SUP trolling veteran Kelly checked one of his east side spots last week on a moderate trade wind day, on the bottom third of a rising tide. He was trolling frozen oama he caught a couple weeks back that didn’t end up in the frying pan. Kelly uses a Korean knockoff of a Gamakatsu live bait hook in the oama’s nose and a trailing VMC 4X treble, size 8, with one hook tucked in between the anal fin and tail, closer to the tail the better.
The fish weren’t at the closest reef he encountered so he had to go further out, against the wind, to find them on the second reef. His first bites were 14″ sized omilu and a roi. Then he found where the big fish were lying in wait, and ended up with a 15.5″ omilu and a 17″ omilu.
All but the 17″ omilu were caught on the rear treble hook.
The 17″ omilu was caught on the knock off Gamakatsu live bait hook. So much for the theory that papio usually hit the oama head first. Always good to have a back hook, whether you’re fishing your oama alive or dead.
Thanks Kelly, for letting us know that the bigger omilu are still on the reef but may be further out than they were earlier in the season.
Right on Kelly! Way to pound it out! Like Scott used to say, you gotta be willing to hike, wade or paddle farther than others to find success on this island.
I’ve encountered far fewer omilu while fly fishing this season, which seems to corroborate your findings.
Hey Jason,
We predicted a short season of oama and papio, and the oama have left a lot of places, yet the few places that always hold oama for a long time have new oama coming in. The papio don’t seem to be coming in to raid the oama in the shallows as much as the early season, but they are still outside the break like they always are, so if you can get fresh oama to them, you’ll score.
-scott
Ah, I see. Still hoping to find some within fly casting range before things start to get too cold. Sounds like there’s still hope, just gotta wait for the next zero tide. Thanks for the info!