July 11th at Haleiwa, Hawaii was the day of the 2nd Annual YakOff kayak fishing tournament put on by Coastal Kayak Tours and Windward Boats. It was also day 6 of my Makahiki tournament. The morning started with me waking up late and not getting to the launch in time to meet up with my partners. Bummer. Stan and Mike decided to do a downwind run from Alligator Rock and were already at their launch. I rolled in to the canoe club and met up with Boogie, Steve and J.G. and Trina and talked story a bit then unloaded after signing some papers for the tournament. This was to be my second day on the Hobie Revo and the first day using the upgraded Turbo ST fins and larger sailing rudder. I wasn't disappointed by the way. After launching from the canoe Hale' I made my way out past the harbor entrance and headed North towards Waialua. I wanted to check out a trench in front of Ali'i's and Aweoweos. I crisscrossed the area with a couple of Yozuri minnows but wasn't totally sure that I found the trench. Without a depth finder I had to rely on the color of the water and the surface swells to gauge the depth and it's something I'm not too good at yet. After doing a few passes and I changed the rig on my light pole and ended up catching a Lai'i on the second pass around the channel marker.
Another hour after the Lai'i yielded nothing so I made my way slowly across the channel and headed East towards Stan and Mike. A relatively short "peddle" got me in contact with Steve "Mongoose" in his A.I. He had gotten a nice Kawakawa some moments earlier. I kept trying to get in contact via VHF to Mike or Stan and realized that my Tx was probably not working. A cell call confirmed that my radio was out again. I could hear but couldn't transmit.
A short time later I met up with Mike who was doing some bottom fishing with Damashi. He reported catching some Moano and Lizardfish but nothing big. We paddled around for a bit without a hit and headed back towards to the harbor. Halfway there I got a hit on my light pole. I got a couple of nice screaming runs out of a large papio that made it to the side of my yak before breaking the 15# fluorocarbon leader. And yeah I cussed pretty hard for that one.
Back at the canoe Hale', the participants began to filter in and the weigh-in was conducted around 3pm. The keiki were first and it was a blast. Great to see the young ones put their heart into something and have fun also. The adult weigh-in followed with "Rocket" bringing the winning 20+ pound Ono to the scales.
A fun tournament with a great bunch of people.
Day 6 results
1. Lai'i
2. -
Hours logged:
7/11/09
0600 to 1400
No comments:
Post a Comment