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.
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