Week of Wahoos

Two Days ago, MSA Guides Joey Kekumu, Chris Adair and myself went decided to take a short drive to a nearby coastline in hunt for some fish. This is not an uncommon occurrence as we all had the day off. What was uncommon was that not long into our dive (but not before swimming with dolphins:) We got schooled by about a dozen Onos (or Wahoo)! A better way to put it would be that Joey and Chris Got schooled by Onos as I was laying at the bottom waiting around looking for some snappers we had recently seen. Chris got the first shot off as I was still descending to the bottom. I didn’t notice Chris’ gun go off, but I did hear Joeys as he got the second shot at a fish. By the time I reach the surface, Chris already has his Ono in his hands, and Joey has a great shot in his that we could only assume would hold as he fought it back in. Chris Yelled to me that there were more around, and after about 5 seconds of looking, I saw them coming right back! I threw my flashers and got a quick shot off on another nice sized Ono that took me for a ride. I did manage to land it but not until after a near 10 minute fight as it pulled me out toward the open ocean. During this fight the most memorable moment of this experience happened; A near fully grown humpback whale swam right between myself and my fish!!! I screamed with excitement and couldn’t believe my eyes! Joey was still fighting his when I returned to my buddies but as Chris put a second shot into the fish the fight quickly ended. All the was left was to find a big enough cooler to fit all the fish….

What’s really hard to believe, is only 2 days later (today) we decided to go out again …. well we did do so well the time before… and we want to just see if the ocean is still as fishy as it was 2 days ago. The large swells force us to go out at Kapalua area. Not bad fishing, but more populated that we prefer on our recreational dives. Not long into the dive, Chris Shoots a nice 10.5 lb Uku, and things are looking good. Not more than 15 minutes later, a 36.5 Ono swims right up to me as I drop down only 15′ under the water. I get a good shot and hold on tight as he runs for about 5 minutes. We brought him in and ended early again! On our way in we got to swim with about 200 Hawaiian spinner Dolphins and Joey landed a 7 lb Kahala, allowing us all to enjoy another game fish for ourselves. This had to be some of the craziest few days of spearfishing I’ve ever experienced.