February 4, 2016

2016 Hawaii - Hawaii (Day 14)

An early flight took us to Kona. On the way to the hostel, we checked out a couple of spots. At the end, we decided to fish around the Keauhou area.

To our surprise, we found two large school of Brown Surgeonfish, aka Lavender Tang, by the dock. Unfortunately, we forgot the bread back at the hostel and the stale bread we bought from the restaurant couldn't stay on the hook. I dug around slice after slice and finally found a fresh corner from one slice. Luckily, the Brown Surgeonfish were hungry for bread and it took only one good slice of bread to catch one.

Brown Surgeonfish (Acanthurus nigrofuscus) - Species #528

Not long later, I lost a strong fish to the coral. It appeared to be a Barred Filefish.

Michael went to get a loaf of fresh bread and soon caught his own Brown Surgeonfish.

Without any more new species around to hunt, we decided to fish the rocks. When bread was chummed in the water, we saw black coloured fish quickly attacked the bread on the surface. It took no time to catch these Black Triggerfish.

Black Triggerfish (Melichthys niger) - Species #529

We saw some large Butterflyfish among the hordes of Black Triggerfish. We had to fish next to the rocks at our feet to keep the bait away from the Triggerfish in order to catch these Butterflyfish.

Lined Butterflyfish (Chaetodon lineolatus) - Species #530

We tried to fish smaller baits around the rocks but found no new species. I went further and found a tidepool with a Brighteye Damselfish. It was initially very shy, but with enough patience I was able to get it to take a small flake of shrimp on the tenkara rod.

Brighteye Damselfish (Plectroglyphidodon imparipennis) - Species #531

I saw a very small Moray under a rock and in a moment of haste fish with a #8 hook and 10lb fluoro. It was so small that I thought it would be possible to pull it out quickly without much issue. My gamble ended up in heartbreak as the Moray pulled back into the rock and finally wore through the light leader. Lesson learned.

There was another Moray I spotted in the rocks. I gave Michael his turn for the eel but the hook pulled out twice. I had a turn after and the eel kept holding onto the bait without getting hooked. Finally, it decided it had enough and stopped biting.

Michael poked around another tidepool and found some Whitespotted Frillgoby and a Zebra Blenny. The Zebra Blenny did not want to play for me, but I did get a Whitespotted Frillgoby. The pictures were terrible as we were losing light, but I am confident about the identification of this fish. One day I will catch another for better pictures.

You could almost see all the scales that reach the eye.

Whitespotted Frillgoby (Bathygobius coalitus) - Species #532

Before we lost light, Michael went back to give the Moray a try again. This time, we managed to hand line the Moray out using 60lb leader and Michael caught his Paintspotted Moray, aka Peppered Moray.

We tried the rocks by the dock for a few hours and found two Paintspotted Moray in the same hole. They bit over and over but the Moray either got us stuck in the rocks or the hook pulled out. Eventually, the tide rose and the Moray disappeared.

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