a little bigger. The battle goes on and we eventually land this fish and tuck it away into our bag.
We fished for the rest of the day and picked up some valuable bait that we’re saving for our next outing, but no big fish. Weighed the fish at the beach (20.8 lbs and 17.2 lbs), gave one to our friends at the beach, packed up, and went home. Fun day of fishing!
It’s almost the end of our summer break. School starts up on Tuesday, July 26 for us. I guess it’s back to once a week fishing for us. =(
Enjoy the Day!
Aloha,
The Uyeda Brothers
AQUAHUNTERS Mahi Masters 2011
07/17/11 02:34 PM
The 2011 AQUAHUNTERS Mahi Masters was held on July 16 and July 17, 2011 and a great time was had by all involved. Special thanks to Isaac “Rocket” Brumaghim for putting on a great tournament. There were 10 two man teams this year competing in the Mahi Masters. Even though the name of the tournament is “Mahi Masters” there are other jackpot fish that can put some cash in your pocket too. We were eager to get this tournament on because we’ve been on a Mahimahi roll for the past month or so, we were the 2009 champs and we wanted the title back, and just because the group of guys we were going to be competing with was a great group.
We started Saturday excited and ready to go. Hit the water at sunrise and it was so winds that we could open our sail and sail out! Bad sign. We like wind, but this area is horrible to fish in when there is that much wind. We plodded on, did whatever we could think of, and WHTEWASHED! One small strike in the middle of the day and nothing for the rest of the day! =(
We decided to try another spot on Sunday because we’ve been having success with that spot recently. Minutes into the day things are looking up. Gareth caught bait right away and the ocean seemed alive! All of a sudden...ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! One of our reels, loaded with Blackwater Hollow Braid, starts to scream! We set the hook, and the battle is on! Back and forth, left and right, up and down! This fish doesn’t want to give up! We finally get a look and we see that it’s a Shibi (Yellow Fin Tuna under 100#). We get it to leader and think that it’s done, but the fish had other ideas and screamed out line again! This pattern continued until the fish finally tired and I gave it a Kage (kayak fishing kill spear) shot to the head and brought it onboard.
Dropped another bait and it started getting nervous...there’s a predator fish around...zzzzz...zzzzz...ZZZZZZZZZZZZ! Another fish on! This time we knew it was a Shibi...and it felt bigger than the first! After a few minutes the Shibi starts going wild, then all of a sudden stopped fighting and was just dead weight. When we brought it up, we saw why. A shark had decided to “tax” us by taking a third of the shibi for himself to eat.
Still time in the day to try and get a Mahi, but the rest of the day was spent wishing and wanting, but only getting a couple of Ta’ape (invasive fish, but good eating). We sailed in, packed up and rushed to the scales. We are the last competitors to arrive and the weighmaster started the scales up!
The first “jackpot” species to be weighed was the Ta’ape, and luckily for us we had 2! (Should have read the rules more carefully. Haha!) Isaac weighed his Ta’ape first and it came to a whopping 9 ounces...it was my turn...I take our Ta’ape up, hook it onto the scale and it comes out 10 ounces...then blinks back to 9...then to 10 again! We won the Ta’ape jackpot by one ounce!
The tournament weigh in went Taape, Goat fish, Aha, Jack, Kaku, Kamanu, Kawakawa, Uku, Shibi, Ono, then the Mahis. Unluckily for us we didn’t have other fish to weigh until the Shibi category, but other people did, and many impressive fish came to the scale.
Aloha Gannon, won 4 of the categories! Biggest goat fish (2 lbs 1 oz), biggest Aha (10 lbs 12 oz), biggest Uku (10 lbs 2 oz), and biggest Ono (32 lbs 15 oz).
Biggest Omilu (Blue Fin Trevally) - Isaac Brumaghim (18 lbs 3 oz)
Biggest Ulua (Giant Trevally) - Ho’ala Greevy (51 lbs)
Biggest Kawakawa (Wavyback Tuna) - David “Boogie-D” Elgas (15 lbs)
Biggest Shibi - “Mahi Mike” Ichiyama (22 lbs 7 oz)
Biggest Bull Mahimahi - Josh Dela Cruz 20 lbs 7 oz
Biggest 2 Mahis (and new Mahi Masters Champions) - David Elgas (17 lbs 4 oz) + Rob Hall (12 lbs 13 oz) = 30 lbs 1 oz
Some food and “refreshments” after made this a very enjoyable day!
We started Saturday excited and ready to go. Hit the water at sunrise and it was so winds that we could open our sail and sail out! Bad sign. We like wind, but this area is horrible to fish in when there is that much wind. We plodded on, did whatever we could think of, and WHTEWASHED! One small strike in the middle of the day and nothing for the rest of the day! =(
We decided to try another spot on Sunday because we’ve been having success with that spot recently. Minutes into the day things are looking up. Gareth caught bait right away and the ocean seemed alive! All of a sudden...ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! One of our reels, loaded with Blackwater Hollow Braid, starts to scream! We set the hook, and the battle is on! Back and forth, left and right, up and down! This fish doesn’t want to give up! We finally get a look and we see that it’s a Shibi (Yellow Fin Tuna under 100#). We get it to leader and think that it’s done, but the fish had other ideas and screamed out line again! This pattern continued until the fish finally tired and I gave it a Kage (kayak fishing kill spear) shot to the head and brought it onboard.
Dropped another bait and it started getting nervous...there’s a predator fish around...zzzzz...zzzzz...ZZZZZZZZZZZZ! Another fish on! This time we knew it was a Shibi...and it felt bigger than the first! After a few minutes the Shibi starts going wild, then all of a sudden stopped fighting and was just dead weight. When we brought it up, we saw why. A shark had decided to “tax” us by taking a third of the shibi for himself to eat.
Still time in the day to try and get a Mahi, but the rest of the day was spent wishing and wanting, but only getting a couple of Ta’ape (invasive fish, but good eating). We sailed in, packed up and rushed to the scales. We are the last competitors to arrive and the weighmaster started the scales up!
The first “jackpot” species to be weighed was the Ta’ape, and luckily for us we had 2! (Should have read the rules more carefully. Haha!) Isaac weighed his Ta’ape first and it came to a whopping 9 ounces...it was my turn...I take our Ta’ape up, hook it onto the scale and it comes out 10 ounces...then blinks back to 9...then to 10 again! We won the Ta’ape jackpot by one ounce!
The tournament weigh in went Taape, Goat fish, Aha, Jack, Kaku, Kamanu, Kawakawa, Uku, Shibi, Ono, then the Mahis. Unluckily for us we didn’t have other fish to weigh until the Shibi category, but other people did, and many impressive fish came to the scale.
Aloha Gannon, won 4 of the categories! Biggest goat fish (2 lbs 1 oz), biggest Aha (10 lbs 12 oz), biggest Uku (10 lbs 2 oz), and biggest Ono (32 lbs 15 oz).
Biggest Omilu (Blue Fin Trevally) - Isaac Brumaghim (18 lbs 3 oz)
Biggest Ulua (Giant Trevally) - Ho’ala Greevy (51 lbs)
Biggest Kawakawa (Wavyback Tuna) - David “Boogie-D” Elgas (15 lbs)
Biggest Shibi - “Mahi Mike” Ichiyama (22 lbs 7 oz)
Biggest Bull Mahimahi - Josh Dela Cruz 20 lbs 7 oz
Biggest 2 Mahis (and new Mahi Masters Champions) - David Elgas (17 lbs 4 oz) + Rob Hall (12 lbs 13 oz) = 30 lbs 1 oz
Some food and “refreshments” after made this a very enjoyable day!