O'ahu Hawaii August 2016

An epic tale of two and a half day of GT fishing that took place on US soil, Yes GTs in Hawaii and the fishing is out of this world!

We were invited to fish Oahu island with Charles from GTFC, this wasn’t the first time for the Salty crew as Raymond, Evan and Andy have fished with him in the past and they assured us how good the fishing could be, so it was time to witness this amazing new location!

Paul tagged along with me on this trip and I am so happy to witness the epic battle between him and the GT! Paul broke his personal best and landed a monster on the El Maestro 82M Prototype which is the lightest rod model from the El Maestro series!

We fished with Pat Victorino on our first day and we totally had a blast with him, it has been a long time since I fished with Pat and it was a pleasure to tag along and fish together again.

We headed out at 4:00AM under the radiant full moon, whilst saying to myself “GT fishing on a full moon?” Charles kept assuring us that we are going to have a blast and that we’re about to have an amazing day on the water.

True enough, the magic began… We started our drift from the shallows and worked our way to deeper depths, casting stick baits and poppers and getting hammered right away, I believed we caught fish on the second drift and it only got better and better as the day went by, when the current started ripping Charles asked us to send heavy sinking lures so we all switched to sinking lures.

The payoff was outstanding and I landed a beautiful fish followed by Pat, the size and the battle of those hefty fish coming from the deep is amazing, they’re stud rounded like a bull and full of energy.

Pat, with all the cheers and encouragement from all of us, “brawled” to land his fish which was the biggest landed for the trip, I have to say that it was one the fattest GT’s I have ever seen.

We ended the day landing 14 GTs out of 31 hook ups, we were spent! but not defeated!

On the second day Ladd from GTFC joined us and it was the first time that we got to fish with Ladd, Awesome guy with so much modesty in him, the boys were refusing to cast and gave us the priority saying, “we come from far and that they wanted to us to have the most amazing experience.”

On the first light the bite was good and I nailed 2 fish from the deeper water on the sinking lure but the bite faded away after a while and we decided to switch to jigging,

While on the way to the spot we notice a football field of bait cruising on the top so we approached right away and we started casting to them with no love. Until I got a strike…

The fish took me in circles and I thought to myself if it was a Yellowfin tuna but as it got closer to the boat we saw stripes! A decent wahoo on the lure and it was hooked up properly and definitely not getting anywhere!

Charles is struggling with the gaff while the fish is going crazy, I raised the rod but the fish took a deep dive under the engine and resulted in a broken rod, when we saw the scene later on video in slow motion, we could see that it was almost impossible to get away from the situation unless I had reacted fast enough to get the rod out of the gimbal and point the rod down but the fish was way faster than me to react at that kind of speed.

The day went by and we did not stop casting, hoping and thinking that it is going to pay off soon, the keep casting and never give up attitude came in furiously from Paul and it paid off!

While Paul casted his Hammerhead Cherry Pai stick bait and working it at approximately 40 feet from the boat we saw a humped head charging and a huge boil in the water that looked like a truck had fallen from the sky, we knew that the fish locked on and not leaving without the lure in its mouth! He hooked the fish on the El Maestro 82M paired with a 60lb Jerry Brown Hollow line attached to a 130lb twisty leader with 120lb Fluorocarbon leader.
The fish peeled line out of the Shimano Stella 8k like no tomorrow but settled for a bit and took advantage of the current and the moving water, she sure tested Paul’s skills in every way possible while we were all standing at the side with wide open eyes hoping to get a glance at that monster.

Paul worked the fish to the point where it seems he could no longer take it, but with all of us around encouraging and cheering him on he put in his last push of tenacity and started seeing the color of the monster.

It was big, fat and beautiful. Simply one of the greatest day to be on the water to watch that epic battle that took place on the water, I was on cloud nine so is Paul (maybe cloud 19 from Paul) and the rest of the crew.

Mission accomplished and on the lightest set up in the El Maestro range! we took a couple of quick shots and we released it safely to fight another day, our day could not get any better so we called the day off to cherished the moment and rewind the day!

On our last half day Paul decided to hit the flats (which is his first love) with Ladd in search for bone fish.
Charles invited Hidaka-san from Fish Trippers Village to fish with us, so again we met at 4:00 AM and headed out under the cover of the full moon, it was too early in the morning and we ended up sitting on the water chatting, waiting for the light to come up.

On the first drift Hidaka-san got a massive strike on his Tango 240 stick bait, the fish cleared the water completely to nail his lure but the unfortunate happened and his line parted leaving the lure floating on the top, that was a good start.
I was fishing stick bait on the first half of my drift and switching to sinking on the other half when the water got deeper and that didn’t take long before I start nailing on the Siren Deep Seductress one after another.

We fished till 11:00AM and had multiple shots on a descent size fish, we worked as a team to raise the  fishes and trigger bites from the deeper water to top water, it is amazing when you have a group of anglers knowing what they ‘re doing, Hidaka-san get multiple shots too and manage to get his fish for the day.

All good things must come to an end and all of a sudden Mama Nature turned on us with an angry look in her face, the wind started blowing and it was a sign for us to head back, satisfied beyond belief!

I recognized Hawaii to be one of the best GT destination I have fished in, when we headed back in, we got news that Paul landed his first Bone fish as well, all thanks to Ladd for guiding him through the flats and  into the fish!
Paul and I want to thank Charles from GTFC for the invitation and the hospitality, I am speechless buddy, Thank you!

Tackle used:
Rods: Race Point 250, 200, 150, Carpenter, Ripple Fisher, El Maestro 74XH & 82M
Reels: Shimano Stella 18k, 14k, 8k
Lures: Siren Deep Seductress, Bolt, Carpenter Pandora & Zeus, Amegari, Hammerhead, Strategic Angler
Line: Jerry Brown Hollow, Power Pro Hollow
Hooks: BKK and Shout

  Tight lines

   Sami & Paul