Scott, Author at Hawaii Nearshore Fishing

White papio caught whipping dead oama

October 8, 2015 By Scott 6 Comments

The wind was much lighter than yesterday so I tried the spot I waded out and whipped last week. The waves were small enough where I could sit just inside of the white wash, or in a small channel and cast into the surf. It took a bit of paddling around to find the biters, but once I found them, there were others nearby.

The first papio was a skinny, just legal omilu which I released. The next was a white papio of about the same length but thicker and more muscular. Unlike the omilu, it kept fighting even when I had it board side. The next papio was about 10.5″, head to fork and I considered keeping it but as I readied my fish bag it came off the hook. Oh well, I was just thinking of taking it since the fish seemed to all be the same size.

I cast out a rock hard, frozen oama and the fourth papio took it head first. It was just legal but hooked deep and I didn’t risk killing it by yanking out the hook with pliers so I cut the line off in front of the hook. Hopefully the hook rusts out or falls out soon.

With so many barely legal fish, I paddled around looking for a deeper spot to safely fish. I dug around for a larger oama that still had its colors, and tossed it out. Bam, a much stronger fish hit. The white papio kept fighting even when I had it next to the board. Omilu seem to pull faster and whites pull more doggedly. I happily bagged it.

With a nice white in the bag I went exploring and fished some unproductive water. Then I discovered an area next to the impact zone where the swell rolled through without breaking. I situated myself near the edge of the impact zone and cast another frozen oamasickle. Hookup, and the fish pulled me towards the waves. Yikes! I put the rod in the rod holder and paddled towards calm water hoping the fish wouldn’t rock me. When I reached calm water, I sat up and started cranking. The white, which was initially taking drag, wasn’t nearly as large as I thought. Man these whites can pull hard.

Pretty good action for a spot I’ve never board fished before. I headed in to keep the papios in good condition. Didn’t lose any rigs this time unlike the snaggapalooza yesterday.

Interesting that, although the larger fish below is just an inch longer than the smaller one, its body is deeper and more angular to make room for its sex organs. It fought considerably harder also.

Challenging weather conditions, fish still bit

October 7, 2015 By Scott 9 Comments

Dean and I board fished this morning since the wind was supposed to be less than 15 mph. Contrary to that forecast there were gusts over 20 mph which made it hard for Dean to stand up and paddle. The wind had less effect on me since I paddle lying down on my longboard, but I was still affected by the chaotic swell.

Dean trolled a dead oama behind a floater the way I used to, and I sat on my board as close to the waves as possible and cast into the surf. I got more strikes than he did but also got stuck a lot more since my prototype oama whipping rig sinks. I suspected fish were hitting the oama and pulling it into the rocks since I would pull some snags out and everything came back except for the oama. When I pulled an eel out of the rocks my suspicions were confirmed.

Dean caught the first fish, a non-legal omilu, and then we both started getting hits, misses and cut lines. Seemed like other reef fish were pulling off the oamas, and kaku were cutting us off. I finally stuck a good fish and it ran in a funny way which made me think it was a big stickfish or cornetfish. I was relieved to see the color of a beautiful 2lb omilu. I finally made use of my gaff by lifting the omilu out of the water by putting the gaff hook through its mouth and out its gill.

The wind picked up and it was hard to effectively fish the surge zone. My next papio ran through the rocks and popped my line. Dean was getting occasional hits but having a harder time paddling upwind from his knees. It was time to head in.

I had quickly gone through 4 whipping rigs and 15 dead oama.

It was more fun to feel the strikes of the fish while whipping the oama but I definitely lost more tackle than I do when I troll with a floater. I’ll have to work on the prototype whipping rig some more.

Waxwing Baby works right out of the box

September 30, 2015 By Scott Leave a Comment

Charles contacted me to let me know that he purchased a black and chrome Waxwing Baby from Charley’s Fishing Supply when he found out they were in, drove straight to his Westside sandy beach spot, and threw the lure in the wind and waves for half an hour. Bam, he felt a solid strike and the fish went air borne trying to throw the lure. After a very exciting fight he subdued the awa awa.

Here’s his son verifying the length of 27″ before Charles’ wife made oishii Japanese fishcake dumplings with it. I’d say Charles got his money’s worth with that Waxwing.

Whipping dead oama got even better!

September 30, 2015 By Scott 7 Comments

Well, I guess I didn’t discover a whole new way to present an oama to hungry predators. It appears that others have been whipping oama, live and dead, for ages. What’s cool though is that I’m now able to cast a dead one much further than I would try with a live one, and can reach the spots the predators are prowling. On days like today where the wind is gusting higher than 20 mph, it’s a nice option to be able to heave an oama with the wind and not worry about getting blown around on a surfboard.

Dean and I waded out on the 0.3 ft low tide today but because it wasn’t lower we had to stop 50 yds from the surf line. Our initial casts of fresh dead and frozen oama were hit by small omilus but as I ventured further out and braved the occasional dunking, the hits got bigger. I dropped a fresh dead oama into a deep sand pocket and something hit heavily then chewed through the line. Arrgh, had to re-tie line as the waves smacked into me. The next cast yielded an omilu half and inch short of legal. Loading up with a frozen oama, I walked further out into the wind and wave maelstrom and lobbed into the tail end of the white wash. As I picked up the retrieve, something tugged then ran between the coral heads against the almost locked down drag. My 7′ 11″ medium action G Loomis swimbait rod arched nicely, keeping the tension on the fish with power to spare. The fish pulled drag and ran back and forth through the canyons of the boulders but never got more than 50 yds away. I was more afraid of getting cut off than by getting spooled. After a few mins I could see that beautiful iridescent flash of blue and brought the lit up omilu close. It was too pooped to resist me grabbing its tail as I walked it back to Dean.

I was stoked holding the biggest omilu I have caught in years, maybe ever, but Dean wasn’t too impressed since he catches larger ones dunking. I fumbled around trying to hold my rod under my arm, open my sling bag to take out my catch bag, and not lose the fish that I let swim around at my feet. I never really expect to catch fish when I’m not on my board, so I’m always ill prepared to bag them. The fins and scutes sliced my hands up pretty good but I guess I’m willing to put up with a little pain to land such a beautiful fish.

Dean and I walked back out to the deeper spot that now had bigger waves coming through. As I was hunting around for another frozen oama, Dean hooked a screamer on his 6.5 ft light action spinning rod. His rod keeled over and bounced up and down as he cupped the reel to slow the fish down. The fish was diagonally heading out to sea, unlike mine that did figure 8s around the boulders. The fish was still running but Dean could feel the line rubbing on the rocks and eventually the line stuck. Dean slacked off the line and tried to coax the fish into swimming back in but it didn’t fall for his tactics. 2/3 of his line was gone and when he tried to wade out to loosen the snag, it became apparent that the snag was in water too deep to reach. Sadly Dean popped the line and retied.

We started casting our frozen oama again but nothing bit. It was as if Dean’s fish was the bull of the reef and scared the lesser fish into fleeing. We headed in with our last baits on. Mine got hit by a large aha that I had snagged in the side and it grey hounded at a much higher speed than papio run but eventually tired out.

Based on the fight of his fish, Dean estimated it was about 5 lbs. When he saw mine on land, he estimated 3.8 lbs. Turns out it weighed between 3.8 – 4.2 lb on my inaccurate scales at home. The man knows his fish sizes. I’ll go with 4lbs!

I’m still perfecting my oama whipping rig but like what I’m seeing so far. I can cast a dead oama as far as any lure and the hookup ratio is really good. I was snagging the reef early on today but made some changes to minimize that. Hopefully I’ll have a few more test runs before the season ends.

love the small but powerful Calcutta 200TE

Note: Per request here’s the omilu next to a tape measure.

Thanks for the comments and contact messages!

September 29, 2015 By Scott Leave a Comment

Fishers of all experience levels have been commenting on posts and contacting me through the Contact page. It’s been great to hear that some of you have had similar slow and hot fishing bites, and awesome to hear of your Waxwing successes. Email convos have inspired me to try new spots and techniques, which lead to the recent board trolling and oama whipping successes.

I appreciate the feedback, and rest assured, I won’t post your secrets on the blog unless you want me to.

thanks for reading and building the fishing network of fishing buddies,

scott

Whipping dead oama works, who knew?!

September 29, 2015 By Scott 4 Comments

I had a few fresh, dead oama that I wanted to use instead of freezing them for later. My last board fishing outing was outstanding but it was much too windy for that today. Hmm… since trolling fresh, dead oama worked, what if I could somehow cast them out and retrieve them? Stands to reason that the papio would whack ’em right?

I had never done this before and don’t know of anyone who regularly whips oama since dunking live oama is so effective. Somehow I had to be able to cast the oama far enough in the wind to reach the areas holding fish. I decided to use my trusty level wind Calcutta 200TE bait caster that had been sitting idle during the Waxing and trolling expeditions. I waded out on the low tide but had issues with the Jim Rizutto sliding double hook setup slipping and causing the oama to bend. I ended up having to hook both hooks in the oama’s head and hope that something would hit head first. The bait caster, doing what it was meant to do, cast bait, worked marvelously.

Using the wind, I was able to reach the surf zone, and hooked a 10″ white papio on the first cast! I let it go, and put on another fresh, dead oama. That one got hammered by a 11″ white. I missed some hits and ended up with mangled oama but the next 2 oama got hit also. Then I hooked a fish that pulled drag and brought in a 13.5″ (head to tail) white that went into my fish bag. I couldn’t believe the action I was getting on the dead oama so I moved spots slightly and the bite slowed dramatically. Eventually my remaining baits were hit by 8″ – 10″ whites and omilus. I put on a blue sardine Waxwing to see if I could fool the papio so attuned to oama and came up empty.

Who would’ve thunk that whipping dead oama would be more effective than trolling them inshore? It’s a really strange season due to the early, extra hot water and humidity shutting down the bite, followed by strong trades and cooler water causing the papio to make up for lost time. I don’t think whipping dead oama would’ve been as effective last year when the papio could get their fill of free swimming oama.

I’m still refining my dead oama whipping setup to increase casting distance and hookup ratio. Stay tuned for more oama whipping catch reports.

P.S. Look what was in the white papio’s stomach! A slightly digested tang and a completely intact baby mantis shrimp. The white was stuffed and still went after the dead oama.

Waxwing Baby lures now at Charley’s Fishing Supply

September 25, 2015 By Scott 2 Comments

Charley’s Fishing Supply in Kakaako now has the smallest size Waxwing, called the “Baby”.

They have the 2.68″, 1/2oz lures in the Black/Chrome, Blue Sardine and Ghost Blue Shad colors. I’ve had success with all three colors in the shallows around bait schools and the Blue Sardine worked well at the surf break. I hadn’t tried the other two colors at the surf break yet.

I like throwing the Black/Chrome Baby from shore partly because it works so well and partly because the silver paint shows the teeth marks of the fish I miss. I just had a couple mins to cast on the way back from looking for oama yesterday and had two stops (lure felt like it hit a snag but nothing was snagged) and then a big kaku boiled on the Black/Chrome Baby before coming unhooked. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to hook it well.

When you get your Waxwings from Charley’s tell them you heard about them from this blog! They brought that small size in per Lawai’a magazine and my request. Great guys there…

Red hot 2 hr fishing window

September 23, 2015 By Scott 17 Comments

new best day ever!

Today was supposed to be the light wind day of the week so I took 6 live oama and 4 fresh dead ones out for a surfboard troll. I planned to fish a different stretch of the beach by paddling into the wind and letting the wind bring me back to the launch point.

I started with a recently deceased, medium-sized captive oama so I wouldn’t waste a livey on the way out to the surfline. Nothing bit it after reaching the break and trolling parallel to it for 10 mins, so I was about to put on a livey on instead. All of a sudden my ratchet screamed and the rod bent over. I hadn’t heard my ratchet scream all year so I was initially spooked! It was actually hard to pull the rod out of the holder; man I missed those screamers. The fish pulled drag in a straight line, then let itself be worked in halfway, then took off again. While I was loving the fight, I strongly suspected it was an oio that decided it needed to add oama to its diet, and I really wanted a nice sized papio instead. The fish started shaking its head, which gave me hope, then pulled line straight out again. After a hard fight against a tight drag, the largest omilu I caught in 2 yrs flashed on its side. It was hooked on the front hook and somehow had broken off the hook that was in the oama’s tail. I was stoked and I had only been fishing 20 minutes. I contemplated heading back in but I didn’t want to waste the live oama.

I put a live one on and something pulled it off without sounding the ratchet. I wonder what could have done that? I put on another livey and this one got eaten by a 10 inch C&R omilu. The next livey hooked a 15 inch (head to tail) omilu that pulled drag nicely and was added to the catch bag. 2 good sized omilu make a decent catch so again I contemplated paddling in but I still had 3 live oama and 3 dead ones.

The next 3 live oama were mangled and crushed but I couldn’t hook the culprit despite the two hook setup. I put a dead oama on and saw the floater go under. When I retrieved the line all I got back was the oama’s head. I put the second to the last dead oama on and let the wind blow me back to the launch site. The ratchet went off but the fight felt a little weird. There was a lot of resistance but the fish wasn’t pulling a lot of line. When it got close, I realized why. Somehow a 14″ omilu was hooked on the front hook and a 10″ omilu was hooked on the rear hook! And another omilu was swimming with them, trying to join the party. Crazy. I shook the 10″ omilu off and kept the 14″ (head to tail) omilu. That was more than enough fish for one day, so I dumped the last dead oama and went in.

Darin’s oio

Darin, whom I had met before, was dunking ika from the beach. He said a lot of undersized papio had been hitting his baits in the last hr, with one legal omilu in the mix. I wished him luck and ran into a guy who had been hooking legal white papio on his Crystal Minnow from shore. His C&R lure action was in the last 30 minutes. While we were taking he noticed that Darin was on a nice fish. What the heck was going on? Were all the planets in alignment or something? We went over to watch Darin’s fish make numerous strong runs before being subdued. The oio went 21″ and 4lbs and Darin packed up his gear to get the fish home in good shape for fish cake.

There wasn’t a particularly good solunar activity period today but something made the fish feed aggressively at the break and at the shoreline. I suspect the fish are trying to make up for all that lost time spent hunkering down during the stormy, humid weather. The trade winds have cooled the water nicely and it looks like the papio season isn’t over yet.

The larger omilu I caught went about 19″ (head to tail) and made 3 lbs on my not too accurate hand scale. Not that big as omilus go but bigger than any omilu I’ve caught last year and this year. With so many papio competing for not much bait this season, I suspect larger than normal papio are coming onto the reef to find food.

Trade winds returned bringing cooler water conditions

September 19, 2015 By Scott 4 Comments

What a difference a few days of trade winds make. The humidity dropped considerably and the inshore water cooled off. I took the longboard out in the morning and the water was almost cold. The first fresh dead oama didn’t get touched until I was almost to the surfline, and what touched it just pulled the bait off. My next live oama brought up an 8 inch C&R omilu so I alternated live and fresh dead oama for either more small omilus or yanked baits.

pliers in the background are 11 inches long

The trade winds had exceeded 20 mph and the SSW swell made for a bouncy, choppy outing. I put the largest, strongest oama out and it got hammered and killed but not taken off the tandem hooks. The poor oama looked pretty bad, with raked sides, tattered fins and a washed out coloring. Disappointed with the size of pesky predators, I left the battered bait on and paddled over a bouldery section so shallow my hand hit while paddling. When the ratchet went off I thought the bait was snagged on the rocks but the orange floater moved between the boulders. After a brief fight a 15 inch omilu was landed. This season’s omilus I’ve caught on my board have all been skinny and weak. The omilus of the same length last year were much thicker and fought much harder. Are the omilus not able to catch enough bait fish to fatten up this season? Maybe the unusually hot water makes them weary like we would be if we had to run a marathon in hot, humid weather.

When I cleaned the omilu, I found a parasitic worm that looked like a long udon noodle in its intestinal wall and absolutely nothing in the omilu’s stomach. Other than being thin, the fish looked healthy.

Rain and hot inshore water put a damper on the fishing

September 14, 2015 By Scott 7 Comments

Is it just me or has the El Nino inspired hot, rainy weather shut down your fishing also? With the ocean temps already a few degrees hotter than normal, and air temps hitting record highs, the inshore water has been jacuzzi hot by mid morning.

Well, I didn’t measure the temp so that may be an exaggeration. But I finally trolled some oama on my surfboard last week and felt exhausted by the hot air and water. Other surfers were hogging the shower just to cool off. The larger predators avoided the over heated inner reef, and the 8 inch omilus that did bite the oamas were too weak to pull drag.

The rain runoff has caused an explosion of fine, hairy limu to pile up near shore also, making it impossible to retrieve the Waxwing without fouling that stuff.

Not sure how this extra hot summer/fall has affected your fishing but so far it’s been kind of a dud for me.

How has your 2015 oama season been going?

September 2, 2015 By Scott 5 Comments

Reprinted w/Lawai’a magazine’s permission – Oama Season 2014

My spots didn’t have oama until much later than last year, and the piles have been small. They’ve also been more skittish and harder to catch. On the upside, with less oama around for the predators, every time I’ve fished for oama this year (just a handful of times so far) the omilus, kakus and even oio have been stalking and hitting them.

I’ve only used oama for bait twice so far, but both times the oama got whacked on the kayak, and friends have caught papio and kaku with oama next to the oama pile.

I’d love to hear how you guys are doing this oama season. You can either add a comment to this post that everyone will see, or send me a note via the Contact Page.

thanks!

Poll Results: Summer nearshore fishing is picking up, what kind of fishing are you doing?

August 31, 2015 By Scott Leave a Comment

The poll ran through the month of August to determine how readers of this blog are fishing during the peak nearshore season. Because multiple activities could be chosen, the computed percentages are meaningless but if you look at the number of votes per activity, certain activities stand out.

93 participants were fishing for predators without the use of oama/halalu/sardines. Compared to the 64 participants who were fishing for predators using the oama/halalu/sardines. Almost all of fin bait users were using oama since 62 participants were fishing for oama, whereas only 20 were fishing for halalu.

81 participants were whipping. 14 of those participants were whipping the Waxwing.

I don’t think this reflects how the general fishing public in Hawaii fishes. It’s more a reflection of the fishers who read the whipping and oama trolling and oama fishing posts contained within.

Thanks so much for participating in the poll. Click here to see the final results.

Awa awa on the kayak!

August 18, 2015 By Scott 7 Comments

Eddy and Kris pedaled out on Eddy’s Hobie tandem and I tried my best to keep up with them on my oldie but goodie Aquaterra Swing sit-on-top. The light wind conditions made for a beautiful day to be out on the water.

My fish finder was marking fish throughout the water column and we could peer down and see omilu and white papio through the sheet glass surface. With so many fish around it was a good day to try various baits and lures. The fish could see the difference between lures and real bait, and ignored the fake stuff except for Kris’ small lures fished deep.

I started with fresh, dead oama and two were taken off the tandem hooks without much sound coming out of my non-levelwind Calcutta 400’s ratchet. I put on a live oama and immediately hooked a small white papio. The guys began catching small, feisty whites on frozen, year old oama. As I crossed a deep channel, my rachet went off, slowly. I pulled the rod out of the rod holder and started reeling, and the fish shook its head like a very small omilu. Then it got mad and powered away, taking at least 75 yds of line with it. I had made the cardinal mistake of leaving my partner kayak without telling them where I was going, so they were out of ear shot.

I tightened the drag when 1/3 of the spool was gone, and the fish slowed. I could feel head shakes and tail pumps and was hoping I finally hooked a large papio. When I brought the fish close it powered straight down, bending my 7’6″ rod into the water. It spun my kayak a few times before I could make out a long, slim, silvery shape. Oio on a live oama? I guess it was possible since I was fishing deep and had hooked an oio on a subsurface lure in the surf before. Click here to read about that surprise catch.

Then I saw the top lobe of a very large tail sticking out of the water. Awa awa! The previous awa awas have always jumped out of the water, but those were hooked in relatively shallow water. I hooked this one in at least 50 feet. I tired the fish out to grab it by the mouth, largemouth bass style, since I didn’t have a net or gaff with me. The fish was too tired to put up much resistance.

I decided to keep it since I heard of other yak fishers recently catching awa awa in the general area, and had only kept two others ever. I paddled back to the guys and Kris took this pic.

The guys pedaled off to the white papio hot spot as I replaced the line that the awa awa shredded with its sandpaper mouth. Once again, they were out of ear shot when I landed a smaller awa awa on another live oama. That was released and when I caught up with them, they both were battling 2lb whites that bit fresh dead oama.

Somehow those guys can catch the larger whites when I’m stuck with the 9 inch ones that steal my precious oama baits. Eddy followed that up by catching this beautiful awa awa on a frozen oama.

Soon after, we ran out of oama and made our way in.

Perfect kayak fishing conditions. All fish were released except for my awa awa and Kris’ 2lb white papio. The awa awa measured 32″ and weighed 5 lbs. My dad much prefers awa awa to oio for fish cake and was happy to receive it although I did have to clean it for him.

Kayak fishing with oama

August 12, 2015 By Scott Leave a Comment

I ended two of my boycotts: no kayak fishing and no oama for bait. Kris and Eddy have been fishing off a tandem Hobie pedal boat in somewhat sheltered waters and have been encouraging me to dust off the kayak I haven’t fished in 10 years. And I’ve been shunning oama for bait this season, instead throwing the Waxwing.

Yesterday I shlepped my kayak and the required gear down to fish some papas surrounded by deep water with Eddy. A couple minutes into the paddle out and my back was already cramping up. I couldn’t slow down my drift like I can when sitting on my longboard, kicking with my feet, so I had a hard time casting to the desired spots before I swept past them. And when I fished the papas my Waxwing got stuck in the deep crevasses and I lost two Waxwing Babys. I was yearning for the simpler surfboard fishing days.

My fish finder detected a lot of fish near the papa edge and on the flat bottom but none of those fish wanted anything to do with the kastmaster I dropped down.

soon to be released

Eddy did much better using a heavy egg lead and plastic strip bait for small omilus, and caught a 1.5 lb white papio on a deep diving Crystal Minnow. He ended the day losing that lure to a papa also.

I initially started another kayak fishing boycott after my miserable performance but decided to attempt to avenge the loss of my two Waxwings. Eddy, Kris and I fished the same spot today on the kayak. I started by dropping cut bait down into the depths and the guys deep trolled live, fresh dead and year old oama. The guys’ oama initially got munched from the back, and since they weren’t running a rear hook, the fish got away.

Then Eddy took a screaming hit and battled a muscular 2lb plus omilu to the boat. I was just getting nibbles and small omilu on my cut bait so I bummed a fresh dead oama and immediately got a hit. It came up as dead weight and turned out to be a small hammerhead.

I bummed another dead oama and hooked a 8 inch white papio within a couple of minutes. Guess the fish were around but waiting for the real thing. The guys were getting bit on fresh dead and frozen oama but since none of us were using a trailing hook we all lost our best fish (or at least it appeared to be that way). All besides Eddy’s omilu were white papio and a few small hammerheads.

pack of whites

On the way in the fish finder lit up with a bait ball. I dumped the cut shrimp, ika and aku belly overboard that failed me earlier. Hoping I caused a frenzy, I dropped cut shrimp all the way to the bottom and it went untouched. Remembering the two opae lolo a fellow kayak fisherman gave me when we launched in the morning, I dropped the fresh but dead lolo down to the bottom.

As soon as it reached bottom I hooked up with a 10″ white that was followed by his friends. Kris and Eddy had a double hookup on oama and Kris took this awesome photo of the whites chasing the hooked fish up.

The next lolo was slammed instantly also, but this time it was a hammerhead.

The fish are really keyed on natural bait now, even if it’s dead bait.

Lazy fish on a hot & sticky day

August 7, 2015 By Scott Leave a Comment

Tropical Storm Guillermo passed to the north of us but made for a hot, sticky, drizzly morning. The wind was relatively light so I took the board out to the break where I hooked the oio on the Waxwing Boy last week. Using the same lure, I hoped lightning would strike twice. Instead I didn’t have a follow or bite for 75 mins. I eventually reached a deep channel and cast the Waxwing across to the west edge. A 1 lb white papio hit the lure and flipped on the surface but didn’t hook up. I was stunned after going so long without a hint of life, and watched as it hit two more times. Somehow it missed the rear double hook, focusing on the underneath belly of the lure.

Zoom in to the photos to see what it did to the previously unmarked lure. It was smart enough not to try again and I couldn’t get anything else to hit the Boy.

Disheartened, I switched to the smaller Waxwing Baby and fished another hour and missed two weak strikes. Meanwhile friends waded out a mile up the coast and caught a few papio on cut bait. They said the bite was slow but fairly steady.

I blame the lethargic Waxwing bite on the drop in barometric pressure. Just like we feel lazy when the weather turns unbearable warm and humid, so do the fish. A still bait can coax the lazy predators into slowly feeding but they don’t have the energy to chase an aggressive lure.

Off day or were the fish lackadaisical?

August 4, 2015 By Scott 1 Comment

Fished with Kris at two of our on shore Waxwing testing grounds. The tide was at a good height and we could see a lot of bait in the water at the first sandy/muddy beach we fished. Kris caught 3 small white papio on the Waxwing Baby and 5 on the bubble and grub. I couldn’t buy a solid bite. The most action I got were some follows and weak bumps on my Waxwing Baby. When your fishing partner is having an outstanding day and you can’t even hook a single fish, it messes with your confidence! I asked Kris how he was retrieving and he said he was retrieving slower because the water was so murky. Even with that valuable info I couldn’t adjust my retrieve to entice the fish.

We moved on to another sandy/muddy beach that could handle a higher tide and the water level looked perfect as well. With a slightly slower speed I got some boils and hooked a very small kaku. Man did it feel good to land that fish. I think Kris purposely introduced wind knots in his spinning reel to give me time to catch a few fish and get my confidence back. I had a few more boils and chases, and hooked another kaku but overall the action was slow.

Was it just an off day for me? I’m now thinking that the fish were lackadaisical due to the large moon messing with their feeding pattern. White papio and kaku can easily locate prey under a bright moon, so maybe they were just full? Kris’ slower retrieve and use of a small curl tail grub provided an easier meal for the fish. I hadn’t fished the first testing ground with my high speed Curado 300EJ before, and I probably didn’t slow down enough to present the Waxwing properly.

The conditions and result made for a very valuable fishing log entry.

Poll Closed: Summer nearshore fishing is picking up, what kind of fishing are you doing?

August 1, 2015 By Scott 1 Comment

August is here and the bait fish are finally in. Predators are cruising the reef. What kind of fishing are you doing during this peak time?

Last summer I ran a poll and there was moderate participation because the blog was new. Most of the folks that voted were either just fishing for fun, or avid fishermen not using oama. This summer I’m interesting in getting a better idea of what fishing activities you guys are involved in. Please select all the activities you’re pursuing currently, and sorry, this is limited to fishing in the Hawaiian Islands. If your activities change you can vote again a week later.

Thanks so much for participating!

Oio on a Waxwing, are you serious?

July 28, 2015 By Scott 9 Comments

If you weren’t a believer before, this may convince you. I fished a Blue Sardine Boy Waxwing at the surf break in hopes of catching something worthy of the Waxwing Lure Review I’m writing for Lawai’a magazine. Prior to this I was using the smaller Baby size. The Boy is 3.5″ long and weighs 7/8 oz. With a tail wind, it casts really far; with a side wind it curves more than the Baby because of its larger profile.

It’s the perfect lure for me to throw seated on my board at water level. I only need a few inches of line past the tip of my rod to cast, and the lure swims so well because my rod tip is so close to the water.

For reference, I’m wearing size 9 surf booties

I didn’t get a bump for 20 mins and was wondering if it was too large a lure to use. In comparison, the Boy is 2.7″. Then I got a hard strike and a strong run. I fish my drag really tight to set the swinging, upward facing hook, and the fish pulled line in hard spurts. It swung me around, toward shore, instead of into the waves and took all my fluorocarbon top shot. Not sure how much line that is though, maybe 70 yds? I was convinced it was the biggest papio I hooked on my surfboard and when I finally had the fish at color I saw a long thick shape and thought it was a kaku on steroids. It was a 5lb plus oio and was foul hooked behind its eyes. Oio have very tough skin, luckily, and both hooks were embedded. I took some pics and let the fish go.

An oio on a subsurface lure right in front of the white wash. Oio normally feed on the bottom and are rarely hooked on fast moving subsurface lures. I’m working with some Lawai’a supporting tackle shops to put a promotional Waxwing package together. There were a few mods to the lure system I had to make to improve my catch ratio. Stay tuned.

Waxwing shines again

July 24, 2015 By Scott 6 Comments

I went back to a shallow, rocky area with a sandy pond to look for oama. A few weeks ago the oama weren’t in and I had some follows on my Waxwing Boy in the Chrome pattern, but no hookups. Today there were mid-sized mullet and micro aholehole in the protection of the rocky shoreline, and the kaku and small white papio were nailing the Waxwing just 15 feet from shore.

caught on the Waxwing Boy size

I missed a couple larger kaku and landed a kaku and 3 small whites. There were even some very small oama running back and forth in the pond

The bite shut down an hr before sundown, right before Kris arrived. Just before dark Kris hooked a small moi on the sandy beach. Such a drastic change from the slow action I experienced the last time I visited. The summer action is definitely heating up.

All the fish were released unharmed.

Red hot Waxwing action

July 23, 2015 By Scott 1 Comment

Went to check my favorite oama spot yet again, and there were none to be found. Kris was throwing a small plastic curly tail and caught some small omilus and chunky white papio. I started throwing the Baby Waxwing on the Curado 300EJ with fluorocarbon and soon enough was picking out backlashes just like I had been with braid. I was backlashing with all the centrifugal brakes turned on! How is that possible?

(Click here to see why I switched from braid to castable fluorocarbon. )

Out of desperation I set the spool tensioner so tight the lure couldn’t fall in free spool. I cast and the spool spun under control with no backlash. The spool shouldn’t have had to be tensioned so tightly, something must be wrong with the spool tension bearing.

Don’t I look stunned?

The sun was going down, it was time to leave and I didn’t even get a bump. As we walked back on the sand, Kris threw a Crystal Minnow but the water was so shallow he kept snagging limu. I carefully lobbed the Waxwing which swims a few inches below the surface and hooked and lost a kaku in 15 inches of water. My drag was set too light because I was backlashing so much!

My next cast was boiled on so Kris started videoing with his iPhone. Next cast, no backlash and another boil. Usually the fish only follow or hit twice and then wise up. During this pre-dark witching hour it seemed like a pack of hungry predators were looking for Waxwings to swim by. On my next cast, something hit halfway in and ripped drag. Turned out to be a 14 inch white papio (head to tail).

Here’s the video, sorry for the jumpiness.

It was a very impromptu shoot and I edited out the landmarks which shortened the length of the video. When we pau fishing I checked my drag and I had locked it down after missing the first kaku. No wonder the papio didn’t get too far.

very respectable kaku a few feet from shore

Kris captured the cast, strike and fight on video and I wanted him to get in on the red hot action. He took off his Crystal Minnow, put on the same Black/Chrome Baby Waxwing and hooked an angry kaku on the next cast! After releasing it, he got an even bigger boil that didn’t stay hooked. The boils lasted until the sun began to set, then completely shut off.

The Waxwing really performs in shallow water conditions. The red hot action with the large shallow water predators almost made me forget the backlash frustrations I’ve been having and I didn’t backlash once in the dark. I guess the spool tensioner was finally set tight enough.

Update 9/25/15: Charley’s Fishing Supply in Kakaako has the Waxwing Baby in Black/Chrome, Blue Sardine and Ghost Blue Shad.