Tobias has previously shared his experiences kayak fishing the Windward side of Oahu but had never caught the elusive yellowfin tuna. Until now.

Tobias Tillemans:

We launched in the dark and peddled out into gently rolling black ink with stars above and a yellow moon low in the west, shining through some thin clouds. Light shimmered faintly off the water, no sound other than the rhythmic swishing of the fins under my feet and my breathing. I followed Max of the Oahu Pelagic Pirates who knew these waters very well, but the akule bite was slow, and we each got only 1 or 2 before heading further out into a breaking dawn to find opelu, watched silently by birds perched on marine buoys. As night softened into dawn, I turned off my headlamp and put out a bait before taking some time to watch the light rise on Oahu’s north shore, a thin strip of habitable land below towering green hills, windmills, and cloud banks to the east and the taller and drier red Wai’anae Range to the west. It was more than 9 months since I’d been on the water, and I was particularly thankful, but those 20 minutes before the sun breaks the horizon are always the most arresting.

When I started kayak fishing, I had this mythical idea of the yellowfin tuna. It was the most beautiful fish I’d ever seen, the most delicious, and the proudest catch a kayak fisherman could make. As I got better at catching pelagic fish I got to know many other species and to appreciate all of them for their unique character – the sly and powerful ono, or the colorful, acrobatic mahi – and I learned that there are many proud catches besides the yellowfin. Still, though, every time I hooked up offshore there was the question: is this the one? Might I finally get to lay hands on a shibi? I would look for the distinctive ‘tuna headshakes’ and gauge the speed and power of each run. But it never was, and then, almost a year ago, I moved back to the mainland with my family. This was highly likely to be my only day fishing offshore this year. I am forever indebted to Bill Ho, my neighbor in Hau’ula, who met me over his lunch break to loan me an offshore kayak, rods, and everything else I needed to fish through the short visit I had on the island. His love of fishing out of a kayak has been an inspiration to me from the very beginning.

We managed a few opelu in the hour around sunrise, picking them out of fast-moving schools that passed under us. I dropped the akule deep with a 4oz weight on a rubber band and sent a fresh opelu 150’ back on a single 5/0 hook and 40-pound fluoro before we moved out closer to 200’ of water where I picked up another opelu and sent this one out on the deep line, replacing the akule. Occasionally through the first few hours the wind would build before losing heart and flattening out again. Every 20 minutes or so, cruising schools of bait would show up on the fish finder.

The morning just felt fishy. Every so often my top bait would completely bug out and fight for its life, peeling my feather-trigger drag. In these moments, I’d open the bail and lay the line across my finger, ready in an instant to drop the bait weightless and let the predator eat. But none of us were hooking up. The pink undersides of the clouds faded to peach, then white, and the ocean went from a brooding, purplish blue to its resplendent late-morning aqua. I was beginning to get comfortable with the idea of heading back to the marina refreshed and with an empty fish bag.

All of a sudden, I sensed panic in the bait, and draped the line gently across my pointer finger. Then it got hammered. I let the line scream off the open bail for about 10 seconds then locked it down, feeling out a conservative drag setting to slow the fish without risking breaking it off. I endured a jolting, sporadic initial run, and then a second. I’ve broken off too many fish in the past at this moment, misjudging the drag with several hundred feet of line out on a fish whose spirit is not broken. After the second run the fish settled into a deep clockwise spiral with gradually weakening runs and, though I’d not seen the fish, all this behavior had me hopeful this was the one. I decided I’d be fine getting sharked, or popping off, but I was not going to break this fish off. It took maybe half an hour before I finally saw the shimmering yellow radiating up from the fins of the fish rising in spirals towards me.

I removed my pedals so the fish could harmlessly spin under the boat, then waited for a circle close enough to kage (pole spear). In this situation I think the behavior of the fish will often reveal the presence of sharks, but I kept a close eye on the deep. The fish was within maybe 8 feet when it surprised me with another run, peeling off 50’ of line. Don’t break it off. I I worked the fish back up to the boat and, after several close calls, got a good opportunity for the kage. I heard the threading on the kage rod zipper through the fish’s gill plate, and the fish went stiff. I hoisted it into the boat between my feet.

I know now that where I normally fished was a big part of why I’d never landed this fish before. The windward side seems ecologically more suited to smaller tunas like the kawakawa or aku, while the broad bays of the north, and especially west, shores of Oahu are more suited to shibi. I’d fished those shores many times, but I fished so much by myself, peddling out into the darkness looking for bait and marks. I was lucky to be out this day with Max, an awesome guy and excellent fisherman, and I will be forever grateful to him for getting me onto my first shibi.