Tax

There are many natural phenomena that pertain to the sport of spearfishing.  For example, the shifting of the tides, the migrational patterns of fish, and the symbiotic relationships between many of the ocean's creatures, just to name a few.  But there are also many societal phenomena that are less well known.  Like how people always want a closer look at long blades, or how security always gets called when you dive in the country club's koi pond.  But perhaps the least known and poorest understood of these phenomena is the way people gravitate towards a full kui (stringer).  It's easier to drag a side of beef through the lion cage at the zoo than to get a full kui from the beach to your car.  Perhaps rather than using a kui we should use grocery produce bags.  No one would ever stop to take a look at your newly acquired head of cabbage.  If we came out of the water with a bag of Hungry Jacks no one would ask for some, but people are just all too glad to relieve you of any excess fresh fish.  Take this recent story as an example:

It started one evening with me checking the weather forecasts: winds, waves, and second opinions on winds and waves.  It's what I do 90% of the time I'm not diving.  However, unlike the usual forecast of brisk tradewinds and high surf on the north shore, this time the prognosis was for light and variable winds and calm surf.  I had a number of things to do the next day, like clean the pizza boxes off my floor and attend to work which I had been neglecting even more than normal lately.  But those things would have to wait.  Working on a day like the one predicted could only be done by a spearfisherman in his right mind, and there's very few of those.  Besides, I needed to catch some fish to barbeque when my family got together on the weekend.  With that, my trip was justified.

The next day turned out to be just what they forecasted (I didn't expect that); the Pacific was like a giant aquarium.  A "touch tank" to be more precise.  Assisted by the great conditions, I filled my kui with 4 uhus (parrotfish), 2 mus (bigeye emperor), a nice kali (goatfish), 1 papio (jack), several toaus (snappers), and a few nice, red menpachi (soldierfish).  As I lifted all the fish out of the water the metal bar of the kui dug deep into my fingers, gracing me with the pains of a successful spearfishing session.

Unfortunately for my dive buddy, he had some technical difficulties, sinus difficulties, and lack of skill difficulties.  Like a kid on an Easter egg hunt he searched for a nice blue uhu, but when he came up empty I didn't think twice about giving him mine.  After unloading that fish I strained to drag the rest up to the shower.

There I saw my old friend Kimo, who had just finished paddling and was rinsing off.  He noticed my nice catch and remarked that it's been awhile since he had stuffed uhu.  Happy to help a friend, I parted way with one of the three, heaved the rest over my shoulder, and continued towards my car.  Visions of Chinese style steamed fish, baked fish, pan fried fish, beer battered fish, raw fish, grilled fish, and many more recipes danced through my head and tantalized my starved stomach.

I was stopped by a few people who walked from across the street wishing to take a look at the fish I had gathered just offshore.  Glad to show respect for the locals, I handed off a couple toau.  A lady nearby mentioned that she, too, lived across the street.  Accustomed to taking hints from women, I doled out the rest of my toau.  I picked up my kui, still fairly full, and moved on to the car.

Before I left I figured I should give thanks to the lifeguard for always watching over us.  I gave him a couple menpachi.  He thanked me for helping fee his family.  "I've got a biiiig family," he remarked pointedly, prompting me to pull a couple more off the kui.  "And my wife looooves sashimi."  Waving goodbye to my papio, I gathered what was left into a cooler.  I still had a nice variety of fish, so I headed to my dive buddy's house to drop him off and get more ice.

 While unloading my car, I found out his dad was setting up for a party.  The driveway, street, and some of the yard started to fill with cars of party guests, so I moved down the street a ways.  While I was gone, party guests, naturally attracted to coolers, discovered my fish.  Of course I wasn't going to refuse to donate my uhus to a good cause like a party.  One of the guests also requested a delicious mu be added to the menu.  I shrugged and watched the fruits of my 3 minute underwater tactical ambush disappear.  The danger of losing fish to sharks was beginning to look mundane and highly over rated.  Before I could leave I learned that the party was held to celebrate a birthday.  WIth a pick of any fish, it was obvious what the birthday girl would choose.  Having lost my kali, I grabbed the kui in my fingers and flung the remaining fish in the cooler, my spirit bearing the heavy burden of the light catch.

What was left was barely enough for dinner Friday.  Forget about dinner the rest of the week, or even that night.  I didn't have time to cook anyway.  Instead I just grabbed a pizza.  I heard winds were forecasted to be light, so I had to get home to dry my gear and call into work in preparation for the next day of diving.

Biggest Little Mu

For our part, Kurt and I had executed our game plan well up to this point; we just didn't have anything to show for it.  But now we were right on top of a whole pile of what we came for.  In the sand pit below us, two dozen mu waited to put us through a mental and physical test worthy of a Japanese game show.
The mu is one of the most alluring reef fish.  It may not have the brilliant colors of a blue fantail, but when you're close enough to see the scarlet lips and blue pattern around the eye of a hefty mu, there may not be a more beautiful sight.  Perhaps they lack the swagger of an ulua, and they don't flutter daintily like a hinalea, but their ghost-like hovering and red-light-green-light pattern of movement is nonetheless enchanting.  If you're not sold on any of that, there's always the "broke da mouth" flavor of broiled mu, which I've even heard compared to lobster.
For all those reasons, mu are one of my favorite fish to spear.  This was not the first Saturday morning I found myself jammed under a slab of reef 80 feet beneath the surface.  Like a lame pick up line, I've used this same maneuver to draw in some pretty nice mu.  I once even shot one to immediately witness its stomach get gnawed off by a shark, leaving just the good meat (I wish that happened every time).  But as I lifted my gaze to peer out from my hiding spot, I saw a mu unlike any I had shot before.
The day began hours earlier and miles away, as we freestyled over the reef in hopes of finding an ulua and winning the 6th Gene Higa Memorial Tournament.  As Kurt prepared to check our second house a diver popped to the surface, held up a steel pretzel, freshly made by a 30 pound ulua, and laughed while commenting his day was over.  Well, there goes my Fantasy Spearfishing pick, but if he's not going to win, maybe we still get chance!  However, more than two miles and three hours later, all we had found was dirty water and current.
Forty-five minutes before the time we designated for our return swim we dragged our float and empty kui over the mu pile.  If we couldn't win total weight, we could at least win the "Biggest Mu" category.  Kurt made a dive and shot a four pounder at the edge of his range and came away with only scales.  I dove next and chose a hiding spot in a cave, but although the mu were assuredly directly above me, I couldn't draw them down in front of the cave opening for a shot.  Kurt headed back down while I managed the float at the surface.  A couple minutes later I heard him call and hoist the tail of a large kahala from the water.  Hanapa'a!
We still needed a second fish- preferably a fat mu.  I swam up current and found a nenue house, a perfect blind for ambushing that second fish, that prize winner, that beastly mu.  As I mentioned earlier, I tucked under a chunk of reef and looked up to find several mu right before my eyes at point blank range.  The only problem was, these were not the big, buff mus I was hoping for.  But I didn't have all day, so I picked the biggest of the runts and pulled the trigger.  The poor little guy fought on the line, so I lunged from my hole and grabbed him.  As I clutched him in my hands I realized I had never shot a mu quite like this; this was by far the smallest one I had ever even considered spearing.  At 11:55, knowing we still needed another fish in the next 5 minutes, I cracked a misfortunate nenue and began the swim in.
Two years earlier I shot a mu around 3 pounds and was embarrassed to be photographed with it.  As I swam in I decided this year there was no way I was taking a picture with my pocket-sized, single-serving mu.  I planned to check at weigh-in to make sure someone else turned in a bigger one, then I'd put mine back in my cooler before anyone could see it.  But at the table Brad took one look and said, "Eh, guaranteed.  That's the winner."   It turned out not a single other mu was turned in!
I felt pretty conflicted about winning with such a lowly and inglorious fish.  Could I even accept an award for this?  Would they actually even be willing to give me one?  The situation called to my mind the fly ball hit by Carlos Martinez, which should have fallen harmlessly into the field of play, but instead bounced off the dense skull of center fielder Jose Canseco and careened over the fence for a home run.  Martinez really didn't deserve that homer, but he would have been crazy to try to deny himself the right to trot around the bases.  Fortunately, as I mentioned earlier, Kurt had caught a 21 pound kahala, allowing us to place second overall and liberating me from having to experience the same dubious honor as Carlos Martinez.
Although I was undeserving, I did get a plaque for the biggest little mu (they already had them made and all).  My family put it up in the kitchen.  Looking at it I can contemplate how diving allows me to experience so many contrasting facets that make life so intriguing: hard work and the pay off, embarrassment and hilarity, misfortune and uncanny luck, failure and success, lofty expectations, disillusion, and pleasant surprises.  At least the sight of my award in the kitchen would provoke these thoughts, if the smell of sizzling peanut oil on a freshly steamed mu wasn't so distracting.