Holoholo: Huge Omilu speared off Oahu’s North Shore

Pono and I started chatting when he purchased a used Trident Ultra kayak similar but longer than mine. I was immediately impressed with how respectful he was, and how knowledgeable he was in things I knew almost nothing about. Hopefully this is just the first of many guest posts he shares with us.

Aloha, my name is Pono Estores and I’m an avid spearfisherman from Waialua, Oʻahu. Besides diving, I love to surf, cook, garden, and dance hula. Iʻm super stoked to have the opportunity to share my first story on this blog after reading it for so many years… Mahalo Scott! This story is of a rough morning dive where I shot a nice-size ʻOmilu. Just a couple of disclaimers first.

1. Although I may do it sometimes, please never dive alone!

2. I apologize in advance for any misinformation shared – I am no professional and may not always be right about things, but I will always share what I currently believe to be true.

With the summertime Oʻahu tradewinds back in full effect, the North Shore of Oʻahu has been experiencing a limited selection of shore-diveable locations. These would be the easily accessible and typically calmer beaches around Haleiwa where my usual target species of uku, mu, and goatfish are less common and/or act more skittishly due to the greater number of divers hitting those areas. In recent dives, I’ve just been three-pronging. I love steamed fish, but fried fish is good too. Most of what I’ve been catching has been going towards a friend’s upcoming baby lūʻau, the rest has been getting fried up for friends and family at home.

This morning, I took a gamble and decided to dive a spot that is borderline un-diveable anytime there are trades blowing. Oʻahu’s heavily pressured, so in order to find the best fish diving, I like to dive where others won’t. My plan was to wake up at 4:30am, leave my house around 5, hike about a mile up-current, jump in, then drift back to where I parked. When I have to dive solo, I like to leave home before my parents get up so they can’t ask where I’m going. They hate when I dive by myself (for good reasons – never dive solo!), and I’d rather them not know when I do, for their sake. I ended up sleeping in and leaving after they went to work, so much for that plan!

By the time I started my trek along the beach, it was about 8:15 am. The sky was partly cloudy, the water was visibly green and full of white caps, and it looked like a moderate NE swell was breaking along several different shallow reefs. Aware of the strong currents in the area, I thought it was best to leave my dive float in the car– instead opting for an easier drift with my kui (fish stringer) attached to my dive belt.

At around 8:40, I threw my old Gopro on my head, picked a few naupaka leaves, and started my usual pre-dive ritual of murmuring Nā ʻAumākua and Pule Hoʻomaikaʻi while scrubbing the inside of my dive lenses with saliva and broken naupaka to keep the glass from fogging. With that, I walked into waist-deep water, slipped on my fins, and was on my way.

Immediately, I could tell that the water clarity was less than ideal. The water was very green and full of particles kicked up by the swell and strong winds. I swam out about 500 yards, and in just 15 feet of water my vision from the surface was restricted to only seeing what was directly below me – I could barely see the bottom and did not want to venture off any deeper

than that. Fortunately, I was right about the direction of the current, and the NE swell was quickly pushing me back toward my parked car.

The first reef structure that I came across was full of life. I took a blind drop and was met by a nice fish pile with a small school of curious Joe Lewis goats (Munu), a large blue whiptail uhu, and many pualu, kala, and toau. I laid on the reef next to a low shelf to see what other curious fish might come in – my right hand grasping my speargun, and my left hand anchoring my body to the reef while the ocean swells above caused strong, undulating surges that I waited out on the seafloor. With the back of my throat, I made a couple of grunting noises, which brought a nice-sized barred papio out from the murk. I ended up taking a nice cheek-meat shot on a munu.

After dispatching my first fish and stringing it on my belt kui, I dropped back to the bottom to see what else was around. Looking over my right shoulder, I noticed a 6-foot monk seal coming in to check me out and it was only my second drop of the day. I do not like seeing monk seals while diving, especially in extremely murky water. I have had aggressive monk seals follow me all the way to shore, ripping at the fish hanging from my dive float. I immediately swam back to the surface and started to leave the area, watching the monk seal swim beneath me; zig-zagging effortlessly through the reef shelves below. I took the munu off my belt and swam away, leaving the fish behind, knowing that I was a visitor in the monk seal’s home.

The NE swell continued to push me back toward my car, and the poor visibility made it extremely difficult to dive. I took several blind drops with no success, drifting along the barren section of reef common across Oʻahu that I like to call “the flats”. Eventually, I came across another structure-y zone, with a small 20-ft deep underwater valley housing a large school of maiko.

On my way down, I noticed the silhouette of an ulua’s tail swimming beneath the valley wall to my left. I dropped with the surge and peeked through a small hollow opening in the reef to see if I could get another look at what I thought I saw. Solitary ulua typically swim away as soon as they notice you, so as soon as I saw that I did not have a clear sight on the fish through the opening, I adjusted my positioning so that I could peek over the reef wall that separated us. While shifting, I banged my gun on the rocks a couple of times because of the surge, I was worried that the sounds might have spooked the fish. However, I got another quick look at the ulua’s tail as it swam back under the ledge; it was doing circles.

I pointed my speargun in the ulua’s direction, readying myself to take a shot in case I decided to harvest the fish. The beautiful part about spearfishing is that you can choose what you take and have the power to decide which fish you want to bring home; if it were a white ulua, I wasn’t going to shoot simply because I didn’t feel like shooting a white ulua. I saw the fish begin to make its way out of the cave, saw that it was an ʻomilu, and quickly aimed my 100cm Seac and pulled the trigger. I wasn’t sure how good my shot was, so I loosened the drag on my reel while swimming back to the surface.

I saw that my shaft did not exit the other side of the fish, so I quickly swam down with my knife in hand to secure the fish. After just a minute of fighting, the ʻomilu was already tired by the time I swam to retrieve it, and it did not fight when I grabbed it by the tail and brought it to the surface. I quickly dispatched the fish, cut its gills to bleed, and made my way to the beach. Luckily, no one was around to see my catch. I hurried back to my car, threw the fish in my trunk, and took it home. The spot will stay under wraps! Hope you enjoyed it, thanks for reading. Dive safe.

Glossary:

Shore dive: Diving by swimming out from shore without the use of watercraft

Blind drop: Doing a dive where you do not see the bottom or do not see the target species–just going

Nā ʻAumākua