Byline: Dennis Anderson; Staff Writer
Ke'Anae Peninsula, Hawaii -- In the distance beyond, where the Pacific Ocean breaks wildly against hardened lava, and steep cliffs rise toward the clouds, Alex Vegas pointed and said, 'That's where they filmed `Jurassic Park.'-' This was just the other day, on the island of Maui, and Vegas was nursing a brew while sitting on a piece of rock that looked anything but comfortable. Alongside him, catching the salt spray as the ocean's swells slammed against the shoreline, was a fishing buddy, Joe Nobriga.
The two men were seeking, as they said, 'anything that bites.' Which already included a handful of a fish called nunue (pronounced ne-NOO-ee), a species that resembled a bluegill, albeit bigger than most bluegills found in Minnesota.
Fishing as they were, one with a long, telescopic fiberglass rod and one with a bamboo pole he had cut just that morning, Vegas and Nobriga were testament to this point:
The world over, wherever there is water, there are fish. And wherever there are water, fish and people, one or more people will figure out how to catch the fish. Accidents of geologic skullduggery, the Hawaiian Islands have long posed specific challenges to anglers. Reefs of the kind that typically attract fish are rare in Hawaii, and sand flats like those found in the Caribbean are missing altogether.
So it was that the Polynesians who arrived here some 2,000 years ago in 100-foot-long sailing canoes resorted, in many instances, to nets to catch fish - lacking, as they did, the offshore yachts and deep-water rigging that today often defines fishing in Hawaii.
Vegas and Nobriga are the counterpoints to all of that: native Hawaiians who since childhood have understood that their place in the angling hierarchy is on shore.
'We fish here two ways,' Vegas offered. 'What we're doing is called `hand-bamboo' style fishing. We tie a sinker onto our line, with a bare hook, and use bread for bait. Sometimes we catch nunue, sometimes trevally, which are bigger. When they bite, we just lift up the rod, setting the hook.'
Additionally, Vegas and Nobriga had long fiberglass rods nearby rigged with spinning reels. The rods stood in holders cemented into the hardened lava, with lines cast far into the ocean.
'Cut bait' - meaning, generally, pieces of fish - were attached to the hooks of the lines. The hope was these would attract still bigger fish than those that could be caught hand-bamboo style
'If you had time, we could take you to the other side of the island, where we fish two or three days at a time,' Vegas said. 'We have to climb down cliffs, using ropes, and we camp on the beach.
'Doing this, we catch big fish from shore, casting out as far as we can and sliding baits down the lines. We catch travally, ahi (yellow fin tuna) and sharks. Sometimes the sharks are 300 pounds. We don't want the sharks, but they hit our baits.'
Maui is home to several different climates, and the one where Vegas and Norbriga were fishing was a rain forest. 'Jurassic Park' could have indeed been filmed here.
Everywhere in all directions was country of the wildest kind, with innumerable waterfalls and bamboo forests so thick they defied passage. Doubtless when Capt. James Cook made landfall on Maui in 1778, sailing H.M.S. Resolution, his immediate appraisal was that he had found paradise.
For a while even the natives - warring people that they were - were friendly, and trading began immediately, with Cook and his men seeking food and water, and the locals wanting iron and, in time, guns.
Subsequently, the villagers would kill Cook. But the die had been cast, and Maui and the other Hawaiian Islands would forever more be a prime destination for travelers the world over, including generations of Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians and, most recently, countless white tourists wearing plaid shorts with dark socks.
Many of these visitors pay hundreds of dollars a day to travel offshore for big fish.
'If I had a boat I'd fish offshore, too,' Vegas said, leaving the obvious unspoken - that he and people like him can't afford boats.
But they can afford a freshly cut bamboo pole, a few beers and a loaf of bread for bait.
When their wives allow it, they can also afford to scramble down a cliff and camp on a beach, make a fire and cast lines as far as they can into the blue Pacific.
The other day, a visitor to Ke'anae Peninsula had a fly rod and reel in his rental car, with a line backed by a couple hundred yards of braided Dacron.
Quite how he would cast from the hardened lava into the foamy breaks, he wasn't sure. But he was game to try, and that night, on the beach where he stayed, he rigged the rod, tied on a fly and, with dark intent, eyed the ocean beyond and the fish it held.
Vegas and Nobriga had figured out how to catch fish from shore, and in time, he thought, he would, too.
SHORE FISHING IN HAWAII
Today: Shore fishing in a land born of lava requires ingenuity and sometimes a bamboo pole.
Saturday: When fishing slows, do what Hawaiians do: surf.
Sunday: Maui is home to the world's oldest sporting clays course, housed in a crater and overlooking an ocean.
