Sweet tasting moi are the catch of the day. - Photo: Sterling Wong

By Lisa Asato / OHA Public Information Specialist

Aboard a boat at He'eia fishpond, Mehana Makainai calls out the weights of baskets of freshly harvested moi: “15 … 25 … 20 … 17 … 15 … we're over 400!”

Placed in red baskets for weighing, the silvery, slippery moi — just then culled from the brackish waters with a seine net — flipped and flopped incessantly, and Makainai seemed to relish the experience. A fiscal manager for Paepae o He'eia, Makainai and seven others had new assignments on the morning of Jan. 11 — to help harvest enough moi to fulfill 670 pounds of pre-sale orders for its third big community sale.

“The fish harvest is everybody's job,” said Taani Wolfgramm, of the Kū Hou Kuapā program of Paepae o He'eia, which recently received a $65,250 grant from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to support wall restoration and community workdays. “It doesn't matter what program you work under, we all work together when it's time to harvest fish.”

With the moi sale, Paepae o He'eia was fulfilling part of its mission to provide food for the community using values and concepts from a traditional fishpond. Constructed an estimated six to eight centuries ago, the Windward O'ahu fishpond saw the revival of fish cultivation within its walls in the 1990s by another group, and most recently by Paepae o He'eia, which received its first batch of moi fingerlings from Oceanic Institute in November 2005.

As for the moi being harvested on this day, they “came to us as little babies” 14 months ago, said Keli'i Kotubetey, coordinator of 'Āina Momona, the nonprofit's economic development program. As the catch was being placed into a cooler chilled with 500 pounds of ice, he added, “They're warm-blooded animals, so you want to get them cold as quick as possible just to keep them fresh.”

About an hour's worth of work produced a comfortable stopping point: 707 pounds of moi, approximately half-pound to three-quarter-pound each, the perfect size for one meal. Executive director Hi'ilei Kawelo welcomed the harvest as a respite from the endless physical work of restoring the fishpond's 6,500-foot-long rock wall. “It's frosting on the cake,” she said. “It's the culmination of all the work we do here.”