One of the often-overlooked pleasures of the Big Island is the availability of fishing from the shore as opposed to chartering fishing vessel. I like to keep my feet on the ground when I fish. I take a collapsible rod with an open-faced reel (heavy line just in case). I stop at the supermarket and pick up a pound of shrimp and a pound of squid. Take some hooks, a few weights and a bobber and you are in business. We just got back from a week at Paniola Greens, Waikoloa Village and spent quite a bit of time going up and down the Kohala coast and checking out the fishing spots.
The best place that I found was at the mouth of the harbor at Kona. I caught five broom fish, about 20 to 30 inches long. They are also call bait stealers because for every cast they will get your bait off your hook 24 times out of 25 tries. I also caught other fish, but never found our their correct names. To me fishing is as much fun as swimming, snorkeling, or lounging at the beautiful beaches. We went to about 30 beaches on the island and it looked like I was the only mainlander fishing. The other fishermen were locals. The joy of fishing in the ocean is that you never know what you will catch and challenge is to see if you can keep from losing your bait. The fish there have sharp teeth and I lost a lot of hooks when they bit through the line.
Our unit at Paniola Greens was beautiful and the only drawback was that it is about six miles from the ocean.