The halalu bite was so good the previous day, and the crowd was so excited that I figured I’d better hit the school again before the area was overrun on the weekend. No one could join me so I made my first ever solo halalu expedition.  I badly needed to improve my spinning gear casting technique without much of an audience. Since the previous day’s 6 hook damashi snagged too many sardines, and my gear, I cut the damashi set down to 3 hooks. Much easier to cast and unhook.

The pile was closer to shore, in about 4 ft of water and a few guys were casting from the beach side of the pile.  I started by whipping the larger CHL Purple Obake Minnow that we fished last year, to minimize sardine bites, on a 6 ft 3lb fluoro leader.  I didn’t get any sardines on it but had to fish hard just to catch 3 halalu.  Issey, an 8th grade friend of Matt’s, was whipping with a handmade fly and long leader, doing the side jigging thing.  When he connected, he’d reel his long leader in, and then grab the last 5 ft with his hand to slide the halalu onto the beach.  Issey is a very accomplished halalu slayer, and was catching way more than I was but the bite wasn’t as good as the previous day so I put on the 3 hook damashi.  I mostly hooked sardines on the small flies, but began to get more halalu as it got closer to evening.  In 2.5 hrs I got 9 halalu.  Most of the other guys had given up because of the slow bite.

The next day was Friday, and the crew of young anglers plus a buddy Jon I met through this website a couple years ago, were gonna fish the school hard before the weekend.  Jon was the first one there and spent a lot of time finding and following the school until it settled in relatively deep water.  The middle school crew of Matt and Hunter were next to Jon when I arrived, and there were two other adult halalu regulars off to the side.   I slid in between Matt and Hunter since Hunter was live lining, and started with the 3 hook damashi but only the sardines wanted to bite.  Those 3 hooks were prone to snagging someone in the strong winds and Jon told me to use a whipping rig with long leader to be more stealthy so I went back to the CHL Purple Obake Minnow rig.  The school moved to deeper water so we had to make a 50 yd cast with the wind.  Issey joined his middle school buddies and the pau hana regulars showed up.  At times 9 guys were trying to hit the pile.  With the strong winds, crossed lines and tangles ensued.

Jon was using various colored strips with a long rod, long leader and what looked like a 1 oz egg sinker.  He was the high liner by far and quietly stuffed his live bait bucket til it maxed out.  Matt hoped he’d get at least 25 halalu and that’s exactly how many he had when he had to leave early.  Hunter ended up with more sardines than halalu because he started with a damashi and spent a lot of time live lining baits.  Issey had 30 halalu despite his late start.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just got 12 halalu but got bumped on just about every cast when I could reach the school with my 6’6″ rod.  I did get a small kine screamer on the light halalu rig that turned out to be a lai.  Issey carefully leadered it for me and Hunter took it home for grinds.

It was fun fishing with friends, but tough to fish in the windy, crowded conditions.  I think I’m gonna wait until I hear the school is closer and spread out!