Monsters of Midway

There’s no mistaking the dark, almost ghostlike figure looming off the stern, casting an ominous shadow in the sandy shallows of Midway’s emerald lagoon.

The water is only eight feet deep. The shark, a tiger measuring about 10 feet, is sweeping a wide area, keeping its distance but obviously interested and easily discernible in water as clear as a backyard swimming pool.

Still, it takes a keen eye to spot the mysterious creatures swimming with the shark. Capt. Shane Sinclair has such an eye--seemingly in the top of his head.

“We’ve got GTs,” he says calmly, still looking down at the wahoo he has been cutting up and tossing over as “chum.”

“Tigers and GTs . . . Sometimes they hang together.”

Four giant trevallys, referred to here simply as GTs, are hanging with this tiger, two on each side, following its every move as if they’re its henchmen.

Gil Kraemer, 69, a San Juan Capistrano angler visiting Midway for the first time, looks at a third person on the boat, shrugs as he smiles and says, “Only at Midway.”

Indeed. Where else will a fisherman have an 80-pound GT delivered to within casting range by a 10-foot tiger shark?

Kraemer casts, he waits and he watches. Sinclair watches too . . .

*

This remote coral atoll, at the northern end of the Hawaiian archipelago, 1,250 miles northwest of Honolulu and halfway between the mainland and Japan, is as lousy with GTs as it is sharks.

Only at Midway are the larger of these muscle-wrenching members of the jack family found in such prolific numbers. GTs, found throughout the Hawaiian islands, Micronesia and into the Indian Ocean, are prized not for their flesh but for their fight.

You can load up the biggest reel with the strongest line and lock down the drag, but you’d better be careful. A big GT might pull you overboard.

“The GT is the most powerful fish in the world,” says Ed Hughes, 48, a renowned East Coast fly fisherman who helped pioneer near-shore fishing here after the atoll went public in 1996. “I’ve caught roosters [roosterfish], big jacks, bluefish, stripers . . . pretty much every species there is in that [near-shore] category. Pound for pound, it’s what brings me back every time.”

Chris Sheeder, 28, in his fourth season here, is an award-winning offshore marlin specialist, but he has had his run-ins with GTs.

“It’s hard for people in the States to understand that fish because they just don’t know about that fish,” he says. “Everybody in California thinks that yellowfin tuna is the most powerful fish pound for pound. These things are more powerful. They’re bruisers. Around here, they are the junkyard dogs.”

At Midway, the dogs not only hang with the tigers, they’ve been known to bully smaller reef sharks with their big, broad heads. Visiting anglers sometimes witness this phenomenon while setting up a chum slick on the outer fringes of the five-mile ring of coral that surrounds the lagoon.

As the chum starts going over, the food chain materializes in reverse order. The smaller chubs are first to show, then the smaller game fish, followed by a variety of reef sharks, then by the GTs and ultimately, on occasion, by large Galapagos sharks or even big tigers.

“This is the only place in the world where I’ve ever seen it go down like this,” says Hughes, sitting dockside, smoking a cigar and waiting for the fleet to come in. “It’s just crazy.”

Crazy indeed. You lose more GTs than you land. But the rush you get trying to stop one is unsurpassed.

“You’ve got to lock up the drag and let them know you’re honkin’ on him, but he’s going to run to the reef one way or another,” adds Hughes, who broke 22 fly rods trying to land GTs in his first season here. “You’ve just got to hope that spark of intelligence says ‘I’ve got a better chance going out [away from the reef].’ Then I’m off the ball [anchor buoy] and I know I’m going to get him.”

The scene plays out differently inside the lagoon, where GTs are harder to drum up but easier to land, as the water is shallower and there are fewer holes for them to sprint into and break your line.

During the summer, tiger sharks enter these shallows to feed on fledgling albatross chicks. This gives anglers another means of entertainment. Because the tigers often get sidetracked by the scent of chum, they sometimes end up at the back of the boat, enabling a few of the more island-crazy captains to realize their warped ambitions.

“My main goal is to pet tigers here,” declares Ron Johnson, 34, a bleach-blond, fair-skinned skipper who goes by the nickname “Opie.”

“I’ve already petted two of them. One was 14 feet. One was about 1,500 pounds. His head just barely fit between the two engines. But him I had to push back [off the transom] . . . That one scared me.”

Sinclair has his eyes on the 10-footer now making slow circles around his 22-foot outboard, GTs still in tow. “Come in a little closer, bad boy,” he whispers to the predator, flipping it a piece of wahoo from his knife. “Let me get a hand on you.”

Kraemer, still ready with rod and reel, shrugs again.

Only at Midway. . . .

*

Midway has become an interesting little fishing hole since opening to the public in 1996, after more than 50 years of isolation as a U.S. Navy base.

Though the Midway Sportfishing captains are still trying to figure out time cycles of visiting game fish and discover new places in which to drop their lines, there’s no question that this sun-baked atoll holds promise as a blue-ribbon angling destination .

Huge blue marlin, most of them females weighing 400 pounds or more, are often being found only a short boat ride away. Yellowfin tuna are so plentiful, at times, that they’re considered pests. Mahi-mahi add color and wahoo zest to an ocean that turns a spectacular purplish-blue beginning about July.

Within and on the outer fringes of the ring of coral surrounding Sand and Eastern islands are an abundance of reef dwellers, from small wrasses and angelfish to beautiful bluefin trevallys on up to the hulking GTs.

More than a dozen world records have been set here--mostly line- and tippet-class records for different trevallys--and more are expected to be set in years to come.

The all-tackle record GT is a 145-pounder caught off Maui in 1991. Bigger fish have been hooked here. One might be Pamela, the island pet, a whopping brute who has lived under the docks for four years. When she feels the sting of a hook she goes straight for the pilings. Nobody has yet to stop her, and many have tried.

But there’s much more to the Midway experience than humongous GTs. Fishing, for some, becomes secondary.

Only at Midway does one step off the boat each day and into a virtual sea of seabirds, notably laysan and black-footed albatrosses, which nest here by the hundreds of thousands. White terns flutter around like giant snowflakes.

Midway’s vast lagoon is as beautiful as one can imagine, sparkling with every shade of blue. The sun bounces these colors into the clouds, which soak them up and become flush with a musty green.

On offshore fishing trips, you lose sight of land less than 20 miles out, but you need no instruments to find your way back: You simply follow the green clouds.

Midway is spectacular for other reasons, of course. The renovated barracks that offer creature comforts such as cable TV are not among them. Nor is the gourmet French restaurant erected recently on a white-sand beach, although its seared ono and sauteed scallops are a wonderful way to cap a day.

Rather, to truly appreciate this three-square-mile plot of sand, grass and ironwood trees, one has to turn back the clock and consider all that went on here.

Midway is most famous for the World War II battle of the same name. On the morning of June 4, 1942, the Japanese bombarded Midway in an ill-fated attempt to occupy the atoll. The ensuing Battle of Midway resulted in the first decisive naval victory for the United States and crippled Japan’s naval air power.

Japan lost four aircraft carriers, a heavy cruiser, 253 planes and 3,500 lives in that battle. The United States lost one carrier, a destroyer, 150 planes and 307 lives. Some of the miliary buildings, a few bunkers, a pillbox and even an anti-aircraft gun still stand as grim reminders of Midway’s past.

Discovery of the atoll is credited to Nick Brooks of the Hawaiian ship Gambia in 1859. He named it Middlebrooks Islands, and when the United States annexed the islands in 1867 it simply became known as Midway.

Poachers after albatross plumage and eggs embarked on frequent raids before and around the turn of the century. President Theodore Roosevelt put an end to this in 1903 by putting Midway under the jurisdiction of the Navy.

That same year, the first contingent of the Commercial Pacific Cable Company arrived, the final segment of cable was laid, and on July 4, 1903, Roosevelt sent the world’s first around-the-world cable. The cable company building still stands too, barely, in need of some serious restoration.

In 1935, Pan Am World Airways set up an air base here for its Trans-Pacific Clipper Seaplane service from the mainland to Asia aboard the China Clipper. Then, things started heating up in the Pacific and U.S. Naval Air Station Midway was commissioned.

Today, Midway is a federal wildlife refuge, with a twist. Only through a unique cooperative agreement between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the privately owned Midway Phoenix Corp. in Cartersville, Ga., are tourists given the opportunity to visit.

The latter maintains the infrastructure and realizes most of the profits gained from tourism. The former keeps a headquarters it otherwise could not afford and is charged with maintaining and restoring Midway’s natural biological diversity.

It’s a delicate partnership. The more zealous among the scientific community here don’t appreciate divers or fishermen, whose activities they consider intrusive. But without the dollars coming in from divers and fishermen--some also come from ecotourists--there wouldn’t be funds to keep everything, most notably the airstrip, in working order.

As it is, that’s no easy task. Midway traps and purifies rainwater and can store 15 million gallons at a time. There’s no problem there. But gas comes via ship and scheduling problems have led to shortages. Boats break down and there are no parts stores anywhere close. Air-conditioning units, almost constantly running during peak summer months, work well most of the time, but not always.

“It’s those kinds of things, one after another, that really make you realize how remote you are out here,” refuge manager Ron Anglin says. “It is a hell of a long way from anywhere.”

*

More than 3,000 miles from home, Kraemer has seen enough of the shark, now only a few feet away, and is eager to get this GT thing going.

And get going it does. After more than 30 minutes since the sighting, the GT finally strikes. Kraemer’s line zips straight, his rod bends and he immediately gets pinned to the stern rail.

Though Sinclair fails to pet his first tiger, he jumps like one from the transom to the wheel. The third person has already freed the buoyed anchor line.

The chase is on.

Kraemer’s in luck. The GT is speeding away from the reef instead of toward it, like a runaway train, deeper into the sandy flats. Sinclair has gunned the throttle and is soon running alongside the fish, keeping the boat between it and any possible structure.

Kraemer, using the heaviest rig on the boat, pumps and reels, giving the fleeing beast no slack. After about 15 minutes Sinclair has his hands on the leader. The fight, strongly tilted in the angler’s favor by Sinclair and his speedy vessel, is over. The GT is brought aboard, tagged, revived in the current and eventually released.

Still trying to catch his breath, Kraemer looks up, shrugs and smiles again. “Well, wasn’t that something?” he says.

To which comes the obvious response, “Only at Midway.”

*

--For information about fishing, diving and natural history trips to Midway, contact Destination Midway at (808) 325-5000 or https://www.fishdive.com