Earl Matsui’s 150-lb Dream
On Maui’s coast there are places where barren, windswept cliffs lie eroded like worn, gnarled hands of old fishermen. . . areas, grooved and crumbling, where determined footfalls of fishermen turn clumsy and falter.
The sea that lies before these lands is a dark blue expanse of cresting and wind-swept waves. Hissing, they fill the air with the spray and odor of warm salt, and, thundering with hollowed sounds, they rush pebbly beaches with blankets of white.
In the deep waters of these unforgiving climes, monsters live. They dwell in such places hoping that anglers will not brave the terrain to search them out.
Ulua fishermen who have watched countless #6/0 Senators being stripped and who have shuddered under the power and intensity of unforgettable strikes have long known of the existence of these deep-sea monsters. They have known, also, that one day one of the monsters would meet its match in a fisherman with the right combination of angling skills and accumulated fishing luck.
It was only a matter of time. But who the angler would be to finally grasp the elusive “holy grail” was anyone’s guess.
Then one day a call came through the phone line, and, after hearing the weight of the fish that Earl Matsui landed, a chill went up my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck bristled. The fish weighed only two pounds less and, coincidentally, stood only two inches shorter than the angler. The grand monster weighed 150 pounds and stood 60 inches from its head to the inside of its tail.
The first photo of Earl with his 150-lb ulua that I saw showed him standing on a tile block behind the
