North 40 Fly Shop eMagazine February 2015 | Page 24

Upon touchdown you notice a large 1970’s
something fire truck (the only one on
the island) with oversized tires and lights
flashing, waiting to greet the plane. When the
plane comes to a stop, a lone man pushes
a stairway to the plane. After de-boarding
we take a short walk to the “VIP Lounge” to
clear customs and buy our fishing licenses.
During this walk, kids are hanging on the
fence looking at the weekly entertainment
of new people and watching the plane
land and take off. I talk with a few people
that have been coming to the island for 30
years, and they inform me that nothing has
changed. After clearing customs we are
met by an open air truck that will take us on
a 30 minute ride back to the Ikari House.
Arriving at the lodge, we quickly unpack our
gear and get things organized for the next
week of fishing. Priority for this day is to eat

as much fresh tuna and wahoo sashimi as
possible and watch the sunset with a cold
beverage of choice. Life is good.
The second day we plan on going out blue
water fishing for tuna, wahoo, GT’s, mahi
mahi, sailfish, and whatever else decides to
hit our gear. We head out of the lagoon in
our 32 foot open boat powered by a Suzuki
140hp engine. These boats are much
faster than the traditional style outrigger
boats and are also more reliable. Fishing
offshore, we were expecting 3-8 foot rollers
with chop—and we were spot on.
The day starts out pretty slow for us. We
fish pretty hard for about 2 hours with only
a few fish, including 1 wahoo on gear, so
we switch gears and try for some large
milkfish. After about 30 minutes of non-