Moano goatfish, commonly called moana, are fairly easily caught from shore, kayaks and boats in up to 130ft of water. They do have the soft meat shared by kumu, moana kali and munu (Joes) but are not as prized because they are a smaller species with smaller bones, and maybe not as sweet a taste. Commonly fried or steamed, you normally have to carefully pick through the meat to avoid the bones.

I recently caught a big moana that had a lot of meat and larger, easier to avoid bones so I kept it.

Look what I found in its stomach! It still ate a larger CHL soft plastic lure even though it had just swallowed some kind of wrasse. No wonder the fish shaped lures work so well.

My neighbor Brian wanted to fry the moano for his young kids so he filleted the fish, and cut out the pin bones from the fillet. He then dipped the boneless fillets, center bone and pin bone sections in egg yolk, rolled them in flour and deep fried them.

The kids ate the boneless fish sticks and the adults crunched through the deep fried bones. Was ono and a great way to minimize the risk of getting bones stuck in your throat!