By Paul Lebowitz

August 2006

HAWAII - On the islands of aloha, giant trevally are more familiarly known by their Hawaiian name: ulua. Those three smooth syllables are this powerful jack’s only soft features.  Ulua sport thick shoulders, and blunt heads, and the brute strength that’s earned them another honorary title: beasts of the reefs.

Only their proximity to shore suits them for kayak anglers. The small paddle craft is a handicap, a liability when a fisherman is trying to cope with their typically vertical fighting style and affinity for rocky, line slicing refuges. These disadvantages did not deter kayaker Thomas Wyatt when he paddled out of Kailua-Kona’s Honokohau Harbor this August on the first day of the weekend-long Pete and Kelly’s Fifth Annual Big Island Kayak Fishing Tournament.    

Wyatt paddled just yards beyond the busy harbor mouth before dropping his first bait, a dead opelu (scad mackerel), towards the bottom at 90 feet. “Not 30 seconds later it was hana pa’a (hook-up)!” Wyatt recalled.

The powerful fish towed Wyatt’s Ocean Kayak Scupper Classic into deep water where his 30 pound test line was safe, far from the jagged bottom, but put the narrow kayak square into the path of a fleet of outgoing charter sportfishing and dive boats. Wyatt said the steep wakes and dicey chop came close to flipping him.

An anxious 40 minutes later Wyatt carefully hoisted the 86 pound ulua onto his deck.

BIG FISH, BIG WIN – Thomas Wyatt shows off a whopper of a winner, the 86 pound ulua that earned him first place in the Bottom Fishing division of the fifth annual Pete and Kelly’s Big Island Kayak Fishing Tournament. PHOTO COURTESY STEVEN C HEUSSER

“When it was finally sitting next to me I couldn’t believe it,” said the tall, slender angler.