The WAHINES of KONA

I came to Kona for one reason: to meet the professional female fishermen who all seem to be doing just fine here. And despite the relatively easy fishery and calm waters, it’s all fun and games until you’re hooked up to the big one. That’s where experience makes an entrance, and they must shine. Their reputations are riding on it.

You would be hard-pressed to make a don’t-do list when it comes to Kona, Hawaii. Trolling these waters is like quietly floating over a sapphire-blue cloak of velvet sprinkled with diamonds. There is a certain peacefulness here: a love for ohana—family—and everything that goes along with it. The people of Kona, specifically, are about as nature loving as you can get—minus the Birkenstocks—and it shows. There is no trash littering the roadsides, and practically every local eats sea-to-table. If you fish for a living, you’d be crazy not to make an appearance here, at least for one summer.

Traditionally, women of Hawaiian culture were restricted to foraging the shores, and only select men—called were permitted to fish offshore. However, as time passed and the European influence took hold, the rules were eventually loosened. Of all the places I’ve traveled, I have never seen more ladies in any one charter fleet. Kona is truly a professional female fisherman’s dream, but it comes with a price, and success does not come easily. These women, no matter how they got here, still have to prove themselves, a task I personally