Holoholo: Hiramasa on a jointed sunfish lure?!!

Hunter, a Middle Schooler, fishes all over Oahu and always manages to catch unusual, highly desirable fish!

Hunter: About 1 1/2 years ago on January 1 2018 I was fishing at my friends beach house at Laniakea. We started out fishing for bass in his private pond . We didn’t catch anything so we decided to move to the beach. About a week prior I was in Florida fishing from a pier when a kid approached me. He asked if I wanted his “Hawaiian lure” which was a bass lure that looked like a sunfish with a hook out of the top of the lure. I took it not expecting to use it.

Back at Laniakea, I saw the lure the kid gave me and thought it would be a good idea to try it out. I tied on the lure to my baitcaster that I recently got at Bass Pro Shops and started casting. The lure looked nothing like anything you would find here in Hawaii but I kept casting. After casting about 10 times a decided to move down further right. I casted my lure and started reeling and jerking the lure. Suddenly my pole started flexing and my line started to get taken. I pulled to set the hook and called my friend over.

I yelled “I got a fish”! Loud but my sister didn’t believe me. My friend came over and asked if it felt big and I said “heck yeah”. It was surprising a good fight lasting a good 4-5 minutes. When It got close we went towards the water to see what it was and saw a golden flash. We looked at each other thinking it was a pao pao but as we brought it up on the beach we realized it was a hiramasa (yellowtail that swam from Japan).

I was so excited and must’ve took 1000 pictures but somehow I only have 1 now. We brought it home and we fried it in lemon butter which made for a delicious lunch the next day. The only down side was that the next day I ended up with a fever and couldn’t attend school. Now that I think about it, maybe the lure looked like a kupipi?