Scott, Author at Hawaii Nearshore Fishing

Oama – Papio season still red hot

September 2, 2014 By Scott 1 Comment

getting a little bigger

I was able to surfboard troll my deeper water spot because the winds were lighter and the waves were small. I ran into some fishing friends who just finished throw netting and they were just leaving when I hooked up with the 10.5 inch (head to fork) papio. Nothing like performing for an audience!

Something took my next two baits off my hooks. An hour into my trolling run, the 14 inch (head to tail) papio hit all the way out by the first break. I was about to reel in the oama to check it when the papio struck. I felt the initial strike as if I was whipping the live oama, very cool. 14 inches is a small papio but sadly, the biggest of the oama season for me. The larger papios others have caught were landed at first light. Ugh, I may have to start fishing earlier in the morning.

There are still some smaller oamas at the usual spots, but not as many as a week ago. Some of the oama we’ve hooked and lost were the 5 and 6 inch variety so those will be out to sea soon. Typically, oama season ends in August but this is an especially good and long season. Get your oama before they and the papio are unreachable.

Small papio continue to slam the oama

August 28, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

The pre-adolescent papio that were scratching the back of the oamas a month ago are now big enough to swallow the back hook. That’s fine if the papio are keepers (larger than 10″ head to fork) but bad if they’re undersized. I went up in hook size to avoid gut hooking the undersized fish, but still had to cut the line to release a deeply hooked 9 inch papio today.

Also landed a 3 ft aha (stickfish), had 2 oamas ripped off their hooks, and landed a legal papio on my last bait. I was trying an area I had never trolled before, and like the other spots I’ve recently visited, this one was full of pint sized papio.

It’s great that the bite has turned red hot lately, but sad that the hardest fighting fish of the season has been a stickfish!

I haven’t been taking any pics of the recent just legal papio. I just take 4 or 5 live oama with me to limit the amount of papio juvies I may hook.

Maybe I should troll a jumbo sized oama to deter the little guys from taking a bite?

The predators hit both hooks on the slack high tide

August 26, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

the pliers are 11 inches long

My captive oamas continue to expire prematurely, taking their tank mates with them. I’m convinced dying oamas let out a toxin that is hard to remove. I’ll blog about that and other difficulties in keeping oama alive, soon.

So without a supply of lively oamas, I planned to catch some fresh ones in time to troll them on the early afternoon rising tide. Turns out I’m a lousy oama catcher. A nice couple, Lance and Dianne, took pity on me and gave me some of their oamas, and yet I didn’t get out to troll them until the tide had almost peaked. The bite was as slow as the tidal movement so I was surprised to reel in the first kaku of the oama season. The kaku was lip hooked by the front hook and looked secure so I paddled away from the surf zone to delicately land the toothy, snapping creature. A feat not easily accomplished on a rolling surfboard. When I lifted the kaku it managed to flip and cut the line. Arrgghh, that was the first kaku of the oama season that didn’t cut the back hook off immediately and swim free.

I put on a new pre-tied leader and double-hooked another lively oama. Another kaku was hooked by both hooks, this time the hooks held and I was able to drop it into a dry bag and cut the leader off, all without losing a digit. I’m guessing the kaku like the slack tide since they often feed in placid water.

The slow bites slowed even more so I headed in and my clicker went off again. This time it was a 13 inch (head to tail) papio getting hooked on both hooks.

The first oama I trolled got weak and died on the hook. No bites. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th were lively and got hit hard.

Not exactly sure why it worked out this way but all three fish hit both the front and back hooks. No previous fish did that this season. Maybe the fish are really gulping down the oamas now? The last oama in the bucket earned its freedom.

The papio want their oama lively or not at all

August 20, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

still small but getting bigger

The papio are definitely coming onto the reef to dine on oama. And this year there are so many oama around that the papio are discriminating. I went to a deeper water reef area to troll oamas I had caught yesterday. 3 lively ones resulted in 3 papio. 2 freshly dead ones weren’t touched at all. Picky papio!

The first papio fell off my back hook as I was trying to measure it. The top hook ended up stabbing my finger but luckily didn’t go barb deep. Still sore though!

I was watching my orange floater behind me as I trolled over the spot I hooked the first papio and saw it go under. I thought I was seeing things until my ratchet went off. I bagged the 10.5 inch (head to fork of tail) papio and put a fresh dead oama on. Trolled all over for nada. Then I put on the second to the last lively oama and within a minute the 12 inch (head to fork of tail) papio hit.

With two papio in the bag I set the last lively oama free. The papio are hitting the oamas hard now. The trick for me is to find where the larger ones are. My previous spots are loaded with 8 inch papio with small man complexes.

Poll closed, what kind of fisherpeople read this blog?

August 17, 2014 By Scott 2 Comments

The poll has been closed after a month. The results are interesting. With the sample of 31 participants, it was a dead tie for first place.

9 were “avid fisherfolks not using oama for bait” and 9 were “casual fisherfolks out for fun in the sun”.

Of the remaning participants, 6 were “avid fisherfolks who had success using oama for bait”, 5 were folks fishing vicariously through the blog, and 2 were the rare honest fisherfolks who admitted not having much success fishing oama so far.

Given the relatively small number of participants, we can’t draw definite conclusions but I was surprised to see so many non-oama fisherfolks participating during this epic oama season. Maybe because it’s so time consuming to catch oama, keep them alive, and then use them before they expire?

Thank you so much for participating in the poll. Stay tuned for another one soon.

Best conditions to score papio

August 12, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

best day so far

After trolling oamas aimlessly for a month and a half, I noticed a pattern as to when and where I get most of my strikes. These conditions apply to dunking and whipping also.

First third of the rising tide
Cool, moving water; not still, sun warmed water
In front of the surf break (I’m not going past the surf break)
Bouldery terrain with a mix of sand and dark rocks
Edge of channel and bouldery reef

And for those trolling oama:

4 to 6 foot fluorocarbon leader
front hook through nostrils, rear hook past the ventral (anal) fin
30 to 75 feet away from you
liveliest oama (but wounded or freshly dead still work if that’s all you have)

Please keep in mind I haven’t caught anything big this season but I am getting a lot of strikes when the above conditions come together.

Big surf, small papio

August 12, 2014 By Scott 1 Comment

another barely legal papio

To get away from the undersized papio and pesky kaku bothering my oama at my regular trolling spot, I decided to try a spot I had previously been wade fishing. Yesterday I hooked a just legal papio in the first 5 minutes which I released to upgrade to a bigger fish. I got hits on the next 5 oama but none of them stuck. Most of the battle scars looked like they were caused by small papio.

I went back today armed with more live oama and was surprised by the size of the surf. A guy was getting barreled standing up! It must’ve been a south swell combined with an east wrap from Hurricane Julio. Sorry, I didn’t take any pictures on the water.

The only strikes I got today were right in front of where the guy was surfing, so it was a little gnarly to make sure the outgoing rip didn’t pull me into the break. The first fish was just short so I released it. The second fish measured 11 inches from head to fork so he got bagged. My dad, who used to say “papio no ono”, ate the last just legal papio and sheepishly admitted “it was ok, young that’s why”. He now hopes he’s the recipient of my small papios.

It’s been a strange oama season for me on the South Shore. The oama came in early and initially the papio weren’t hitting them. Now the small ones are nailing them but no papio larger than a pound so far. I talked to some fishermen in the parking lot and they said North Shore and Kaneohe Bay are going off but the action is still slow on the South Shore. One guy said he’s actually catching more papio on lures than he is on oama. And to confirm how stuffed the papio are this oama season, there were 2 oama in the stomach of the 11 inch papio.

It’s not worth fishing during heavy storms

August 8, 2014 By Scott 2 Comments

I’m writing this as the downgraded Tropical Storm Iselle passes by Oahu. There are a lot of valid reasons to avoid fishing during bad weather. Strong winds, heavy rain, rogue waves, polluted runoff…

And in my recent experience the fish stop biting before the bad weather hits. They feel the drop in atmospheric pressure and hunker down until the system passes. Even the oamas in my tubs are doing that. During this present storm they ate a little and then settled on the bottom of the tub.

So its best to sit out the bad weather, let the brown water clear, and then resume fishing. The fish will have ended their hibernation and be eating to make up for lost time.

Eating oama? How could you?

August 6, 2014 By Scott 1 Comment

I used to think consuming oama instead of using them as bait was a sacrilege. I would never waste such a perfect papio attractant but I’ve been hearing that many people are frying up their catch in this bumper crop year.

successful oama outing

My friend Herb, who hasn’t fished for oama since childhood, was interested in the first hand experience of catching, cleaning and frying the tasty critters. After a few pointers and the disclaimer that most newbies take a while to develop the oama catching touch, we stalked the oama on the inside of the flats. There were some moments of frenzied feeding but most of the time was spent coaxing the fish to bite by snapping the bait up and down near the bottom. After nearly 5 hours (yes time really flies when you have oamas falling off your hook) Herb had enough to feed his family and I had enough to keep alive in my fish tubs.

Click here to see how I did with those oama.

cleaned oama

Next Herb had to painstakingly scale, gill and gut the fingerling weke. Later he was told that scaling wasn’t necessary so his next batch of oama were just gilled, gutted and fried.

frying the oama

They were then rolled in flour, garlic salt and pepper, and deep fried. A dipping sauce of shoyu, Sriracha hot sauce and lemon juice topped off the onolicious meal.

finished product

Although his family thought the fried oama was delicious, Herb said he’d have to seriously consider the time it took to catch and clean those little guys.

I have a new found respect for the oama fisherfolks that are catching to eat. It’s a lot of work!

4 strikes and I was out

August 4, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

My short lived success in catching papio, albeit barely legal ones, ended. I trolled 4 oama on my board this morning and all got hit but nothing landed. Most hits were on the back hook, which was ripped out of the oama. The hits weren’t hard enough to penetrate deeply.

On my paddle out I saw schools of large sized oama and some wounded oama doing death spirals. Too many easy-to-catch food for the predators.

I may have to look for a place with less bait in the water.

The papio are finally hitting oama with gusto

July 31, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

it’s legal, barely

With the August traditional start of oama season right around the corner, the papio are finally hitting the oama hard. I’ve been hearing reports of some large papio caught on the East and West Side of Oahu, and even the South Shore is lighting up. My theory is that the water was warmer than normal in the spring and that caused the common white weke and less common red weke to produce eggs earlier and in greater numbers than expected. The papio either were not on the same biological clock or were so stuffed with oama they were biting baits lightly until recently.

Bouyed by yesterday‘s moderate success, I trolled some live oamas on my board this afternoon. The line cutting kaku weren’t bothering the baits so the papio had them all to themselves. This 11 inch (head to fork of tail) omilu hit the back of the bait hard enough to get hooked on the outside of its mouth. It was small but of legal size so I bagged it. The first official papio of the oama season.

My next strike was stronger but the fish pulled line and rubbed the hook off on the reef. It had been so long I wasn’t prepared for a line ripper like that. Then the bite abruptly stopped. No papio, no kaku, no nibbles. But I’ll take it. Bolo head is officially over. Now I can select the poll response “Avid fisherperson, using oama for bait. Had some success this season.”.

For those of you who have participated in the poll, thank you! So far it looks like a large group of readers are just casual fisherfolks looking for ways to improve their fishing success. The next biggest group are avid fisherfolks who aren’t using oama for bait. Interesting, I’d love to know how these folks are fishing during this epic oama season.

The papio traditionally hit the oama best in August, then the oama get larger and become uncatchable in September. So take your best shot now but only keep what you can eat/use. That applies to both papio and oama. Good luck!

Does this end the bolo head?

July 29, 2014 By Scott 3 Comments

Well, I trolled some live oama on my surfboard again. The first couple got scratched up and the back hook bitten off. I was retrieving a wounded oama to replace it and a silvery white, short but thick fish shot up to take a bite. What do you think that was?

After paddling in a big circle I returned to that spot and finally stuck a fish. Turns out it was the fattest 10 inch (head to fork of tail) omilu papio I’ve ever seen. So that’s what the silvery white flash was. The predators are gorging on the baby fish bloom and getting downright chubby.

The omilu was released after the picture was taken. Does its capture end the bolo head or do I have to catch one I actually keep?

It’s bite pattern matches the parallel bite marks of the top oama in this picture.

10 inch fatty

Mauled oama, still no papio

July 25, 2014 By Scott 8 Comments

mauled oama

I trolled 4 live oama today. Each one got bit but still no papio landed. My bolo head streak extends to 6 trips.

The first two oama were trolled with just a hook through their nostrils and the attacking fish mauled and killed the oama but didn’t pull much line. The top oama in the picture has two parallel bite marks that seem to indicate a narrow mouthed fish. Maybe a barracuda or stickfish?

I added a second hook near the anal fin of the last two oama. The attacking fish got hooked on that back hook and immediately bit through the line. The bottom oama was one that had hooked the attacker before the back hook was cut off. Guessing a toothy barracuda did this.

The South Shore beaches are filled with juvenile fish now. And no one I talked with has caught any papio on their oama baits. The current theory I’m hearing is the papio are filling up on the bait fish and don’t need to go after bait with hooks in them.

Drop me a line if you think something other than a barracuda mauled my oamas. Hopefully I catch the offender soon, or better yet, break my bolo head streak.

Poll: What kind of Nearshore Fisherperson are you?

July 17, 2014 By Scott 2 Comments

The page views on this blog increased almost 10 fold since the summer fishing season has arrived. Judging from the search criteria that brought folks to this blog, a lot of you are interested in oama fishing.

I’m very curious to know what type of fishing you do. If you’re using oama for bait, have you been successful this season? I haven’t been. So far it seems that only kaku are interested in chopping my bait up and cutting my line.

Please participate in this poll. There’s no way to track you and you won’t be spammed. I’m hoping to get a feel for who reads my blog and how the summer fishing is going.

If you have any specific comments to provide, please get in touch with me through the Contact page. Thanks!

Update: Poll closed after a month. Thanks for participating! For poll results, click here.

Early oama, late papio?

July 7, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

oamas in captivity

Oama season traditionally peaks in August so the fact that they’ve been seen at the usual spots appears to indicate an early start. From my informal poll of the shore fishermen I met recently, it’s been a solid start of the season but the papio haven’t followed them in yet. The results of 3 surfboard trolling outings support that: a few body-less oama returned, a clean cut leader and a sub-legal omilu.

We can only hope the papio realize the oama are already in. In the meantime I have to perform daily water changes to keep my oama alive and healthy. And refrain from naming them.

How good is your “oama eye”?

June 24, 2014 By Scott 7 Comments

It’s often pretty difficult to locate the traveling school of oama. With glare, wind chop and a lot of ground to search, it takes a trained eye to spot the oama schools.

Can you see the small school in this picture?

Can you see the oama?

Polarized sunglasses cut a lot of the glare. This is a simulation of how it would look with polarized sunglasses. I zoomed in on the school to highlight it. They’re traveling toward the upper left hand corner of the photo.

Ah, there’s the oama!

The first third of the battle is finding the oama. Then you have to catch them, and then keep them alive long enough to use them properly as bait. Here’s some tips on how to keep them alive and healthy.

Gearing up for the summer’s halalu and oama runs

June 18, 2014 By Scott 25 Comments

oama gear

Fishermen are discreetly checking their favorite spots to see if the halalu and oama have made their early arrival. When these early summer fish are found, don’t expect to hear about it unless you have a really connected friend.

In the meantime, you can gear up with proper footwear, straight poles, dunking gear, tackle and live bait buckets.

I’ve never fished for halalu but have targeted the oama over the years. Oama show up in same sandy areas year after year. Early in the season the school is small and flighty so the early season fisherman will try to target them without tipping off his oama fishing competition.

It’s importantly to wear a hat and polarized sunglasses to scan the sandy bottom, and to tread very lightly. Ask the tackle shops to recommend the proper hook, line and split shot, as well as pointing you to the fiberglass straight poles. If you can find the wrap around the waist net, that would make it very easy to drop your oama into that net to unhook it. Otherwise a small red landing net would suffice.

The yellow Frabill Flow Troll live bait bucket with spring loaded door will make it much easier to add an oama. I have the non-spring loaded types also and I’ve lost a lot of oama opening or shutting the door’s latch. I’ve seen the Frabill Flow Troll at Roy’s Fishing Supply, McCully Bike and even Target at times. Keep your precious oama alive on the way home with a Promar live bait aerator or similar bait pump. McCully Bike sells the Promar pump for about $10.

Hooking the nibbling oama is an art. I sucked at it because I was trying to feel the bite and then set the hook, but the oama really are feeling the bait with their whiskers before deciding to nibble on it. The recommended method is to use a short pole and short length of 1 – 2lb test line. Attach a hook to the end of the line, with a split shot about 4 inches up. Lower your bait to the bottom. When you feel your split shot hit bottom, raise it up so your bait is slightly off the bottom. If you see oama approach your bait, wait a few seconds and lift your rod tip in a motion up and away from your body, almost as if you were skimming the water with your rod tip. If you don’t hook the oama while it’s eating your bait, you may at least hook it while its whiskers are over the bait. Watch an experienced fisherperson hook oama and emulate. Hook sets are free so swing away.

Here’s some info on keeping your oama alive as long as possible.

Kaku at the He’eia Fishpond

June 14, 2014 By Scott 1 Comment

Paepae o He’eia fishpond at minus tide (zoom in to see the fisher folk on the wall)

Some friends and I had the privilege of fishing the Paeapae o He’eia fishpond on their first predator eradication day of the summer. The purpose of these predator eradication days is to provide some education about the ocean and the working fish pond, and lessen the predatory pressure the herbivore fish feel from the kaku, papio, toau and tilapia. So you can spend a day fishing and picnicking with friends and family, and feel good that you’re helping the pond!

The good folks at the pond welcomed us, provided an orientation tour for those who were interested and made sure we knew what we needed to know to stay safe.

Soon we were off and fishing. Right away, small kaku were brought up on bait by others but it took our group 3 hours to catch our first one. We had to wait for the tide to rush in through the “makaha” gates in order to get the kaku wildly feeding on the bait fish.

The kaku bit our flashy gold and silver/blue kastmasters and preferred the smaller 3/8 oz size to the 1/2 oz size but the 1/2 oz size did yield the largest fish. It was a challenging day in a very relaxing setting surrounded by happy families who out fished us with their Snoopy rods.

don’t be too impressed…

Looks like a great catch but if you zoom in, you’ll notice that the Sprite can is a diminutive 7.5 ouncer! Our job was to eradicate predators so out they went.

To learn more about the Paepae o He’eia Fishpond and their charter to preserve the Hawaii fishpond culture and heritage, please visit them here.

Kinda flat on the Flats

May 29, 2014 By Scott 1 Comment

The plan was to have the visiting fishermen, Justin and Pete, feel the raw power of an oio racing across the flats. Unfortunately the oio had other plans.

There were a number of waders, dunkers and bait casters targeting the oio, and some of them got their intended quarry but we just got a few random reef fish.

Highlights were an omilu on Justin’s first cast, and a Hawaiian knifefish for me, which is some kind of small nabeta. Justin had another story of the one that got away; this time I wasn’t around to witness because I was off fishing unproductive water.

We fished a new area of the flats and I wasn’t able to find the productive channels the oio frequent.

Lesson learned: Fish the flats on a rising tide before the inside section heats up from the morning sun. Once that happens, fish the deeper channels closer to the break.

some sort of nabeta?

Small kine omilu action

May 28, 2014 By Scott 4 Comments

Pete’s first omilu

Took Justin and Pete from Berkeley, CA out while the reef was low enough to wade to the breakers. Pete, whose main sport is cycling, got the hang of avoiding snags and did a number on the fish. He went from losing hinaleas in the pot holes yesterday to catching a mix bag of omilu, various types of hinalea and a humu.

Justin’s first ever omilu

Justin tried his homemade Thai fish sauce flavored bait and brought in omilu and hinalea, and ended the day with a mystery fish that broke him off just as we were about to leave.

The omilus bit best as the tide started to come into the reef, even though it was after 9am. I like these fish that allow us to sleep in a bit.

Pete and Justin w/the state fish

Sorry for the bad PhotoShopping. Didn’t want to upset the regulars by revealing the location. All the fish were released.

Tomorrow we plan to hunt the oio on the flats.