Right off I gotta tell you, I didnt really want to come back to live here. I left two wonderful places, American Samoa, with crystal clear coral reefs, great people, and plenty of exotic fish to keep me busy, and my second home, Turangi, in rural New Zealand, a fly fishermans dream come true, big trout, deer hunting, rabbits, possums, wide open spaces.
Honolulu was the big city, traffic jams, high rent, crowded with hungry fishermen from all over the world. I couldn't imagine my hanging out here for very long, after three decades in the South Pacific. Five years later and we are still here. It's wearing thin, but I have had a great time here.
The fly fishing is just difficult enough to keep it really interesting, and I am having a great time carving, teaching carving, enjoying the odd jam session with some great blues musos.
The fly fishing is actually quite amazing. I consider fly fishing for bonefish maybe the most difficult of all, especially wading and sight fishing, and to add quite a bit of spice to that attraction, the bonefish here are huge! Even more amazing, is that I can walk to fishy reefs from my apartment, or drive ten minutes, and wade out, and I am right in the middle of bonefish action!
The entire south shore of Oahu is really one long bonefish flat, from Kokohead to Diamondhead, and even right in Waikiki, and further west in and around Keehi Lagoon, Hickam Air Force base, and Ewa. Over the Hill Kaneohe bay offers endless flats, easily accessable with a rented car or even a rented kayak.
Really any fly fisher can come here and with very little instruction find shots at cruising bonefish. If time is short, a guide can help, and I do a bit of that, but it's also a good DIY fishing destination. Just last week a Kiwi client I had spent a successful week hitting some Aina Haina hot spots by bus. He caught nice fish, all on his own.
And if I have a hankering after the solitude of a running stream, I can take a short drive and fish Nuuanu Stream, which runs down the valley right into Chinatown, and catch a heap of feisty smallmouth bass, some over two pounds! Sometimes I even limit myself to dry fly only, and I have yet to encounter another person fishing there.
Thirty minutes drive away is Lake Wilson, home to some very large Peacock bass, red devils, largemouth and smallmouth, and haunting its depths is the odd Amazonian Pacu or the Asian Snakehead!
We even have a fly shop here, Nervous Water, the only one in the State, where you can hang out, talk story, buy flies and pick up a few tips.
It is a bit expensive. I have to work occasionally. And it is not New Zealand, with its pristine lakes and streams, but it is a heck of a lot warmer. And where else can you fly fish with gorgeous surfer girls in bikinis paddling by!
Louie the Fish!
www.louiethefish.com
