Giant Trevally (Caranx ignobilis)

Species #6

**Unfortunately, a digital copy of this photograph for this catch cannot be made. I've yet to recapture another specimen to this day.**

I started traveling on my own at the age of 16. During the summer of 1998, I flew to Hong Kong for 1.5 weeks to obtain my adult version of the Permanent Resident Identification Card. Most of the airplanes at the time had shorter ranges, therefore, trans Pacific flights often had to stop in Honolulu for fuel. It was free to include a stopover in Honolulu back then and so I also visited my grandparents in Honolulu for 1.5 weeks.

This was my first trip outside of Ontario and a chance to fish in saltwater for the first time. With the little bit of allowance money I had saved, I bought a Zebco telescopic rod combo with hopes my family could take me fishing.

My uncle in Hong Kong had arranged to take me on a boat fishing trip. However, Hong Kong was hit by a typhoon and the trip had to be canceled. Due to the short 1.5 week stay, we did not have another opportunity to reschedule the trip.

Arriving in Hawaii and entering US customs was most memorable. I was a 16 year old arriving alone from Hong Kong with a large suitcase and a backpack. Since I had bought nothing in Hong Kong, I declared a value of $0 in goods. Little did I know that even gifts accompanying me had to be declared. In hindsight, it was no surprise that the custom officers pulled me aside to examine my belonging. However, they didn't had to be so rough on my gear as they ripped my backpack zipper during examination. They also taxed me $200 for gifts that my family in Hong Kong had bought for my sister and my parents. Thank God there wasn't any dried foods (common gift items in Chinese cultures) or else I might be in deeper trouble. This experience left me with a poor reputation for the US customs, and to this day, I still find their customs officers unnecessarily rude and abusive. Long live America...

My grandma knew about my passion for fishing. The morning after my arrival, she was going to the market at Chinatown and she suggested that I should try fishing the canal that ran through the area. I excitedly took out the telescopic combo and a small tackle box from my luggage and followed my grandma into town.

I was staying at my uncle's apartment and it was a very short walk to Chinatown. I had visited Hawaii previously when I was 8 years old, but my family stayed at a hotel in downtown Honolulu and we mostly met up with my grandparents downtown. This was the first time I had seen the non-touristy side of Hawaii and it was a wake up call. The area was certainly a little rough on the edges and I was told not to walk alone at night, especially around Aala Street where prostitutes and drug dealers were often working the street. During the day, it was much safer although there were a few homeless persons on the street.

The canal was the lower portion of Nu'uanu Stream where it entered the Honolulu Harbour. This stretch of canal was heavily channelized by the high vertical stone and concrete walls to prevent flooding. The water was very polluted and scummy. Schools upon schools of tilapia feed upon the algae-laden water. This was not the Hawaii that most people imagined.

However, on the incoming tide, the ocean did provided a flush of clean seawater into the canal. Some reef fish would enter into the stream mouth to feed. My grandma had bought a few shrimps for me to use as bait. I tried to fish some chunks of shrimp suspended under a float to no avail. I tried to slowly fish a chunk of shrimp on the bottom but hooked into a disgusting garbage bag full of sludge. The smell of that sludge was revolting.

I saw a few schools of juvenile mullet and thought bigger predators might be chasing them. Although I had been fishing for 5 years, my tackle box was scantly filled with lures. My parents wouldn't allow me to spend money on "costly" lures. The few lures that I had were secretly obtained from a friend who would purchase them for me. I had the red and white spoon that produced my first Rock Bass, a #3 Mepps Aglia in silver, a #3 Mepps Aglia Long in red/gold, and a couple of Beetlespin with jigheads and plastic grubs.

I chose the #3 Mepps Aglia since the silver blade resembled the mullet the most. The canal was at least 8 feet deep and the spinner would not run deep enough. I added a splitshot about 8" from the line to keep the spinner deeper in the water column. After walking and casting a good amount of shorelines, I was close to concede that this canal had no predatory fish.

Returning to a foot bridge where I started fishing that morning, I talked to a couple of local kids who said there were bigger fish in this canal. I made a few more casts from the bridge before deciding to tip the spinner with a chunk of shrimp. Surely, the added scent would only help to attract predators.

Instead of casting the spinner and retrieving it, I did something different. I dropped the spinner straight down and vertically jigged the lure. This was foolish in hindsight, since the blade and treble hook of the spinner would definitely tangle the line after repeated jigging. However, to a 16 year old, it somehow made sense.

I was working the bridge systematically from shore out into the middle of the canal. On the third drop, I was lifting the lure when a fish tug back with more force than I had ever experienced. Although my drag was set appropriately for smaller fish, this fish pulled out a lot of line quickly. My telescopic rod arched over and creaked in a way that I fear it was about to snap. Slowly but surely, I reeled in line whenever the fish tired a bit, and finally saw flashed of silver a couple of feet under the surface.

The 10" fish was surprisingly smaller than the fight would otherwise indicate. I had just caught my first saltwater fish. I knew this family of fish by its generic Chinese name, but I didn't know what it was called in English. The local boys that I spoke to said it was a "papio". Years later, I would learn that "papio" is the Hawaiian word for juvenile trevally (regardless of species). My grandma came to see my fish and she took a couple of pictures for me. Unfortunately, the fish was so small in the picture, and the photograph was printed on matted paper, that it was impossible to scan into a digital copy. It would take a few more years of searching and learning before I identify the species as the Giant Trevally. I gave the fish to the local boys since they seemed quite eager to keep it. In honesty, I wouldn't even consider eating anything out of that dirty canal. My first saltwater fishing experience taught me an important lesson:

Lesson #6: Saltwater fish are much, much stronger than freshwater fish. Do not ever underestimate them!

It was this one single fish I caught in Hawaii that sparked my interest in saltwater fishing. Living in landlocked Ontario, this meant my life was forever change by the call to foreign places where saltwater species can be found.

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