Ahi Fever 2009 Lur-Ker
(Winner Largest Ahi of The Tournament)
By Leland Nogawa It was Sunday, the second day of Ahi Fever and things weren’t looking very good as we started getting LurKer ready. The weather forecast called for winds of 20-25 knots and wind waves of 8-10 feet. When we got to the harbor, the wind was gusting. We were all still sore from the beating we took on Saturday so as we got the boat ready, Lane, Lon, and I were trying to figure out where to go. We wanted to head to C.O. bouy and then go out from there, since we got some good advice from our friend Ryan on Saturday which paid off with a 148 pound Ahi. We finally decided to go straight out as far down as we could go, then work our way back to calmer waters in the afternoon. Around 6:30 we saw a nice bird pile with Ahi busting at the surface. Our spirits were high as we made our first pass. After about a minute, the center rigger slammed down and our brand new Shimano 80 started screaming. We looked back and saw the ahi busting behind the boat and a huge sickle behind our long rigger. Unfortunately our center came off and the long rigger never set. Bummed that we lost both fish, we continued on our way to Ka‘ena Point, extremely discouraged. We thought we lost our only
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Lawai‘a Magazine
chance at catching an Ahi for Day 1 because we began experiencing the all too familiar pounding you get when you turn the corner at Ka‘ena Point. We decided to turn around and slide back down on the 1,000 towards calmer water when we saw another nice bird pile. We followed it for a while and saw other boats around us hooking up, but we couldn’t even get a knock down. It seemed our best option was to go back and look for the fish we saw earlier in the morning. We were all by ourselves in the middle of nowhere and the water looked pretty dead, so Lane decided to take a nap as Lon and I tried to figure out where we were going to go. At about 8:30, the center rigger with a 12” Futa straight runner came crashing down again and the beautiful sound of the ratchet got Lane up from his nap. Lon jumped on the pole as Lane and I cleared lines. We decided to clear all the poles and put them on the roof since we didn’t want to take any chances of getting tangled. We were all very thankful for the custom rocket launcher that Garret had made for us the previous week and it worked perfectly. By the time we had all the poles cleared, the fish had run out over half the spool on our Shimano 80. We began to slowly bring the fish in. Lon hand-lined as Lane and I took turns cranking and driving the boat. About half an hour into the fight, the fish settled under the boat and we couldn’t get it to come up. After another 15 minutes of circling around the fish, we began to see color. Eventually the fish got to about 20 feet from the boat and got stuck again. This stale mate lasted for about 5 minutes as we all prayed the hook wouldn’t pull. We still had no idea how big the fish was. Lon said it felt bigger than yesterday, but it came up in about the same amount of time as Saturday’s fish. Lon finally grabbed the leader as Lane and I stood ready with the gaffs. As the fish surfaced I gaffed the fish and held on with everything I had until Lane got his gaff in. Lon placed a third gaff in and then we made several attempts to pull the fish in before finally getting it into the boat. We were laughing at ourselves that it took three of us to pull an Ahi into the boat. After celebrating we tried to estimate the weight of the fish. We knew it was big, but no one wanted to say anything. Lon, who was part of the crew on the Sweet Kimi II that captured the tournament record 224 pound Ahi, said that the fish came up to his chin. Lon is the biggest Japanese guy I know at 6’ 3” and 2?? pounds, but when he stood next to the fish, it didn’t seem as big as he remembered the 224 caught on Sweet Kimi II. When the fish came into the boat, it got wedged between our engine box and gunnels. It didn’t come close to fitting in the 6 foot fish bag, so we had to empty our fish box out and again, none of us said anything. The three of us somehow got the head into the fish box and the rest of the fish went crashing down with the tail portion still sticking out. Lane managed to force the tail portion in and we iced the fish. When we got in and saw the leader board we were just hoping to place. The leader at 229 lbs seemed untouchable and there were a lot of 200+ pound fish on the board. When it was our turn to weigh our fish, the crowd watching got a good laugh. When Lane and Lon tried to pull the fish out of the box, they struggled. They put two meat hooks in the head while an Ahi Fever volunteer helped with the tail portion. Their first attempt to lift the fish out of the box made the crowd burst into laughter. Lon fell down onto the engine box causing Lane to almost fall out of the boat. Upon further inspection, we all noticed the two meat hooks had bent. By now, we heard snickering in the background. Lon and Lane tried again and only could get the head portion of the fish out of the box. The crowd became silent as the fish was raised to the scale. I saw the scale quickly jump past 200 lbs and eventually come to a rest at 232.4 lbs. The official made the announcement to the crowd which caused them to errupt. The three of us couldn’t believe it. We caught an Ahi over 200 lbs. We would like to thank all the volunteers and sponsors at Ahi Fever for making it such a great tournament to fish in. A special thanks to Garret Noguchi for making our custom rocket launchers, Ryan Koga for the great information of where the fish were, David Shim for getting us hooked on trying to catch Ahi, and to all of our friends who helped us with the boat and gave us good tips. Also thanks to Dave Futa for making a spectacular Futa lure and Naoki Hayashi for going out of his way to print our prized catch. Most of all, thanks to our understanding wives, Ann, Lureen (Lur), and Kerri (Ker) who not only allow us to go fishing, but also give us their full support.