The Family watched silently as Man destroyed. Man came one morning, riding large birds. The birds, marked with red circles, dropped their eggs and it brought harsh sound and flames. When the day ended, many of Man were dead and the scent of fire and burned flesh drifted across the water. The Family returned to their sandy burrows to feed and to grow the species.
*****
In early December 1941 the Army Corps of
Engineers was about 10 percent complete on the dredging of
three massive seaplane runways at Keehi Lagoon in Honolulu.
Dredging was intensified after the attack on Pearl Harbor,
with as many as nine dredges working on the project. The
runways were useable by late 1943 and completed in
September of 1944. More than 10 million cubic yards of
dredged fill was placed nearby.
(Aviation.Hawaii.gov)
Keehi Lagoon seaplane runway
circa 1944.
*****
Life is strong. Where there was once
acres of sterile sand and coral fill, life began to
flourish. Plants began to take hold, their roots allowed
sand and silt to accumulate as the tides ebbed and flowed.
Eventually small islands, surrounded by huge shallow flats,
appeared. Bonefish fed on a plentiful supply of
invertebrates and crustaceans. Birds arrived to nest. The
Family followed. Then Man arrived. Fishing shanties made of
discarded plywood, steel sheets and plastic went up across
the shallow flats, resting on crooked stilts so the rising
tide would not flood the makeshift homes. Life was simple.
Life was good.
*****
For a while, man and The Family happily
coexisted on these remote sand outposts. Man built more
ramshackle shanties and small fishing skiffs appeared. The
Family gladly ate whatever Man left in rusty, discarded oil
drums or in shallow pits filled with trash. Fishing was
good and food was plentiful for everyone. Although nobody
can accurately pinpoint the cause, this peaceful
relationship suddenly turned ugly.
Was it Man's historical social repulsion towards rodents?
Others claim it just got too crowded on the tiny piles of
sand and coral. Whatever the cause, the conflict erupted
into full scale warfare between Man and The Family of rat.
Fighting escalated from poisoned food and crude wooden
traps to illegal explosives, flamethrowers and automatic
weapons. Fire and steel versus quick reflexes, claws and
razor-sharp teeth. The carnage was horrendous. The body
count astronomical. But in the end, Man yielded to the rat.
The shanties are gone but the rats remain -- always
watching. But rats don't like salt water and the numerous
Barracuda cruising the shallow water keep the rodents
landlocked, which is good for fly fishing anglers because
the flats and mangroves surrounding these islets are also
home to gorilla-sized bonefish. If you're looking to catch
a trophy bonefish, this is probably the place to do it.
*****
SteveT and I set off on a day trip to an
islet called Rat Island in Keehi Lagoon, near Honolulu
Airport and the main harbor. As we approached in the kayak
I could tell this was bonefish country.
Wide, shallow flats and knee deep water surrounding tiny
islands overgrown with mangrove trees. At the edge of the
flats the reef took a sudden plunge into a deep channel
where oceanic bonefish would swim up on a rising tide,
looking for an easy meal on the flats or in the mangroves.
We quickly set up our fly rods and
headed out to fish the edge of a drop off. SteveT told
me he once got a huge take at this spot and whatever
was on the other end, he could not stop it. His Bauer
fly reel was cranked down to almost dead stop but the
fish kept stripping off backing until he could almost
see the bottom the spool. He was forced to break the
fish off or he might have lost everything.
The tide wasn't the greatest and we tried to avoid heads of
coral to get clean casts into the channel. However the
water was just too deep so we switched to a shallow water
game.
This was a totally different approach. In
the deep water, it was blind-casting to select areas the
bonefish used as their front door to enter the flats. On
the flats and in the mangroves, it was careful wading,
sight casting to large cruising bones in shallow, still
water.
SteveT outlined the plan -- separate, move VERY slowly and
always watch the water. Bonefish could be just around the
next bunch of mangroves so you had to be ready to cast. He
was right.
I was moving slowly along the perimeter of some juvenile
mangrove plants in really shallow water, a little over
ankle deep, when I spotted a grey-green shadow coming
straight at me. A large cruising bonefish was swimming
straight at me. I dropped the Size 6 Charlie 10 feet in
front of the oncoming fish. It slowly kept swimming, right
over the fly, and three feet past me on my left.
I pushed deeper into the low-growing mangroves. Coming
around a clump, I spotted another bone. This one was huge
but it was too close -- just six feet away. I couldn’t
cast. The tip of the fly rod extended way over the fish. I
tried to slowly dap the fly but all I got was a huge puff
of sand and an ass shot at a quickly departing fish. I took
two steps, then dang, that fish came rocketing back at me
around a small mangrove clump. I tried a short cast but
lined the fish.
After getting my heartbeat under control,
I moved onto a wide sandy area dotted with fewer mangrove
clumps. I passed some wreckage of what used to be a
makeshift camp or home, now collapsed and overgrown
by the mangroves. I saw a school of bones approaching. I
made a cast and one of them rushed the fly. It stopped.
The tail went up, the nose went down. Strip strike.
Nothing. The fish nervously circled the fly. The nose
went down and the tail went up. Strip strike. The
bonefish took off for the channel and the school
followed. This goes on for the next 30 minutes as single
bonefish or small schools march past my position.
I meet up with SteveT and he
reported no hooked bonefish, just a Barracuda. As we
stood there talking, two bonefish approached us head
on. I threw a cast and landed it 10 feet in front of
them. They swam right over it, not even stopping to
look. I picked up and made another cast. They ignored
it again and kept swimming toward us. I made a third
cast and lined them. Both fish took off, leaving two
puffs of sand.
The tide was now getting really high and the wind was
picking up. I had a dinner party in town so it was time to
leave. As we push off the reef I was bothered by the
feeling that we had been watched all day by hundreds of
cold, dark eyes.
EQUIPMENT:
We used 8 and 9-weight rods
and floating weight-forward lines. We used an assortment of
crab and shrimp flies from Size 2 to size 8.
A recent satellite image of
Keehi Lagoon and what remains of the seaplane runways. At
left is Dan Inouye International Airport and the reef
runway.