The 36th Big Island Marlin Tournament fishes this weekend. In the mean time, here are a cou-ple of“chicken skin” stories featuring some classic island characters you may recognize.
Six year old Fletcher Hibbard caught his first marlin recently while fishing with his family on board “2nd Offense.” If there is such as thing as time travel and reincarnation, I want to come back to the future as Fletcher. This kid is a walking streak of life loving enthusiasm and he spreads happy energy the way his mom spreads frosting on a cake. Who wouldn’t be a happy kid when his Dad is the skipper of “2nd Offense” and loves to take his family fishing?
Fletcher caught his first spearfish at 4 years old and is so keen that lure maker Steve Coggins sent him a starter set of baits, just for him. The other day Fletch chose a couple from the set, put them in a bag and took them to the boat. Fishing was slow so Fletcher continuously bugged Dad to put his lure out. Finally about noon Kevin relented. Shortly, Mom Cherise caught a feisty 300-pound blue and soon after, Fletcher got a bite on his lure. It was a small fish about 100 pounds, just perfect for the toe-headed kid. With a little help from deckhand Christopher Ishibashi, Fletcher had the marlin to the boat in just 15 minutes!
At only six, blonde Fletcher already has a nickname: The Vanilla Gorilla. Fletcher is good with that, saying, “I’m a savage!”
Step back world, we don’t how big he’s gonna get!
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Continuing with chicken skin stories and nicknames, a friend in Tahiti has a tendency to pontif-icate at great lengths. Some of our Tahitian friends call him “taata vaha,” which literally means “man mouth” but that’s not said in a mean way. Tourists love hearing his stories while sailing the lagoon and to locals he’s somewhat regarded as a member of the “arioi,” a society of old that rambled around the islands entertaining.
Captain Peter B. Wright earned legend status for his ability to catch giant black marlin along the Great Barrier Reef – and – for his verbosity. This earned him a moniker, “The Lauderdale Lip.” Pete often said that he was in the entertainment business first and the fishing business second. When fishing was boring, his entertainment skills saved many a trip.
Here in Kona, a local radio personality known as Kahikina “The Polynesian Pirate” has taken entertaining through the gift of gab to an entirely different level. Kahikina recently broadcast live on KAPA for twelve straight days — an unofficial record. On air, he and the community raised more than $65,000 for local nonprofits.
While trying to hang on to his sanity over the course of almost two weeks, he kept hammering home a simple point to listeners: Aloha is shared — it can’t be bought — and if you don’t share it in the community, you can’t truly say “I live here.”
AKA Tommy Ching, when asked how he came up with stuff to talk about for days and days on end, Kahikina said, “Mornings were pretty easy because the phone was ringing and people were donating and calling with encouragement. I fed off of that energy and it kept me going. About 11 a.m. it would go quiet and then it got challenging. I thought I’d run out of things to say, but a psychologist told me that once I emptied myself out I became a conduit for The Message: True residents here care about neighbors. If you truly live here, show it. Give. Give as little as a dollar. If you can’t even do that, then you don’t live here. You may have a house here, but you don’t live here. Earn it.”
Tommy paused to let that sink in, then continued, “Before I started the marathon, I had to train to prepare. Fitness Forever came through with not one but three different trainers. There is no way I could have done it without them. They taught me how to manage nutrition and my body. But about Day Four I woke up with no voice and pains where I didn’t even know I had places. By then we had caught the attention and imagination of the community, and the people pulled me through, again. The front office of the radio station was piled high with home made food and snacks that Aunties, Uncles, keiki, fishermen, hunters, all kine just regular people dropped off. All stuff I never asked for but they knew I needed. I asked them to donate money for the non-profits, and they did! But they also donated to me so I could keep it all going. Mean, yeah?”
Tommy said that there were too many chicken skin moments along the way to list, “Thankfully, many people stopped by to play music or just keep me company, which was awesome. I got a two hour sleep break at 3:45 a.m., but some nights I only made it because friends came by to babysit after they got off of work — at 1 o’clock in the morning!”
One thing Tommy did not see coming was that people would keep giving, even though the marathon was over. “I have family coming in town and they asked to go fishing. A golf buddy approached a friend to charter his boat. When he was asked “Who will be going?” my buddy started explaining who I was but he boat owner soon stopped him. “You don’t have to say anything more, I heard it myself, over the radio. Tell him my boat “Mauna Kea” is his. No charge!”
Good luck fishing Kahikina, you deserve a good fish. However; know in advance — as with aloha — marlin can’t be bought, no matter how many dollars or nick names you have. Marlin bite for guys with good energy, which should work okay for you. When it comes to good energy, you Da Man!
