AHC: Pigeon-snaring is more popular than surfing

Today I discovered the bizarre sport of pigeon-snaring, practiced by the elite of the Tonga "empire".

Basically, players would go into a cabin carrying a net tied to a long rod twelve feet long. Meanwhile, trained pigeons would be used to lure wild pigeons. The cabin had a perpendicular slit cutting it in half so you could move the rod around, and the goal of the sport was to catch as many wild pigeons as possible with the net.

How could this game be more popular than other Pacific sports like surfing or bungee juping?
 
Well, seems to me that the biggest problem is that it wasn't even popular when Europeans came around. First of all, we need to keep it popular, either by making it a huge status symbol to have trained pigeons or by "democratizing" the sport and making it popular among even non-chiefs. Both ways will work, but the status symbol bit makes it a bit easier to make popular through a mass craze like Egyptomania--"Tongamania", if you will. If you can someone make Polynesian/Tongan culture all the rage in some large nation (most likely Britain), then you could see pigeon-snaring becoming a popular sport among the hip and trendy.

But, uh, beyond that, weird idea, dude.
 
It sounds like this "pigeon-snaring" occupies an entirely different niche than surfing, given that it seems to take place indoors and require little or no physical exertion. Maybe it takes the place of golf or something instead?
 
"Pigeons up dudes!" doesn't have quite the same ring as "surf's up dudes!"

For some reason this made me imagine some surfer dude in Hawaii combining pigeon-snaring and surfing into some ungodly mess involving nets, gnarly waves, and soaked birds. "Pigeon-surf's up dudes!", I guess?
 
It somehow gets introduced to American servicemen in World War II, and during the 1950s it becomes a major fad alongside tiki-related stuff. Meanwhile, surfing never takes off, so while mentioning pigeon snaring brings to mind some crazy thing people did in the 50s, mentioning surfing mostly gets you curious looks.
 
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