Our guide in Kaua’i, Rob Arita, said that he thought Moloka’i is the best bonefishing in the world.

That’s a surprising statement, especially about Hawaii, especially about a place as relatively obscure as Moloka’i. Usually descriptions of Hawaiian bonefishing tend more towards it’s interesting, not that it’s great. I’m not a good judge. I’ve fished for bonefish some, once on Oahu when I didn’t catch fish, and a couple of times each in Belize and the Florida Keys. I caught a pretty good fish in the Keys and a lot of smaller fish in Belize, but that’s it. I haven’t been to Venezuela or the Bahamas or to Christmas Island or any of the other numerous places where the bonefishing is famous. Hawaiian bonefishing is not famous, and is usually mentioned as an afterthought.

Outside of the islands, Moloka’i is mostly famous for its historic leper colony.

Here’s what I can tell you about fishing on Moloka’i. Over two days I had at least 30 legitimate shots at bonefish, scared off some fish by hitting them on the head with the fly, had a bunch of follows with no takes, and had a dozen takes when I either failed to set the hook or lost the fish during its run. I landed two fish, one about six pounds and one close to 10 pounds. Ok, ok, I’m a fisherman. It was absolutely 10 pounds, and it’s getting closer and closer to 11. That’s a lifetime bonefish, and that’s an extraordinary bonefish trip, anywhere.

Back to Rob and Kaua’i. I haven’t been to Maui or Hawaii Island, but it would be hard to find a place prettier than Kaua’i. Kaua’i was the setting for the movie South Pacific, which is all us folk of a certain age need to know. The song “Bali Ha’i,” by the way, is the worst earworm ever. Kaua’i is pretty developed now, with a surfeit of golf courses and condos–it tends towards a Florida beach resort–and the island Bali Ha’i in the movie is motion picture trickery–there’s no such place across a tranquil bay from Kaua’i–but Kaua’i is gorgeous, and it’s famous for producing championship surfers. We couldn’t fish where Rob wanted to fish on Kaua’i’s north side because of 40-foot swells. I bet it was great surfing.

We fished the east side in the surf, which had two- or three-foot breakers. No one was surfing.

I like the notion of fishing the surf, and I’ve had some pretty good days in the Texas surf, but I’m not sure I like the reality as much as the notion. On our day fishing, I blind-cast hard until my arm fell off, saw one bonefish (well, ok, Rob saw one bonefish), may have missed one take by a fish, stayed colder than I wanted, and got slapped around by the breakers. I’m not usually much of a cursing man, but at one point I was so sick of getting hit by breakers that I would face each new wave and tell it to fuck off. None of them did, but it made me feel better.

You can’t judge Kaua’i fishing by our bad day. Sometimes there are just bad days to fish, and that’s what we hit. There was nothing Rob could do, there was nothing we could do. We fished, and then I was kinda glad it was over and went and had a mai tai. I’d fish with Rob again in a heartbeat.

By coincidence, it turned out that Rob also partnered with our Moloka’i guide, Joe Kalima, to guide from time to time on Moloka’i, and the best part of our day was talking to Rob about Joe and fishing on Moloka’i. Rob showed us pictures of his 15 pound Moloka’i bonefish. He said that he thought Moloka’i was the best bonefishing in the world. Did I mention that? I can’t tell you what an extraordinary statement that is. Saying that Moloka’i is the best bonefishing in the world is like saying that Houston is a great walkable city. In our neighborhood that’s pretty much true, but it violates most people’s notions.

I may not be a competent judge of Rob’s statement, but I’ve fished with a lot of guides in a lot of places, and I will say that Joe Kalima is about as fun to fish with as it gets, not least because he brings his dachshunds on the boat. Saltwater fly fishing usually consists of one angler fishing, while the other helps spot fish. Fishing with Joe consists as often as not of one angler fishing, while the other sneaks off to scratch Boo-Boo the dachshund’s head. It makes for a very satisfactory day.

I suspect Joe guides fly fishers because he already knew the fish, Not because he knew fly fishing. He’s all you could ask in a guide though. Joe sees fish and he calls the shot. He can tell you how to land the fish. He’s funny. And, as they say in East Texas, he knows everybody on the island and the names of their dogs. He’s got great stories.

Getting to Moloka’i isn’t easy. Unlike Maui or Oahu where you can fly direct from the West Coast, you have to take a commuter flight to Moloka’i from Oahu or Maui. I’m not sure that everyone is happy you’re there, either. Plenty of the islanders have signs in the yard telling tourists to go home, though some temper the message by suggesting you spend your money and then go home (which frankly I pretty much agree with). I don’t remember why I picked it as a destination, but I’d read somewhere that Moloka’i is more like the Hawaii of 50 years ago than anyplace else in the islands.

Moloka’i has fewer than 7500 inhabitants, and when we picked up our rental and started driving down the island (I had also read, by the way, that Jeeps are recommended), my first impression was that it was exactly like Lockett, Texas. Yeah, it was set in the Pacific. Yeah, it’s arguably prettier than Lockett, the fishing is certainly better, and there are apparently even more of Joe Kalima’s friends and relations on Moloka’i than there are Streits in Lockett, but it shares the feel of any other relatively isolated, moderately self-contained country place. It has the kind of grocery store where any country people from the contiguous states would feel right at home. People may not always be happy, and sometimes it’s likely that getting by is hard, but the best of the people really are always the best.

Rob told a story about Joe, about how Joe didn’t have an ID for years, because Joe said that whoever might stop him on the island was likely his nephew anyway. That’s Lockett, Texas.

The only way to Moloka’i from Honolulu are 12-seater commuter flights on Mokulele Air. It’s worth getting to Moloka’i though. Did I mention that I think Moloka’i has the best bonefishing in the world, and that I caught an 11-pound bonefish?

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Here’s how I lost fish on Moloka’i:

• I lost two fish when my leader broke. The leader is the size-graduated bits and pieces of nylon knotted to the end of the fly line to attach the fly. I don’t know why it broke. Maybe it was cut on coral, maybe it was nicked or had a wind knot. It couldn’t have been that my knots failed. My knots never fail.
• I lost one fish because my knot failed. When you fly fish, all the beauty is in the casting, all the work is in dutifully retrieving the line from your beautiful cast. I hold the rod with my right hand, and retrieve and set the hook with my left. By the time a fish takes, I may have 20 or more feet of line puddled at my feet. For most fish, that’s no big shakes, but when you catch a strong fish that runs (like a bonefish), then if the puddled line gets caught on something in the boat, or if you stand on it, or if it’s tangled and the tangled line gets stopped by the rod guides, then your leader will snap and you’ll lose the fish. My line got wrapped around my reel. My leader snapped right in the middle of a knot. I possibly cursed.

• Four fish came off the hook. That’s annoying, but that’s the fish’s goal, and sometimes it happens. I de-barb the hooks on most of my flies to make it easier to get the hook out of the fish, and on the first day I mashed the barbs on my hooks. On the second day, after losing all those fish, I didn’t. I’m sure my decision not to flatten the barbs had nothing to do with me landing that 12-pound bonefish. Or was it 13-pounds? I think it might have been 14.
• For the rest of the fish, I failed to either set the hook or be quick enough to even try. It happens.

I lost one fish that wasn’t mine to lose. Hooking a bonefish is a bit like hooking an ancient Volkswagen traveling away from you at 30 mph: you think you can slow it with a rod and reel but you’re not completely certain. Kris disputes that, and says to heck with the Volkswagen, it’s like hooking a Jaguar XJ12 screaming away at 60. You just hold on and hope it breaks down.

Kris finally hooked her fish when Joe poled us toward the take out. She saw the fish, cast and spooked it, then recast and it ate the fly. Meanwhile I was busy scratching Boo-Boo’s head. The last time we’d switched places she hadn’t bothered to pick up her rod and was fishing with mine, and as soon as the fish started to run she was yelling for me to take the rod before she lost either the rod or her fingers or most likely both. Of course I was a little worried about her fingers getting caught in the line, but I was more worried about my rod, and worried most of all that we’d never manage a hand-off. We did, and 40-feet further out the fish came off the hook.

When Joe stopped laughing, all he could say was did you see her face? I had. It was a memorable face, a shocked face, a horrified face, and accompanying that horror was the excitement of the puppies, the whir of the line coming out of the reel, and Kris’s demands that I take the rod.

Kris asked later if I got her picture playing her fish. I didn’t.