I’m only giving you guys this report because if I didn’t, the more than 10,000 monthly readers of my Kona report would wonder what the heck happened. I’ve been on vacation for most of November while recovering from wrist surgery. You may have heard that big game fishing can be dangerous and I’ve had my share of clashes and bashes with big marlin, huge sharks and really fat tunas that weigh more than I do but it was actually only a 100 lb. yellowfin tuna that got me this time, and it was already dead! I figured I could throw the tuna in the fish box with just one hand and when I did (tried to anyway); I ripped one of the tendons in my wrist out of its sheath. It wasn’t a debilitating injury, just annoying so after many months of just dealing with it, I chose November, one of the slowest tourist months of the year to get it fixed. I even took advantage of the time off from fishing to go visit family in Washington State. I haven’t been on vacation in over 6 years. It was pretty nice seeing everyone there.
At this point it’s still a little hard to type and I did take a charter out earlier this week (committed myself) but I took another captain with me that I knew would be able to handle any big sea monsters that we might hook on to. Like nearly every captain here, all he really knows is trolling and maybe a little surface live baiting. Going to the bottom with whole mackerel for bait and a circle hook was something really foreign to him and it became obvious to both me and my customers, after missing several bites, that he didn’t have “The Feel” for it. He knew it too and after the day was done, he said he never wanted to go bottom fishing again. Neither me nor the customers gave him any $hit over missing the bites but somehow he became very humiliated about it. You might be thinking, “no big deal”, isn’t it an easy thing to do? The fish bites and you start reeling. After many years doing it, I can say that it really does take some skill to get hooked up. While some of the fish might just take the bait and run, the giant trevally is perhaps one of the hardest fish I know to hook. They do repeated attacks before committing with a swallow. Sharks and jacks and the smaller snappers and groupers can also be very line shy too at times. You also have to determine the difference from a small junk fish pecking at your bait vs. a big one taking a taste. Or how about sitting there with no bait on the hook because you don’t have “The Feel” to know that it was already ripped off. That happened too. I guess the old adage rings true, if you want something done right …..
