Awa awa on the kayak!

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.