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11/02/13
fly fishing hawaii:
chasing buutbuut.
fished
once this past week with e.t. and doug.
instead of the normal bonefishing, we decided to do something that we
had been planning to do for a long time but never got around to doing… trying to
catch the black trigger fish on the fly. we call
this fish the buutbuut (pronounced bootboot) because of the grunting sound it
makes when out of the water. it is a bit
of an understatement to say that the black trigger fish is not well liked by
island fishermen. they are the scourge of
bottom fishermen throughout the islands as they bite with such vigor and in
such numbers that it is often times difficult to catch anything else. but i have always had a soft spot for so
called “trash” fish such as our friend the buutbuut. in my trout fishing days, i secretly liked
catching whitefish as much as i did trout and my love for the red devil has
been well documented in this blog.
buutbuut on the fly was a no brainer for me.
buutbuut.
the buutbuut or black trigger fish
(humuhumu'ele'ele in hawaiian) is a cousin of the more famous humuhumunukunukuapua’a or wedge
tail trigger fish which is the hawaii
state fish. the humuhumunukunukuapua’a
(i call it humu for short) will occasionally eat a fly and i have caught quite
a number of them over the years. the
buutbuut, however, tends to inhabit the deeper reefs outside of the surf
break.
humuhumunukunukuapua'a.
the plan was to palu (chum) the
buutbuuts up to the surface and try to get them to bite a bread fly. i tied up a bunch of prototype “bread” flies
and we bought a few loafs of bread. five weight rods seemed appropriate for the “target” species so i went with the echo gecko. doug used his 5wt.
tfo bvk. using the fives were fun but still a little over gunned for my taste. next time i think i'll take a 3wt. anyway we loaded the “gear” into the
yellow bus and headed out to known buutbuut waters.
buutbuut hunting consists of a light fly rod, bread flies...
and bread.
we cruised around the
crystal clear water which was about fifteen to twenty feet deep until we
spotted the black shapes littering the reef bottom. we anchored and began throwing bread in the
water… it didn’t take long. like a pack
of wolves the buutbuuts came rising to the surface and began a frenzied assault
on the bread. i quickly threw my fly
into the fracus. a couple of fish
charged at the fly but stopped short of biting.
then one came up and chomped the fly with a little splash and i was on…
success.
doug got one soon after, but then the fish became very wise to the
game and wouldn’t eat the fly. they
would devour all the bread we threw and ignore the fly. we tried different flies and different
chumming techniques. the mamo or
sergeant majors that joined the frenzy would bite the bread imitation but the
flies i tied were too big to hook those guys.
we kept at it for a while and e.t. (who was the last one up to the
plate) finally got one to take. we kept
trying until the fish disappeared and wouldn’t even come up for the bread. after that e.t. wanted to go throw plugs for
g.t.’s so we let him have at it.
surprisingly he actually got one chase and hooked one that took off and
somehow shook his plug. we ended the day
successful, but with more questions than answers… fuel for the next time. i’ll see you on the water.
buut...
buut...
buutbuut on the fly... not as easy as one may think but definitely good times.
clay.