Tag: saltwater

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Moloka’i and Kaua’i Bonefish, January 8-11, 2022

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.

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Quakers

Edward Hicks, The Peaceable Kingdom, oil on canvass, c. 1834, National Gallery of Art.

It’s hard to think about Pennsylvania without thinking about Quakers.  Quakers emerged in Britain after 1650, around the time of the end of the English Civil War. Early Quaker doctrine is based principally on the writings and teachings of George Fox, a self-educated weaver’s son. He would preach for hours to thousands, but I’m sure everybody was on their phones. 

George Fox, 162401690, print, 1914, Library of Congress.

Quaker was a derogatory term, like Holy Roller, but the Quakers were good with that, and took to the term. What they called themselves varied, but their official self-identification always seems to be some variation of the Religious Society of Friends. It was the American Friends Service Committee and the Friends Service Council that received the 1947 Nobel Prize for Peace on behalf of the Quakers. 

By the 1800s, there were about 350,000 Quakers worldwide. In 2021 there are about 350,000 Quakers worldwide. They didn’t do so well on that whole growth thing.

Some central Quaker beliefs haven’t really changed in 370-odd years. They don’t swear oaths, or use hierarchical forms of address. The Queen is not The Queen, but Betty Windsor. They’re pacifists. They accept the spiritual equality of women–well, everybody really. A devout Quaker wears plain clothes out of humility, lives simply, and seeks direct personal religious experience without reliance on ritual. It was one of Fox’s early tenets that each of us can achieve true spiritual conversion without the intercession of clergy. 

Early Quakers owned slaves–it is one of the great mysteries to us moderns that Europeans didn’t initially balk at slavery. It was hard times, and even the kindest people were used to common cruelties that would appall us. If you look at crime and death statistics for early Philadelphia, modern Somalia compares favorably. Really.

Their views changed though. By the mid-1700s, the Quakers were early adopters of abolitionism, and emerged among the most influential opponents to slavery, both in America and England. How could anyone own a slave? God’s light shines through us all, and we are all equal because of that inner light.

Howard Pyle, Mary Dyer being led to the gallows in Boston, McClure’s Magazine, 1905.

In 1660, the good people of Massachusetts–early Red Sox fans I reckon–executed four Quaker missionaries in Boston, most infamously Mary Dyer. Quakers were intermittently persecuted in England as well, and both Fox and and his disciple William Penn were imprisoned from time to time. From the outset, that wasn’t the Pennsylvania model. Pennsylvania’s tolerance for Jews and the varieties of Christian sects was certainly a direct result of persecution of Quakers (and a direct precursor of our Constitution’s views towards religious tolerance). Tolerance was such a peculiarly Quaker point of view.

I won’t waste your time with a recitation of how Penn, a Quaker, got hold of Pennsylvania in the 1680s, but some details are interesting. King Charles II named Pennsylvania not after William, but after his father, Admiral Sir William. The younger Penn tried to decline the name out of humility, and the King basically said that’s mighty proud of you. It was one funny dis of a Quaker.

Settlement of Pennsylvania under Penn was not a purely benevolent enterprise, but he spent his inherited fortune on the colony. He intended to recoup costs through land sales, just like any other land developer. Like many another land developer he died land-rich and cash-poor. Always with Penn though, there were other and better motives than mere land sales. Penn took lands from King Charles in settlement of debts, then purchased the same land from the native Lenape because he could not countenance the settlement of Pennsylvania by their exploitation.

William Penn Portrait, aged 22, 1644-1718, Goupin & Co., 1897, Paris, Library of Congress

Under Penn, Pennsylvania became the most democratic of the colonies, with early governance modeled on Quaker meetings. If the spirit moves you, speak up.

I have written before that I’m at least nominally Christian. I’m not much good at it. As I’ve said, when Jesus came to me by the Sea of Galilee, I’d like as not have begged off to keep fishing for fish. What appeals to me though about the Quakers is their intellectual consistency. Actually it’s the good results achieved from their intellectual consistency that appeals to me. It’s often the case that the worst Christian stuff seems to arise from our consistent pursuit of trivial–or worse, harmful–doctrinal stances. Don’t believe in the equality of women because of St. Paul? I’m certain there’s a sect for that. Do you believe in the impending Apocalypse because you once tried to read Revelations? There are plenty of sects for that. Infant baptism? Adult baptism? The absence of the filioque in the Apostles Creed? There are sects for all of those. 

The Quakers engage in the same intense pursuit of doctrinal purity, but they aren’t often side-tracked by the trivial. They operate on a decidedly different plane. We all share the possibility of religious experience, and our spiritual equality demands social equality. I like the benevolence and humility of that. It’s too bad they don’t share the Methodist Hymnal. I could be as indifferent of a Quaker as I am an indifferent Methodist, but I do like to sing a good hymn. 

Petrus Comestor, Bible Historiale, Nebuchadnezer outside of Jerusalem, 1372.

While it’s certainly not the only source, Quaker humility and benevolence seems to lead to many of the elements that are the best things about our democracy. If you think about the Hebrew Bible–the Old Testament for us Christians–in some ways it’s a long discourse on government. If you are a Hebrew, your job is to do what God commands so that, end of the day, your government works and God doesn’t send the Philistines to destroy Shiloh. Sacrifice to Baal, and the Babylonians are a’comin’. Good government is a divine contract with God. 

Penn and the Quakers flip that. In governance it’s not the social contract with God but the religious experience of the individual that matters. Maybe it wasn’t conscious, but Penn seems to want his government to reflect the spiritual importance of each individual. As far as I know, it was something new. Penn’s Pennsylvania mostly abolished the death penalty. Penn’s Pennsylvania thought about things like prison reform. Pennsylvania had no common defense until the mid-1700s. Penn’s Pennsylvania gave us a framework for democracy when we finally got around to putting together the Constitution. 

In the 1750s, Quakers withdrew from the leadership of the colony. They could not support fighting the French and Indian War, even though the war against Pennsylvania colonists was particularly brutal. They withdrew.

Quaker Oats standing Quaker Man, c. 1900, University of Miami Libraries via Wikipedia

One last observation about the Quakers; Quakers often made great businessmen.  Barclay’s Bank, Cadbury Chocolate, Lloyd’s, Bethlehem Steel, all were Quaker enterprises. They brought to their business a reputation of honesty and fair dealing.  It was Quaker merchants who first used the price tag, and they were the first not to haggle on price.  Quakers set a fair price for goods, let you know what it was, and charged the same price to everyone.

Quaker Oats? Quaker Oats wasn’t Quaker, or wasn’t Quaker any more than Aunt Jemima syrup was a black female-owned enterprise.  It was a marketing ploy to trade off the Quaker reputation for honesty and fair-dealing.  Their products were pure.

***

Meanwhile Monday I didn’t go into work–get it? get it? Anyway I took a day’s vacation to move our poling skiff two hours down the coast, to Port O’Connor. The further south you go on the Texas Coast, the clearer the water. The clearer the water, the better the sight fishing. Galveston, where we’ve had our boat the past five years, is hard water to fish. Because of the outflow of the Mississippi, the water is rarely clear, and it’s hard to find protected water to fish. We have caught some, but we never caught that much.

Actually, that could describe most of our angling.

One of these boats and one of these motors is ours.

What we did do in Galveston was keep our boat in the easiest place imaginable, in a dry stack. A dry stack is a giant warehouse for boats, serviced by a giant fork lift. If we wanted the boat out of the dry stack, all we did was send them a text. It would miraculously appear in the water, gassed up and with ice in the Yeti.

Now we not only have to gas the boat ourselves, I have to back the boat down a boat ramp on a trailer to get the boat in the water. There is no longer a giant forklift. These trials may turn me into a Quaker, and certainly I will learn about humility. Or maybe there’s a saint specifically for intercession for backing trailers? I kinda like Pope Francis. It’s too bad he won’t do something about adopting the Methodist Hymnal. Modern Catholic music is the worst.