It took a couple of years to figure out how to keep oama alive in a plastic tub with decent filtration and aeration. If I pre-treat for parasites and feed the oama enough, they can live for months before they get skinny and sickly. I don’t keep as many as I used to and try to use them for bait before that happens. Turns out oama are probably the easiest bait fish to bring home and raise since they are so chill in the bait bucket and tub.
First 2, healthy halalu
Scratched up halalu with healthy halalu
I’ve heard that halalu don’t last long at home because they need a large pool of strongly circulating water. But having a supply of live halalu would be awesome to use for bait on the kayak so I asked the young up-and-coming halalu master, Matthew, to catch some for me since I had yet to resume my attempt to catch them after my struggles last year. He dropped off two healthy halalu one day, and I put them in my 100 gallon tub filled a third of the way full. I had 4 moose oama in the tub at the time, and the two halalu were so spastic that I moved the moose to a smaller tub for fear they’d die of fright. The next day Matt dropped off 6 more halalu, but since they were caught with damashi, some were snagged on the sides. Foul hooked oama heal quickly in captivity so I thought the halalu had a fair chance of survival also. Along with the halalu was a lone, healthy sardine, and since I thought it would die quickly, I banished it to a small tub by itself.
Healthy, hungry halalu survivors
The halalu started dying off, one by one, and it looked like the wounded ones died first. On day 3 of captivity, the remaining ones started to eat opelu pieces but by day 4 only 2 of the original 8 are left. Maybe they are the first two that weren’t wounded during capture? They are looking really healthy and hungry.
Sardine on Day 1
Sardine with loose scales before it died
The lone sardine never ate but outlasted most of the halalu, dying on day 5. He probably would have done better with the halalu but I didn’t want to risk him getting the the precious halalu sick.
If the two halalu continue to thrive, I might add a few more very healthy halalu and see if I can keep them alive long enough to be trolled deep. In California, anchovies, sardines and small mackeral are netted and kept in open pens in the harbor to be sold as live bait. The fish that have stabilized in captivity are called “cured baits” because they are hardier and can survive being put in boat’s live well and bounced around until they are used for bait. Maybe I can cure these halalu in the same manner?
Any of you tried keeping halalu or sardines alive, and how’d that work out?
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