LIHU‘E — It is nothing new for Charlie Pereira to have strangers approach him while he’s sewing fishing throw nets on the lanai of his Moloa‘a home. So when some O‘ahu visitors came calling, asking him if he’d like to
LIHU‘E — It is nothing new for Charlie Pereira to have strangers approach him while he’s sewing fishing throw nets on the lanai of his Moloa‘a home.
So when some O‘ahu visitors came calling, asking him if he’d like to attend a big meeting of fisheries folks on O‘ahu, bring samples of his nets, demonstrate his sewing techniques and talk fishing, he listened.
They didn’t even have to offer him and daughter Gloria Rafael plane tickets to attend the Hawai‘i Seafood Festival today and Sunday that precedes the 149th meeting of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, but they did.
So off they went.
Pereira, who with his late wife Loke Pereira were named Kaua‘i Museum Living Treasures, is a former Coco Palms Resort employee whose enjoyments now including sewing and repairing throw nets, fishing, and spending each Thursday morning cleaning taro and making poi at Waipa.
That poi-making was something he and his wife did religiously, and he carries on that tradition, he said.
At the Honolulu gathering, he will demonstrate his net-making techniques, display some of his nets, talk about the art, and talk about fishing on Kaua‘i.
“Fishing is good,” he said, adding that in Moloa‘a some of the holes that used to yield moi no longer do so.
He said he is encouraged that many young men on the island have picked up throw nets from him, and he mentioned Chuck Meek, a teacher at Kapa‘a Middle School.
Meek learned the art of netmaking from Pereira, sews “pretty good,” and paid tribute to Pereira by writing him a song, “Charlie’s Song,” the second such-named tune, the first coming from Larry Rivera.
Others pay tribute to his netmaking prowess by bringing him fish they have caught using his nets, he said with his wide, trademark smile.
Saturday and Sunday are the days he normally devotes to sewing nets on his lanai.
While on O‘ahu, he said he will visit the grave of his wife at Punchbowl.
James “Duke” Aiona, lieutenant governor and Republican candidate for governor, will attend the Fifth Annual Hawai‘i Fishing and Seafood Festival Sunday at 11:30 a.m., at Honolulu’s Fishing Village Pier 38.
The HFSF was created by the Pacific Islands Fisheries Group in 2005 to bring together the best of Hawai‘i’s fishing and seafood communities.
Attendees can visit with more than 100 local vendors, taste local seafood, watch live fishing demonstrations, tour a longline boat, or learn a new casting technique. Since its inception the event now attracts over 20,000 people each year.
The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council is one of eight regional fishery management councils established by the U.S. Congress through the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 (now called the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act) to manage fisheries in U.S. exclusive economic zone waters.
The Western Pacific Fishery Management Council manages the U.S. EEZ waters of the Hawai‘i Archipelago, American Samoa Archipelago, Mariana Archipelago (Guam and C.N.M.I.) and the Pacific Remote Islands Area (PRIA) — an area of over 1 million square miles.
According to the www.wpcouncil.org website, during its first 30 years the council’s accomplishments have run the gamut from being the first council in the nation to prohibit drift gill-net fishing and to develop an ecosystem-based fishery management plan to being the pioneer of the vessel-monitoring system (VMS) for fishing vessels, which is now being implemented in fisheries worldwide.
