Haven't written here in a long time. I will try keep this blog updated more if possible.
Today was the day that I was able to harvest a 81lb ulua. It started off like any other day. I was a bit on the tired side from having a long week of work and school, but was itching to hit the water again.
Tyson was excited but was riding 4 wheeler till midnight so I wasnt sure what to expect if we were going earlier the next morning or not. By 6:30am my eyes were wide open but I stayed in bed. I was just about to shoot Tyson a text when my phone went off. "Ho bah. Morning cupcake. Call me when you up." We initially planned to hit the 1st horseshoe but I decided to check Pauuilo to see how the water looked. Upon reaching the cliff I was surprised to see no one there. It was really windy, with white caps on the outside, but the water looked clear and the in and out didnt look bad.
We both agreed on diving here since the wind looked pretty bad. We suited up at the truck and started to head down. Upon, reaching the landing there was trash everywhere! Looks like a bunch of campers forgot to clean up their opala! We jumped in and decided to swim left to check a productive ledge where in the past I have seen big kahalas, uhus, nenues, opelus, you name it! The visibility was excellent and the current was non existent. I spot two mus who look curious and signal Tyson to take a drop.
He drops and takes a far shot and connects but the mu rips off. We swim some more and Tyson signals me that the other mu is still around. I take a drop to 55ft and start throwing some sand. I look around and see the mu start to come in. I move my gun a little too fast and the mu spooks leaving me with my still loaded gun as I ascend to the surface. We continue to swim on and come across the ledge....
I drop my anchor and start to investigate looking on the hilo side. Tyson spots a pair of omilus down in a deep hole but they dig as soon as he approaches the hole. We swim back to the ledge and I see tyson diving on something. There is a unmistakable shape of a big ulua cruising parallel toward the outside of the ledge. Without breathing up I descend kind of quickly in hopes of cutting the school off. I kick slower as I approach the bottom of the ledge. The leader makes it to a big cave while some of the smaller stragglers pass right by me. I wait and see the smaller uluas make a u-turn in the cave and slowly start to come towards me. I wait a little longer and see a bigger ulua come out of the cave heading towards me to check me out.
I start to slowly swing my gun in his direction and he veers off a little, so I direct all my attention away from him while still keeping him in sight. Out of the corner of my eye I can see him coming towards me and I move slowly to point my gun in his direction. He swims straight up to me and gives me a slightly angled broad side shot. I take it and hit the fish right behind the left eye.
I can see that my shaft has not penetrated fully through and the fish slowly takes off while stripping line out of my reel. I start to ascend and am trying not to laugh as I see Tyson swim towards me. I hit the surface and he yells "Holy shit did it go through?" I reply "Uh oh" and try to keep a serious face but start to laugh. The fish is down deep and I can no longer see him, just the yellow spectra which is now getting low on my reel. I start to follow the general direction of my fish and try to gain back some yardage of spectra on my reel. The fish keeps pulling and pulling me towards deeper water. I look up to see tyson sprinting to the far left of me and see that the fish is fighting far from where I am.
The line gets tangled on a coral head but I manage to get it off....only to have it tangle yet again on a deeper coral head. :'( Tyson dives down and I can see him get within shooting distance and he fires. The fish fights again and line starts to shoot out of tysons reel. He is fighting the fish and at this point my shaft comes out but gets tangled around Tyson's shooting line.
The fish starts to come up towards mid water but keeps swimming circles around us. Tyson yells to me and I tell him to wait and let the fish tire out. At the same time I am praying that his shaft doesnt come out! Finally the fish starts to tire out and I dive down to put him to sleep.
We string the ulua up and swim back to our guns. My line ended up being tangled on a coral head at 80ft. Once I got that untangled, I was ready to head in. haha. We dive a little more to the left and tyson hits some uhus but they all rip off. We decide to call it a day and head in. Ulua ended up weighing 81lbs according to Tyson scale at Horizon Automotive. After weighing the fish, the Caitanos convince me to get it printed and I agree. We drive to Hilo and I get to meet Laron K who ends up printing my fish. Once the fish was printed we head to kens for a good time.
Pau.
