By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

This is a fish story that began when a reader named Jim Prentice wrote me about the death of Big Oscar, an attraction in the second-floor aquarium of Fisherman's Wharf restaurant. Prentice always took visitors from the Mainland to see the fish. The problem is that Big Oscar was a she, not a he, and that his name was actually Paku.

Now that you are thoroughly confused, let's continue. Prentice explained in his letter that he got the lowdown about Big Oscar from a charming waitress at Fisherman's Wharf and that she said Big Oscar was about 35 years old.

"Anyone who has had an aquarium, fresh or saltwater, knows that to have a fish live one year is pretty good," wrote Prentice. "Ten years is unbelievable, but 35-plus years, that's a Guinness record. In dog years, that would be almost 280 years.

"Plus Big Oscar had to put up with people banging on the glass every day, tour buses, karaoke and disco nights, power outages, you name it."

According to Prentice, Big Oscar weighed more than 20 pounds.

The story began to get confusing when I called Eric Umphress of Reef Encounters, who took care of the fish. He didn't seem the least interested in a fish who had lived 35 years. "I don't know why you want to write about it," he said.

"For one thing, I understand that Big Oscar was a girl, not a boy."

"That's right."

"How big was he?" [sic]

"About 18 inches tall."

"How can a fish be tall?"

"He was 18 inches tall, 18 inches long and 4 inches wide."

"I understand he didn't have a bridge or a castle in his aquarium. Didn't he get bored?"

"Fish don't even know a castle is there. All they care about is whether the water is dirty. It gets dirty when people feed it too much. A bored fish looks hungry to humans and, when humans are bored, they eat."

You see what I was up against? Fortunately, the waitress who tipped off Prentice is an old friend who has served my family for years. She's Maria Yamada, who started at Fisherman's Wharf in 1952.

About 1960, she said, a new manager arrived from the Ranch House restaurant in 'Aina Haina. That restaurant also had an aquarium. The manager brought a fish with him that was maybe 5 years old. The fish kept growing until he/she became Big Oscar.

"That's not the name of the fish, it was Paku," said Yamada. "... I believe that the fish was of the barracuda family but it didn't have any teeth."

Yamada said an old man took loving care of the fish for years. When the man died, the fish sort of pined away. "It's very sad," Yamada said.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.