2000fish's Blog – Steve Wozniak's hunt for fish species

DATELINE: MAY 2, 2023 – KONA, HAWAII

Kona is another one of those places where I have caught most of the species, but there is always something to draw me back. That something is named a spearfish, and it’s the only billfish I haven’t caught. Sure, there are lots of other reasons to visit Kona, like beautiful scenery, great food, and beaches, but it’s mostly about the spearfish. I just never seem to get the right week.

This year, Marta and I would make a quick vacation out of it, along with a dear old friend, Scott Perry. Scott is a certified diver, so he would be doing some night manta ray tours, which Marta could join as a snorkeler. And then, we figured, Scott would join me for a day or two of fishing while Marta hiked Mauna Kea.

The condo did have one very mysterious sign. We never did pull the rope, but speculation over what would happen took up hours of conversation.

I’m still unclear if it was the Fish Gods or the Weather Gods who messed with the trip so badly, but some deity, possibly several, was determined to make things difficult.

First up was a day out trolling for spears on the fabled Sea Strike with Captain Jack Leverone.

Ready to go with Captain Jack and deckhand Chris Wong.

Putting out the lures, early in the day, when there is still optimism.

There was a rainbow while we were trolling. Surely this was a good omen. I could not help but think of Iz Kamakawiwo’ole and his rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” which is so heart-rending it must be played at my funeral, along with “Southern Cross” and the Taylor Swift song of Marta’s choice.

We trolled and trolled and trolled and, while we had most people’s idea of a great day, there was no spearfish. We got mahi-mahi, we got wahoo, and we had a strike from a decent blue marlin. As we got further offshore, we trolled by a buoy, and after a few false alarms from small yellowfin tuna, we got a hard strike from another wahoo.

These things pull hard.

And they have a vicious set of teeth. Do not put this in your pants.

After we landed the ono, Jack eased the boat back toward the buoy and looked on the sounder. The area was stacked with gamefish, a textbook jigging situation. This was a conflict. It would certainly be fun to drop some metal jigs through a school of wahoo and mahi and finally use the heavy jigging setup I got in Singapore for its intended purpose, but this would also take time away from spearfish trolling. 

Fun won out that day – sometimes, you just have to hit what the pitcher throws you. It was exhilarating, dropping the jigs down two hundred feet or so, then ripping them up until they got crushed. I lost two or three lures from biteoffs, but in the space of an hour, I landed four more wahoo and three mahi-mahi. On a spinning reel.

The trick is to photograph them quickly before they lose the colors.

The small ones are even more beautiful.

An epic day by almost any standard, but I would have traded everything for one small spearfish.

We spent the evening as a group, exploring some of Kona’s outstanding restaurants. This time it was Jackie Rey’s, a local secret that has been serving great everything for at least 20 years. We had pina coladas and talked far into the night.

That’s Scott on the right. I’ve known him since 1992.

Sunset from the restaurant.

Marta smiling for the last time on the trip. In just 20 hours, she would be profoundly seasick.

The next day, we ran around the island as a group, ate great local food, and did some snorkeling. In a random pond somewhere, I stumbled into my first new species of the trip, a longfin tilapia.

That’s number 2175 if you’re playing along at home.

On the 29th, I wrangled my way into being dumped at the Kona town pier for a few hours. This place always has an incredible variety of tropical fish, right in the middle of a big town. I caught dozens of the usual suspects – saddle wrasses, raccoon butterflyfish, chubs, etc. – but I also stumbled into two new ones – a bluespine unicornfish and a delicate round herring, which is a teensy baitfish.

I had seen these before but never gotten one.

The herring. Look closely. If you think I have any shame in this, you must be a first-time reader. Welcome!

To top that all off, as I was tossing some larger baits out beyond the swarm of small reef fish, I got a hard strike and something peeled off a good bit of line. I worked it back toward the pier, under the watchful gaze of the 20 tourists that always seem to appear out of nowhere whenever I hook something decent on this wharf. It was a parrotfish, good-sized, but I couldn’t tell which species. I delicately reached down to get it, but the pier is designed to leave any solid fish about two inches out of reach. I finally just took my chances and pulled it up, and after closer examination, I figured out it was a positively humungous stareye parrotfish – clearly a world record.

This place just never stops producing.

That evening, while Marta and Scott headed off for the manta dive, I set up in the harbor to try for some moray records. I got a few eels, mostly yellowmargin, but no major size – Luke Ovgard has driven that record up to over 14 pounds, so that will take some doing. Texts started streaming in from the manta boat. “A bit bumpier than we had hoped.” “Damn it’s rough.” “Marta isn’t doing well.” Then communications went dark while they apparently got in the water and saw the rays. Around 90 minutes later, the messages resumed. “I am hypothermic and have thrown up everything I have ever eaten and will ever eat.” And then “Oh, but the rays were wonderful.” 

When we met back at the house, it was clear Marta had not enjoyed the boat ride. She was pale as a ghost, sitting quietly on the couch wrapped in a blanket, looking like a cat on the losing end of a cold bath. Even Scott looked worn-out, and he was in no way getting up the next morning and going back out on the water with me, so I would be on my own. 

I spent the 30th and the 1st back on the Sea Strike, and sadly but predictably, there was no spearfish.

A rainbow on the way into the harbor. Surely this was a good omen. Iz couldn’t let me down.

Bottomfishing was great – I even got a few delicious pink snappers, and on the troll, I had an actual strike from an actual spearfish, but the Fish Gods must believe that I need to suffer more before this species appears on my list. It was great to hang out with Jack, and, in my curious view of the laws of probability, I am two days closer to catching a spear. So there.

The pink snapper that became dinner.

Another bottomfishing oddity – a blueline triggerfish. I got the record on this one with Dale and Jack a few years ago,but this one didn’t quite break it.

A bigeye – a bottom rarity that I caught with Dale and Jack in 2009 – along with deckhand Chris Wong.

With me being retired and all, I considered staying on a few more days of trolling, but Jack himself talked me out of it. “They’re just not firing right now, dude. We’ll try again when they get going.” There’s no substitute for an honest captain.

This is how spearfish make me feel.

Scott is a determined and expert chef, and he took the snapper I had kept and turned it into a gourmet feast that last evening we were in Kona. It was by far the best meal of the trip, and that’s a high bar.

Sunset from the back porch of the condo. There’s a spearfish out there someplace.

Things had not gone the way we had planned them, and Marta and I didn’t get to spend as much time together as we usually do, but she seemed curiously at peace with that. I was up three unusual species and a record, so I couldn’t complain, and the spearfish would still be there, or not, the next time I would visit the islands.

Steve