Big papio still around, just harder to find

The winds were down but picking up, the moon was almost full and one of my oama tubs was experiencing a die-off.  I scooped about 10 of the remaining oama and headed out on the kayak.  The tide was about 2 hrs from the small peak tide and nothing bothered the oama slow trolled at the papa’s edge.  An hr and 45 mins into the trolling circuit the ratchet sounded and I tried to set the hook by taking a few more strokes. When I tightened the line I found it stuck in pile of submerged rocks.  Hmm, did the bait get stuck in there or did a pesky roi hunker down after it got hooked? It sure sounded like something was running with the bait before it got stuck.

It had been raining off and on and I had been paddling against a 12 mph onshore wind.  I rounded a papa and started paddling in.  Again it seemed like something grabbed the bait and wedged itself in the rocks.  Well I’ll teach that blasted roi! I set the drag really tight to the point it was hard to pull line and continued paddling with the papa’s edge on my left as I paddled straight towards shore.  This time the rod got yanked and something kept trying to pull line.  I loosened the drag a bit and the fish ran, then shook its head repeatedly.  What an unexpected hit at the nearest papa to shore.  I was hoping for an awa awa since we aren’t tagging those, but it turned out to be a hard fighting white papio, bigger than any I had caught at this particular spot.  I looked at my watch and it was just past the top of the tide.

I kept the fish in the water near the kayak and readied my tagging kit.  I lifted the papio onto the area right in front of where I was seated and measured it. 14 inches, head to fork in tail.  That was the easy part.  Tagging a fish while seated on a kayak is very different from tagging a fish laying on shore.  My perspective was off because it was almost on my lap and I was pressing straight down on the white’s 2nd dorsal fin area with the tagging applicator.  I pushed too hard and the tag’s barb went through the other side of the fish!  Oops, sorry fish. Papio are tough so I knew it could survive that superficial wound that didn’t draw any blood.  I tried again and this time my angle of entry was too shallow and I didn’t penetrate the dorsal fin ray bones.  I had to pull the tag’s barb back out and left a larger second hole.  Poor guy.  No blood this time either though.  3rd time was a charm and I properly inserted the tag just after the start of the 2nd dorsal fin and stopped after penetrating the fin ray bones.  I thought the fish would be limp after being poked 3 times but it took off as soon as I placed it in the water, not wanting to be stabbed anymore.

I had a lot more oama and 1 more tag so I made the turn around the papa, counter clockwise, and just started heading away from land when I got a bigger strike.  This fish was stronger and kept resisting being pulled in as if it were foul hooked.  Turns out it was a larger fish that measured 16 inches (FL) and about 4lbs.  Whites are thicker than omilu for their fork length.  I had learned from my previous tagging mistakes and tagged the second fish with just one try.

I was out of tags and the next fish could be brought home.  Problem was I didn’t get a bite within 10 mins.  The wind picked up so I let it blow me back to shore.

Take a look at the way those two fish were hooked. Both hooked in the right corner of the mouth. That means they turned left after hitting the bait.  Left would have driven them onto the papa if they hit the oama from behind so they must’ve hit it from the front they way papio are supposed to, and turned left towards deeper water.  I gotta take note of how other fish were hooked in relation to the reef now.

Not bad action for mid-December.  It did take live oama and 2 hrs of kayak trolling but those 2 whites were larger than any other combined kayak catch this year.  I guess they’re still out there if you look hard enough.