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

DATELINE – MAY 6, 2025 – KONA, HAWAII

There should be a support group for people who can’t catch a spearfish. “Hi, my name is Steve, and I can’t catch a spearfish. I’ve been trying for 19 years.” And the group would respond “Welcome, Steve.” There would be hugs, crying, and cookies. The problem is, there aren’t 12 steps to get out of this group, there’s only one – catch a spearfish – and that pursuit alone is enough to make me want to attend a lot of other meetings.

Yes, I went for spearfish again, and yes, I failed. There is a fine line between persistence and stupidity, and I have been over that line with both feet for years. It’s going to happen someday, and when it does, the first thing I will do, after I put my clothes back on, is write an epic tribute to the journey. But in the meantime, I was still in Hawaii and there was fishing to do.

I did the one thing guaranteed to make any fishing trip more exciting – I brought Mark Spellman. It had been a while since we had gotten out together, and what better place than the leeward side of the Big Island? I could barely imagine what new disasters he could brew up.

Mark Spellman. He is an excellent tennis player, but unfortunately, this blog is not about tennis. This photo was taken before he put on sunblock.

Lining up to land in Kona. There’s a spearfish in this picture someplace.

We set up three days with legendary Kona guide Dale Leverone, with a shore day on either side.

Captain Dale Leverone – if you’re ever in Kona, he’s the guy to book –  https://www.konadeepsea.com/

To bring some sanity to the venture, I invited Jamie – she’s busy at work, but still loves to get out on the water whenever she can, and she is Spellman-trained. The fact she is in her late 20s is troubling to me, but I try to ignore how old that makes me. I always say that age is just a number – just like blood pressure, lipids, and PSAs.

I will admit it’s a little unsettling to see her, because every time she walks around the corner, I expect Wade to be right behind her, with a fishing rod in one hand and a pizza in the other. Good God I miss him.

As is routine, we started at the Kona pier.

Spellman and one of those photobomb looks only he can give.

There was instant justice. On my very first cast, I caught a Whitley’s trunkfish, the exotic species Jamie had pulled from under my nose last year.

Joy to weight ratio: extremely high.

My joy – and related hubris – lasted all of 10 seconds, because that’s how long it took Jamie, on her first cast, to pull up another damn fish I had never seen before.

A yellowtail coris. You have to be kidding me.

The next morning, we headed out into the blue Pacific off Kona.

Putting out the trolling spread, in those first few moments of the trip, when there is still hope.

It’s not like we had a bad day trolling – we just didn’t get a spearfish. We all caught some decent yellowfin.

These things pull hard, especially when I break out a spinning rod and throw metal jigs at them.

Then it got weird. Trolling back over where we had gotten the first set of bites, we had a big pulldown and run. It was Jamie’s turn in the chair, and she sat down, took about five big cranks, and the line broke. 120 pound line with a 500 pound leader. Broke. Jamie reeled in the loose end, and it looked like it had been sliced off with a knife. We all guessed wahoo and circled back. The side rigger snapped off and the Tiagra 80 started peeling line. I jumped into the chair, knowing the behavior wasn’t spearfish but not wanting to take any chances. It was a solid, strong fish that stayed deep with a lot of head shakes. After about 15 minutes, I started gaining line – it was a heavy, head-shaking fight, not the speed of a tuna but plenty of muscle. Moments later, we had a partial answer – a dark shape surfaced well behind the boat and we could see it was a shark. I was disappointed it wasn’t a spearfish, and I wanted to get it to the boat so we could knock the hook out and release it – Hawaii does not permit deliberately fishing for shark, but of course we can’t help it when one takes a shine to a trolling lure.

It stayed deep until the last few cranks. and when I got it on top behind the boat so the mate could handle it, I was stunned. Jamie actually spotted it first – “Oceanic Whitetip!” This is a rare, open-water fish, rarely seen from sport boats, and I had (accidentally) brought one to leader.

Chris released it safely, but I had added a most unexpected species.

Oceanic Whitetip postscript – Jamie, who works with the NOAA folks, let us know that each of these fish has a unique pattern on its dorsal. She submitted a photo of mine to the researchers, and it turns out that this one had not been recorded before, so I was given the honor of naming it. So now, there is an Oceanic Whitetip shark named Lorenzo Von Matterhorn. (Look it up, and for the record, Marta hated the show.)

We spent the evening on the pier again, with nothing new to report except an excellent burger at Quinn’s Almost-By-The-Sea.

I’ve caught hundreds of raccoon butterflyfish. but they’re always worth a photo.

The next morning, we were back out on the troll. Occasional radio reports of a spear here and there kept our hopes up, but it was not my day of destiny.

An inevitable result of old people trolling for five hours.

Mid-afternoon, we headed inshore and hit some favorite bottom spots. Jamie’s favorite fish to eat is peacock wrasse (locally called Nebeta,) and we racked up quite a few of those.

Part of the razorfish family, they are supposed to be delicious, but be warned – they bite.

Then came a brief moment of ill-conceived triumph followed by weeks of despair, so now I know what Cousin Chuck’s honeymoon felt like. I pulled up a black razorfish. I have never caught a black razorfish. Ergo, I assumed and celebrated a new species.

But it turns out to be a black color morph of the same old Nebeta. Imagine how well I took that.

It was still fun to catch a batch of tropical fish on light gear, and just as we were getting ready to leave, I had a strange, small bite and an equally odd fight. I swung my catch over the rail, and, to my delight, it was something I had never seen before, except perhaps in sweaty late-night reading sessions – a snake eel.

A sharpsnout snake eel, to be precise – species 2385. It was around 18 inches long but thinner than a pencil.

Day three began with a positive sign from the Fish Gods – a rainbow. Needless to say, for the trolling portion of the day, that was the last positive sign we had. The spearfish were there, we just needed to have the right day.

But it was a lovely rainbow.

Begrudgingly, we moved to some bottom spots late in the day, and the first fish I caught was a blueline triggerfish, an old friend that always seems good for a world record. Sure enough, a quick weighing showed it was four ounces bigger than last year’s record, and I was on the board with record #244. So that was good news.

One of the more reliable world record fish in the ocean, the blueline has accounted for four of my certificates.

Then Spellman got one exactly the same size, adding his sixth world record.

Nice work. And yes, Marta noticed that Spellman’s fish was bigger than mine, but the scale I use for world records only weighs in four-ounce increments.

Speaking of blind pigs and truffles, Spellman proceeded to run off an astounding string of quality bottom fish, while I continued to catch nothing but blueline snappers. What the hell? He opened with a strong scrawled filefish, just a few ounces off the record.

Called “broomtails” locally, this species gave me fits for years.

He continued with a nice island jack, which was about three times of my personal best on this species.

Ok, I get it. You can stop now. Or at least let the fish poop on you for a better photo.

He then got into his strongest fight of the session, several minutes of tough runs back to the reef, before he landed a beastly Pfleuger’s goatfish. I held my breath as he weighed it – it was less than a quarter-pound from setting another record.

Giant sigh of relief, because it’s my record he would have broken. Jamie was cheering for him, which was hurtful.

Dale quietly trolled us a couple of extra hours, but we finally had to head back to port so I could be on time for my Spearfish Anonymous meeting. Sure, I wasn’t thrilled I hadn’t conquered an old adversary, but I had also gotten three new and rather exotic species, spent time with some of my best friends, and even more importantly, given myself a reason to come back to Hawaii soon.

Steve

The gang – Mark, Chris the deckhand, Captain Dale, Jamie, and the guy who hasn’t caught a spearfish. Yet.