Bucket List Bonefish, Hawaiian Style! 9

One of the things that I love most about fishing is chasing those bucket list fish in other parts of the world.  One of those bucket list fish that I have heard so much about is bonefish.  I have often thought about heading down to the keys on a trip to Florida but the urge to head offshore has always won out.  Recently however, I have been seeing shows on TV and reading articles in magazines about the little known, but worlds biggest bonefish on the flats surrounding Oahu in Hawaii.  Combine that with my wife's desire to return to Hawaii for a vacation and before I knew I was in the air over the Pacific Ocean.

Not having ever targeted bonefish, I knew that I was going to need a guide to show me the drill.  I decided to employ the islands finest in Capt. Mike Hennessy of Hawaii on the Fly.  Capt. Mike usually takes people out on his brand new Action Craft flats skiff for fly-fishing trips but with limited fly experience I decided to go with spinning gear instead.

The first morning started out early as Capt. Mike wanted to hit the morning low tide so we could wade for tailing bonefish.  Let me tell you, nothing gets the adrenaline going like seeing your target fish tailing in 8 inches of water.  As excited as you are however, you have to move in a stealth like manner as these fish will spook easily.  Our first target was spotted about 50 yds away and I snuck up as quickly but quietly as possible.  When I was finally in casting range I loaded up and put the live crab we were using about 10 ft in front of the fish.  Unfortunatly, the fish changed directions but I still had it as I loaded up for another cast. This time the fish swam right over my crab but didn't take it.  Capt. Mike had said I want to put the bait out in front in the direction it was swimming but not too close or it'll spook. I was still on the fish so I decided to do it my way and put the bait right on the fish.  Thats exactly what I did when the water erupted and the fish swam off with the speed of a torpedo.  I guess I should have listened to the pro. 

After seeing that display, I was hooked.  We continued chasing tailing bones for another hour and a half and had at least 20 shots at fish.  As the tide started to flood we jumped back in the boat and Capt. Mike did some poling.  I switched to a Capt. Harry's Jig and hopped on the bow.  Now the name of the game was spotting and casting but as I quickly found out, it's still a stealthy approach.  We had a few shots at the second location but I still wasn't hooking up.  No worries, as I was about to learn, Capt. Mike still had a few tricks up his sleeve. 

We decided to put the boat back on the trailer and head to the other side of the island.  Capt. Mike had already delivered on his promise of up to 30 shots at a Hawaiian bonefish but I still had to get that first one on.

After getting back in the water we decided to head over to an area where Capt. Mike said the biggest bones on the island were.  This time the drill was to anchor up, put a piece of squid on a size 4 circle hood, and toss aout a few freebie pieces of squid for good measure.  About 15 minutes into the waiting game I told Capt. Mike that I usually don't catch anything unless I have a cigar in my mouth.  We decided to lite up and shortly after it was fish on!  After a fierce initial run that almost spooled me, we dropped the anchor and drifted towards the fish.  Capt. Mike swore I was on at least a 10 pounder which is top 1% of all bonefish.  Well, the good capt. was right.  After about a 10 minute battle I had caught my first bonefish ever!  A 13.2# world class size bone!  Capt. Mike said, "I might never see another bone that big the rest of my life" and he was right.  I'm just glad I at least got to experience it once. 

Check out our video!

The next day we slept in a little and hit a different area.  The idea was to get Sonya in on the action and Capt. Mike took us to an area that doesn't always hold the huge ones but numbers is what we were after.  After about 20 minutes, Sonya was boating her 2nd fish.  Another 20 minutes went by and she was up to her 4th fish of the day.  After that the bite seemed to stall.  As I said earlier, these fish a very spooky and maybe with all of the action they left the area.  We gave it another half hour and decided to leave.  As we were bringing the lines in, one went off just as I was reaching for it.  It wasn't even 10 am and we had caught 5 bonefish already.  We bounced around and looked at few more areas, did some trolling for giant trevally and decided to call it a day a little early.  After all, this vacation was my wife's birthday present, we should probably do some of the things on here bucket list.