David Siskind | Sunday, 15 March 2026
Spent last Monday with Makani Christiansen. I was wrong about his service last week. He's a Marine not a sailor. We fished a big offshore shallow flat in Kaneohe Bay within sight of a well known sandbar where locals and tourists go to picnic and turtle-watch.
We set up bordering a web of shallow channels, that as the tide rose a few inches provided access to an even shallower flat. It was between knee and waist deep, a foot deeper than the flats in the Bahamas, but fish could still be spotted 100 - 200 feet way. Not all were bones - some were schools of goatfish, a few puffers and a handful of large milk fish.Makani said he has hooked four of the milkfish on little green veggi-flies over the past few years. He’s landed none.
At first I had trouble seeing fish but after an hour or so I started picking them out. I asked him to endorse my soft-gaze wide-angle search method and he did, adding that that’s how Marine pilots train. Also suggesting scanning “jerkily” rather than a smooth sweep - more pattern disruptions can be detected in a momentarily still window than while smoothly panning.
We fished from the anchored boat and waded. I saw many good bonefish, scared at least seven or eight, conversed with a few and finally brought one to hand at the end of the day. A nice fish. The wind was 20 mph+ most of the day and of 50-60’ backhand casts were called for more often than not. It was challenging.
I love Honolulu. Could stay here. Also we went off and spent a couple of wet days on the Big Island - visited Volcano National Park (worth it!) and Hilo. Hilo is a charming town that doesn’t cater to or get many tourists. It feels good there but the weather stinks. Rains a lot.
Hawaii is so far from anything else. It’s time zone, also is isolating. And calming. I pretty much slept through the second week of the war. I don’t think bombing Iran made us all safer. That Pete Hegseth is a piece of work.
Tomorrow we fly back to LA. It’s going to be very hot for 8 or ten days. Perfect for activities at dawn. I need to practice what was close to working on the water. Mostly more effective hauls. And the right gaze for longer backhand casts. I’ll go to the river. I’ll go to the beach. See what’s what.
Cheers,
David Siskind