JUST LAY ON THE BEACH, NEVER!! - Doug Campbell

[Terry_Green]

JUST LAY ON THE BEACH, NEVER!!
by Doug Campbell

It all started when I walked by the Black Widow table in St. Louis at
the Professional Bowhunters Society gathering in March. My buddy Allen
Tennis was speaking to this Hawaiian looking dude and I stopped to
visit. Come to find out after Allen introduced us, I was talking to
Walter Naki from the Island of Molokai. Anyone who has read Don
Thomas’s stuff on hunting Hawaii will recognize Walter’s name.

I was immediately all ears. Allen was in the process of trying to work
out a deal for a hunting trip to HI. The wheels didn’t really start
turning till Walter said he had to run since he had promised himself a
custom made knife this trip to the mainland. Well I just happened to be
a custom knife maker and soon had Walter up to my room where I had a
case full of knives. Before it was over we had agreed on a deal to swap
a knife for some hunting time in Hawaii.

The next three months flew by and before we knew it we were on a plane
headed west, a long way west. Everyone, especially Allen and I, were
excited and looking for a great adventure on Molokai. Karen and Le Ann,
our wonderful wives were humoring us the best they could. Kind of like
patient Grandmas waiting for the kids to work off some of their excess
energy.

The first adventure definitely wasn’t what we were expecting. We
stopped at a little gun shop to obtain hunting licenses. About half way
thru filling out my information Mel, who owned the place, suddenly
realized what day it was. Seems the fiscal year for Hawaii Fish and
Game ends on June 30th, it happened to be June 28th. Mel insisted if we
wanted to hunt the next five days we’d have to purchase a current
license and the new one, which became valid July 1st . Get the picture
of how it was starting out? We wound up buying the future license after
finding out Walter wasn’t going to be able to take us out the next day
anyway.

We met with Walter that night and made some rough plans, it was very
hard to get anything nailed down. The laid back attitude on the Island
doesn’t call for getting very serious about anything. We quickly
learned that planning and sticking to a schedule was going to be
difficult.

A couple days later Walter picked us up at daylight and we headed out
to get a pig. We drove up the coast a few miles and stopped at a small
house just off the beach. Walter introduced us to Dodge, who it turns
out was born in the back of a Dodge. Dodge was the owner of a unique
torture devise, which was the remains of an old fiberglass bodied dune
buggy. After pumping up the tires and adding half a Clorox jug of gas,
Walter and Dodge jumped into the bucket seats. Allen and I were
instructed to climb onto the fenders. We wrapped one arm around the
roll bar and tried to hold our bows out of harms way with the other. Up
the mountain we went, my biggest regret was forgetting my spurs, sure
could have used them riding that bronc. We headed up a twisting, washed
out trail dodging around a wrecked truck and several boulders on the
way. Ten or fifteen minutes later, (it seemed like an hour), we reached
the end of the trail. Time to start walking, (if I could), the wild
ride had saved us about an hour of climbing.

Three hours of rock climbing, wading knee-deep mud, and hacking our way
thru dense jungle we were in pig country. It was beautiful and well
worth the climb till the clouds descended on us, visibility went to
about 40 yards and it started raining off and on. Walter and Allen
headed in one direction and I in the other with plans to rendezvous in
a couple hours if we could.

Occasionally the clouds would rise and the mountains would beckon me
on, two hours later I hadn’t even started to the meeting spot. Plan
two, meet back at the starting point for the decent back to the beach.
At first getting wet wasn’t a big deal since we were soaked from the
climb but after three hours I was beginning to feel the chill. Even on
a tropical island it’s still cool in the mountains. I stopped to rest
and eat a granola bar, leaning my bow and quiver against a dead snag, I
had just stepped away a couple steps and out walks a big black boar at
15 yards. Well _____!!! I eased back to my bow and quickly as I could
got an arrow on the string, he was 25 yards away. This is about the
limit of my range so I grunted and he stopped turning perfectly
broadside. The arrow looked good till it went just under his chest,
well ____!! again.

I was chilled and frustrated so decided to head back down to meet the
guys. Turns out Allen had a chance but missed a longish shot too. Since
it didn’t look like it would clear off for a while we decided to head
back down. Two and a half hours of slipping and sliding later, a good
portion of it on our backsides, we were back at the pickup point for
the dreaded ride down the mountain. After catching a couple more rides
we made it back to our condo.

We both wondered if we’d be able to walk the next day but didn’t get
one bit of sympathy from our wives. The ruggedness of the high country
is awesome, very few people ever go up there so it is relatively
untouched.

The next day we headed for what came to be known, by us at least, as
Goat Mountain. After being dropped off in goat country we only went a
couple hundred yards when Walter started pointing out sign everywhere.
He decided we didn’t need him in the way and sent us on up the mountain
alone. The goats were literally eating everything in sight. There
wasn’t a single tree or scrub that didn’t have at least some of its
bark stripped off. We got into goats almost immediately. After a blown
stalk Allen and I decided we’d be better off splitting up. There was
very little time the rest of the day when you couldn’t at least see
goats somewhere. Most of the time they were several hundred yards away
and staring back at us.

It was obvious from the start these critters were very spooky and
became more obvious as the day went on. The ground was practically
littered with shell casings and ammo boxes. This turned out to be a
favorite hunting place for the locals. I found 6 Axis deer and 10 or 12
goat carcasses.

Even though the goats were very wild we both got shots but brought down
no goats. I can tell you they are tough as anything I’ve ever hunted.
They’re eyesight amazed me over and over. More than once I would peak
over a ridge and have a herd of from 6 to 30 goats staring back at me
from a couple hundred yards away. We went after the goats a couple more
times and they seemed to get spookier. These Missouri boys were
learning some lessons in paradise.

These goats really need to be thinned out, they are literally eating
themselves out of the mountains. The high country where they are is
almost bare and they are working their way down the mountain. The high
power rifle seems the only way to thin them efficiently but they sure
are fun to chase with a bow.

Next came our shark hunt. We took one heck of a boat ride, up to 10’
swells in a 21’ boat, YEEEHAAA!! Thank goodness for those seasick
patches. I think this was a wilder ride than the dune buggy but not
quite as painful. We  anchored on the downwind side of the tiny island
of Moku Hooniki. The military used to use it for bombing practice and
the only sign anything was there was the whitish stains from birds
roosting on the cliffs. We gave the sharks a world class try, chumming
for several hours but to no avail. We did get to shoot a few smaller
saltwater fish Walter called chubs. These came in to our chum but no
sharks. We got to see a couple sea turtles and a herd of dolphins on an
equally wild ride back in.

That turned out to be the last hunting we got to do, it was time to
give the girls some time back in civilization. There is some beautiful
country and great hunting on Molokai but I wouldn’t advise going with a
rigid schedule or have any hard plans with the locals. If you go to
enjoy the country, kick back and hunt when you get a chance, you can
have a great time, life is very laid back, and no one gets in a hurry.