Undergunned against the creatures of the deep – catch and cook

February 17, 2018 By Scott 2 Comments

Holy smokers, talk about action! OK, where do I begin?

Frank and I were able to paddle out on a sheet glass day to fish a spot we were eyeing the couple of months. The conditions were so perfect Frank exclaimed that it was “an ono kind of day” because the last time we had such good conditions he caught an ono on a jig, our first legitimate pelagic. We both had a grab bag of baits we gathered from our freezers. Oama, halalu, opelu and ika. We hoped we had our bases covered.

The water was so clear I didn’t need my fish finder to tell me there were schools of fish around. At 40 ft we were followed by at least 30 aha and Frank kept one after it pulled off his frozen oama one too many times. In about 60 ft of water we could see 7 inch silver fish passing beneath us. All this activity raised our expectations even further.

A few kayaks and boats were already at the reef almost 2 miles out but the area was so large we had plenty of room to work the shallow bottom fishing grounds. We started with frozen oama and my initial baits were surgically removed. Was this the work of aha? Frank trolled up a wahanui, also called fork tailed snapper or small toothed jobfish, a good eating nearshore snapper rarely found on Oahu anymore. I went deeper to avoid the aha and made sure my oama made it quickly to the bottom. I set the hook on a fish and was surprised to find out an 8 inch FL moana ate its goatfish cousin. Watching this video, I realized I crank up small fish too quickly because I think they’re hage.

Frank topped my efforts by catching a moana on a jig!

We fished the reef and missed a lot of strikes on the frozen oama. One fish even cut my oama in half and missed the front and back hooks! I got tired of this and put on a 6 inch frozen halalu which was much larger than an oama. I didn’t change the small hooks. I just nose hooked the halalu and stuck the back hook near its dorsal fin, midway down the fish. Dropped it down to the bottom in 80 ft of water and something hit it hard but missed the hooks again and left the head of the halalu. While it was fun to have so much action, it was frustrating to miss so many bites.

I followed marks on the fish finder in to the 60ft depth but wasn’t getting anything good when Frank radio’d me saying he was on a floating scum line past the reef and missed a “pole benda” on halalu. That was good enough to get me out to the deep. As I paddled towards him the depth quickly dropped from 90 ft to 115 ft. There weren’t a lot of fish marks on this ledge but I had heard that predators hang out at the drop offs. I put on the front half of a frozen opelu, more than 4 inches in length and 2 inches in diameter. The two hooks I was using looked really tiny buried in that chunk of bait. Since the drift was so slow, I could drop down the bait and fish almost straight up and down. I felt some heavy taps and then something strong pulled drag! I lifted the rod, the fish was battling for a few seconds and then came off. Arrggghh. That was a good fish. I put on my second to the last piece of opelu, dropped down, and felt the thump again. This time I let the fish eat and it took off on a slow steady run. Then it really pulled line off the reel and it looked like it was running straight down but it was following the contour of the bottom and running to deeper water. I was using my light Trevala S rod and Calcutta 300 TE level wind reel with only a 25lb fluoro leader and had a feeling this wasn’t gonna end well.

Here’s what the fight looked like after I removed all the landmarks. Sorry about the waterspot on the lens. When I frantically turned the camera on I must’ve hit the lens with my hand.

That fish felt bigger than the 30lb ulua I caught on the Big Island on a boat, and was definitely the largest fish I hooked on a kayak. I had one more piece of opelu and Frank was fishing his halalu bait. I put on a pre-tied leader of 40lb fluoro with slightly larger hooks and hooked the opelu in the nostril and where the front half ended. A few seconds after it reached the bottom something pulled hard and missed the tiny hooks again. The opelu skull with some hanging flesh was left on my front hook. I didn’t have larger hooks and didn’t have anymore opelu so I dropped the skull down. Tap, tap… wait…….pull….hookup. I waited for the line to burn off the reel but this fish wasn’t as large as the previous eaters of the opelu.

This is what is was. I gave it the bends by cranking it up too quickly.

After so many missed strikes I was stoked to land that uku. We were out of halalu and opelu baits and a bunch of humpbacked whales started breaching way too close to us so we worked our way to the inside to bounce the sand for nabeta. No nabeta found but Frank and I got a moana each.

Wahanui on the left, smaller cylindrical steaks of aha on the upper right, and the two red pieces of moana on lower right.

Frank fried the moana, wahanui and aha and said the wahanui and aha tasted similar, with mild white meat that needed a bit of sauce for flavor and moisture. His wife liked those fish but he enjoyed the taste of the moana even more.

My wife and I are neophyte fish cookers so we got a lot of advice from friends to properly prepare the uku. I cleaned it more than 24 hrs after catching it and that was the reason it smelled a little fishy when steaming in a colander in a large pot of water. I had placed ginger slices in slits I cut into the fish and we determined it was cooked by inserting a chopstick into the thickest parts of the fish and pulling it out clean. The fish was then placed on a dish and we drizzled shoyu, hot peanut oil and topped it off with cilantro. Ponzu sauce was added to our individual portions. The fish wasn’t fishy at all and tasted really ono despite the simplicity of the recipe. Friends told me later that it’s critical to keep the fish as cold as possible on the kayak and keep it cold at home. Ideally, it should be cleaned immediately to stop the bacterial breakdown which causes the fishy smell and taste.

Frank and I were severely undergunned against the size of the fish that would eat a big chunk of bait in the deep. We’re over hauling our tackle by using large circle hooks, 60 – 100 lb leader and small-medium sized conventional reels with clickers. Stay tuned for our next nearshore deep water adventure!

Nearshore fishing has been very slow!

January 29, 2018 By Scott 4 Comments

The winter cold water doldrums are in full effect now. Our group has tried wade fishing, SUP oama trolling and deep water kayak fishing the last few weeks with very little to show for it. My fish finder was reading 73 degrees on the surface in the mid-morning. Average water temp in July is 80 degrees so the nearshore predators must have gone somewhere warm to wait out the winter cold snap.

On our last kayak/SUP trip, the fish finder marked clouds of bait at 100 ft but my 2 hook damashi with one ika strip only caught hage at the very bottom. Frank trolled a fresh dead oama from 10 to 80 ft and nothing bit. That has never happened before at this spot.

I kept bouncing the damashi with ika on one of the two hooks as I worked my way back to land. An occasional hage would hit the ika and leave the unbaited fly alone. Then I hooked something in 20ft of water that fought a little differently. I was surprised to bring up a small weke nono in such shallow water. Had it been larger I would have kept it for poke. In the second photo you can see that it has a predator’s mouth like the obake weke, much larger than the common white weke.

Since the fishing has been unproductive, the guys want to surf and gather bait until the bite picks up again. I won’t bore you with the surf trip reports but if you’re interested, I could do some brief bait gathering updates. Anyone interested in that?

Fish in the deep didn’t bite, awa awa did on the inside

January 19, 2018 By Scott 5 Comments

Screen shot from Session 5 video. Still a little low res, sorry.

The forecast called for light winds so Frank paddled his trusty fishing SUP and I took the Scupper Pro. My plan was to try to get better with my new fish finder and learn how to fish the damashi. Frank intended to troll a frozen oama out, and then troll and jig various lures. The bait cloud was at 130 ft this time, but wasn’t showing up as dense on the Garmin EchoMap 44CV as previous bait clouds had. I dropped the damashi down but nothing bit. I’m guessing the bait was a smaller fish than opelu but I sure would like to have pulled up a bait to see what they are.

The trade winds blew over 10 mph at times so we kept paddling in a ways to reset our drift. I put the time in, dropping the damashi on various bait marks. Frank trolled between drifts and jigged off the bottom. Not a single touch for either of us so when the winds turned offshore and increased to 12 mph we went further in.

I had marks that looked like single, large fish, at 40 feet but they wouldn’t take a jig. I purposely wasn’t carrying bait, so I could focus on my damashi education, but was wondering if they would have taken something real. Frank then hooked a fish on frozen oama in 15 ft of water. Awa awa! He called me on the walkie talkie but I misunderstood when he said “Hanapa’a………….awa” and thought he said “Hanapa’a……..off” because the fish came off. It’s very hard to push the button to talk when you have an angry fish on your line. The fish jumped twice, then made some long runs, and spun his board around 4 times. It was so feisty he had to dispatch it with a knife after he netted it. I’m bummed I wasn’t able to video the action.

We fished the 10 to 20 ft depth for another hour and Frank landed a roi. I finally hooked something on the Gulp grub that I threaded on a small damashi hook. It looked dark and when it shook off about 5 ft from the surface I thought I saw red. Moana? Roi?

The action was very slow except for Frank’s awa awa. Was it because the tide was so slack on this day?

Frank cleaned the awa awa and roi at the beach and fed the ecosystem with the scraps.

Here’s how he made his delicious awa awa fish paddies:

Fry some minced garlic and chopped round onion in oil, then add ground pork and chung choy (salted turnip). Brown and cool.

Then add a little water to the awa awa paste to make it smooth. Mix in green onion, water chestnuts and grated carrots. Mix in the ground pork mixture and form patties. Fry the patties, being careful not to overcook them. Drizzle oyster sauce or plum sauce and grind ’em!

Frank fried the Roi and you can see it at the top end of the pan. Roi is actually a very delicious grouper, and small ones from this area haven’t been reported as cig-hot. He said it tasted very good, and plans to steam the next one he catches.

I’m seriously concerned about fishing the deep on this side of the island since off-shore winds seem to come up most of the time and cause us to scramble back in for safety.

Guest Post: Big South Shore Omilu on SUP – Catch and Cook

November 16, 2017 By Scott 16 Comments

It really was this big and I have the photos to prove it!

Here is a guest post about a recent stand-up paddleboard fishing adventure on the South Shore of O`ahu by my fishing buddy Kelly. He prefers staying a little anonymous for now.

Howzit fellow fishers! Scott was nice enough to humor me and let me do a second writeup for his blog. In my first guest post I caught a personal best yellowspot papio in Waikiki. Lucky Lucky.

It was a nice calm Sunday morning with a very high tide 2’+ at 7:12am and the moon phase was good, so I dragged my lazy butt outta bed early to see if the fishies would give me any action. The surface of the water looked smooth and some surfers were preparing in the dark to paddle out, so I did the same with my wetsuit and fishing gear. Hopefully no freak sets would wipe me out, as occasionally happens!

As has become my custom, I brought my foamie SUP board, although the new wrinkle for this trip was that I decided to try an ancient used Penn 209 level-wind that I bought from eBay for $25. The reel was loaded with 30lb test Yozuri Hybrid fluorocarbon/mono that some fishers in Hawaii swear by. Hopefully this reel and the heavier line would allow me to land some of the larger fish which have been giving me trouble the last year or so. I had asked Scott to service the reel, since it was kinda similar to the bait casting reels he uses. The drag had been very sticky and freespool was all hemajang and when I took it apart it was giving me fits getting it re-assembled. To my mild surprise, Scott was able to do a full service and even get it so that the drag was silky smooth and the freespool could now spin for days. I was now loaded for bear and figured the little papios were gonna be toast.

At about 6:30 in the morning I paddled out at one of my usual spots, with my cheap-o used conventional reel and charity hand-me-down baitcasting pole from Scott. The rod was a bit stiffer than I am used to and that little trigger kept jabbing my lower back due to placement but the setup seemed to be passable. I figured at the very least, I would get to paddle in some nice glassy water, get some cardio in and see a beautiful Hawaiian sunrise. 🙂

As you may have read in my other guest post, my fishing budget is extremely limited and I always try to catch fish using very inexpensive tackle that still works for the fish I target (papio). I have found that just trolling dead baits like frozen oama, halalu or sardines with a pole stuck in my shorts is pretty easy and productive. It also minimizes my gear (and prep time) and allows me to catch/surf a wave if and when one happens to come along.

The sun was just rising and the tide was peaking, so I felt there was a decent chance to catch a legal-sized omilu or two for dinner. Since the water was very high and I had LIVE oama, I decided to stay inside the breakers and close to shore, at least initially. Scott had generously given me some live oama, which I picked up in the bucket right at the spot he left them in his garage. The pickup was in the wee morning hours, prior to heading to the fishing spot -so I am very grateful that he would leave the liveys out for me! Scott even let me use the bucket and pump. I think I owe him some good homemade char siu soon. 🙂

Editor’s note: Welcome anytime!

So off I paddled, first out about 50 yards then parallel to shore. My instincts proved true and within 5 minutes of launching from the sandy beach, I got a 2+lb omilu in the bag. The fight was pretty good even though I was using a big soda-can sized floater to try to keep the big live oama from swimming down and snagging the bottom. Despite the resistance of the huge floater, the omilu made several strong runs before I dragged it onto the board.

The floater seemed to be working as an attractant, because after re-baiting and paddling back to about the same spot, I scored another thick 2.5 lb omilu right away! Both were caught within casting distance from shore. The morning was still young, so I decided to hang around to fish a bit more and use my last few liveys.

With the pressure off and the tide now falling, I headed out to the breakers. Often the action in the surf zone is hot and heavy, with all the turbulence and whitewater seeming to stimulate the fishes to eat. I landed another 2-pounder in the surfers’ channel on the way out and then decided to go past the surfers to scout some new reefy areas, quite a bit past the breakers. Anything else now would be icing on the cake.

After about 15 minutes, and a couple bait stealers taking my last liveys, I switched to a frozen, salted Halalu from Thad (that halalu trip was written up here) and replaced the floater with a light clip-on weight. Those freebies from good friends seem to have some kind of mana, as I always seem to get lucky when using gifted gear/bait!) Actually there was a lot of Aloha involved in this fishing trip, since Thad gave me the secret bait I used to catch the oama and he also gave me charity salted halalu which he caught whipping. Scott gave LIVE OAMA, the baitcaster rod and serviced my new old reel, another friend gave me the remnant line I used for leader and so on and so forth … maybe I stay just one old pa’ke (thrifty Chinese) fisherman … haha

As I trolled about 40 yards outside the surfers, I hadn’t had a nibble in about 10 or 15 minutes, so I was contemplating going in early to clean my fish. Maybe the halalu was not a good bait for this area? Maybe the bite was pau already…?

As I was daydreaming about why I wasn’t getting hits, all of a sudden BINGO-BANGO and my clicker started SCREAMING. My line was ripping out -it sure is nice to hear that loud clicker, since I usually hear a pretty quiet spinner drag. Scott’s comment regarding his screaming clicker sounding like Wicked Tuna played in my head and I told myself that this was a BIG M’Fer and I better not lose ‘em!

I fiddled clumsily with the reel since I am not used to using a conventional, I had to switch hands and flip the pole over, then finally set the hook two or three times by jerking the pole upwards, more out of habit than anything else. Of course, that made the fish pretty unhappy and he went on a 20-yard spurt. Since the water was about 15 or 20 feet, I let him run a little more than I usually do then started to retrieve line slowly, but surely. During the fight I vacillated with letting the fish run then clamping down, afraid of being rocked, as I often am. Finally, I rationalized that my line was heavier than usual and my reel bigger and stronger than my junky spinner, so I could probably just boost the fish in. I palmed the spool and just started “winching”, which is kinda how I feel fighting a fish on a rather foreign (for me) conventional reel, but after about three or four minutes, I saw the familiar electric blue hue and knew it was a nice sized Omilu.

The fish made a couple of death circles under my board, and I used the time to grab my glove from my pocket. I don’t bring a net, so I just grabbed the tail on the scutes with my gloved hand and the fish was mine. The knockoff Gamakatsu live bait hook I used was easy to remove and as I bagged the fish, I realized my backpack cooler would not zip up, so I had to leave the tail sticking out.

By now I was sooo dang stoked! My paddle-in seemed like I was just floating on a cloud, so effortless. I rarely catch nice sized papio, usually just papiopio, which are mighty tasty anyways. It turns out that this was my second largest papio … EVER!

After fishing, I stopped at Scott’s house to return his bucket/pump and he was nice enough to weigh my fish with his IGFA certified spring scale. Turned out to be a bit over 6 pounds and made lots of sashimi, poke and vina dos.

My wife also experimented with the filets and made a Japanese style nanban-fu dish that is served cold and was pretty AMAZING .

The sashimi was cut and eaten on the second and third day after the fish was caught. We like to eat our raw fish than way for most fish, since the flesh tends to be a bit softer after a couple days (depends on fish type though). My catches are small and I always ice them very well, that is the single most important aspect to keeping the fish as fresh as possible with the goal always to have sashimi quality fish at home, whether we eat raw or not!

We made poke from the not as pretty but still super fresh cuts of fish. This time I made a sweet ginger shoyu poke, which is normally the most popular with my children. Basic ingredients are shoyu, sugar, round onions and ginger. Other things we like to add depending on taste and availability are sesame oil, chili pepper, honey, toasted sesame seeds, green onions. You can also try the secret ingredient, a touch of oyster sauce … get creative and let your taste buds make the decisions!

Vina dos is a Portuguese style vinegar fried fish that my kids love. We use it for the bones, belly and other “scrap” pieces of the fish. Many popular recipes are online, so I wont go into detail but the main ingredients are vinegar, Hawaiian salt and fresh garlic – lots of garlic is the key! Oh, I almost forgot, my mom made a fish soup (“chiri”) with the head … no waste 🙂 … we live by the motto … “you kill it, you eat it” … although maybe that is just my old plantation pa-ke roots coming out … hahaha

Thanks for reading my fishiiiiing taaaales!

Awa awa! Will this one stay on?

November 2, 2017 By Scott 7 Comments

The awa awa have eluded me all year. The are the hardest fish for me to land because they aren’t often encountered, jump when hooked, and often succeed in tearing the hook out of their soft mouth. Here’s how I hooked and lost the last one. My family and friends much prefer awa awa paste to oio paste so I was on a mission to land one. The forecast called for light north winds, with surf on the south and east shores. Frank and I decided to stay in the safety of the bay and hunt for something more exotic than omilu and whites.

We had 7 live oama each and yet the first 5 or so were cut in half, crushed or spit out by small papio, aha and one large papio that took line and shed Frank’s double hook. Maybe the water was too calm and clear, and the predators were a little suspicious of our offerings?

An hr and a half into our paddle, I got an odd, erratic tap on the line and turned to see an awa awa leave the surface of the water. I called out to Frank and was glad I had just changed to a fresh leader. The fish was on longer than the few seconds I normally would take to lose an awa awa and my confidence grew. I kept the drag light so the hooks wouldn’t pull and the fish swam towards me after its initial run. That was unusually behavior for an awa awa. Normally they battle all the way to the boat, splashing me as I try to bring it aboard but this one was fairly docile. It briefly pulled straight down when it got near the kayak and I waited for the second long run that never came. When it floated broadside, I was surprised it was of decent size.

Frank offered to video with my cap cam so I tried to unhook and pose with the still squirming fish while maintaining a death grip. The front hook was halfway down its throat and rear hook was just under its gill. It was bleeding quite a bit. Maybe the hooks’ positions controlled and weakened it?

With the target species in my cooler bag, the pressure was off and I could enjoy the calm conditions. Frank landed a 12 inch omilu near the papa edge and I missed a fish, and then the bite stopped. We explored for another hour without the fish interrupting our solitude.

I hadn’t scraped the flesh off an awa awa or the more common oio before so I decided to give that a try. My dad assisted me and we harvested more than 3lbs from the 27.25 inch (FL) 5lb plus fish. 4 different families were able to stretch the fish paste into delicately tasting fish cake. There aren’t many fish that can be split so many ways and still be appreciated.

All the awa awa strikes I’ve gotten were on live oama. Kelly has hooked awa awa trolling dead baits but I seem to need a lively oama being pulled in the upright position. Catching, raising and transporting live oama is a lot of work but it seems to be the best bait for the fish I’ve been chasing. Here’s what’s involved in the oama process.

Now that I’ve gotten my awa awa for the year, I’m moving on to a much harder species to catch from a kayak. UKU!!! Such a bad sounding name for such a delicious, clean tasting, firm meat fish. Its English name is “green jobfish” which isn’t that much better. They are much further out than the depths we’ve been fishing, so I’ll need the crew to join me on this uku hunt. I’ve made poke from uku we caught from a boat and it’s now my favorite fish to eat.

How long to you think it’ll take to get my first kayak caught uku? Here’s how we did on our first kayak uku hunt.

Live oama came through, I didn’t…

October 12, 2017 By Scott 2 Comments

The waves were 1 – 3 ft and the wind speed was about 8 – 10 mph on the Eastside, but the water was textured with some rolling swells past the reef. Conditions weren’t as clean as the last two times we fished there but it was still doable.

Frank and I took 8 oama each that were caught 2 weeks previously and pampered in my tubs. They had lost a bit of weight but were still chunky and irresistible looking.

On the way out we saw a monk seal flipping around near the turtles in the channel. That was a rare sight and hopefully indicated a lot of sea life. We headed in the direction I had fished the last time, staying safely away from the back of the waves and going from the dropoff at 40 ft onto the reef shelf. At 20 ft the fish finder showed fish on the bottom and I got a strike on the 1st live oama at 17 ft but it eventually shook off. Frank got a strike a few seconds after mine and landed his. My on-the-water shots were from my hat cam so I didn’t capture any of his action.

While Frank and I were in close proximity talking, I got a strike and my line had to be hand lined by Frank initially. He expertly cleared the line and gave me room to land the omilu. I didn’t plan to put my feet in the water to tag a fish so I bagged it. With a fish each, the pressure was off for us.

We continued down wind and I got a strong hit on my 3rd oama but I was too relaxed in my retrieval and it found some rocks. I could feel it running through the rocks and couldn’t pull it out. I gave it slack, it ran some more but never came out of that hole. It was really hard to break off the 25lb fluoro leader from the kayak. I re-rigged and tightened my drag, vowing not to be rocked again. All this action was within the first 30 mins but after we paddled into a deep sandy channel the bites stopped. U-turning around to head upwind to where we had come from, I got an odd nibble in 40ft of water.

I tightened the line and a fish rocketed out of the water. Awa awa!! I have been trying to catch one all year and was stoked. But it jumped again and was gone. The hooks pulled because my drag was so tight – arrrggggghhhh! Before I had a chance to react Frank got a pull, an awa awa leaped out of the water and it too shook the hook. Excited but bummed, we headed back against the wind and again, when we entered the 20 ft ledge I got a hit. The hook got stuck in my net when I landed the omilu and as I tried to free it I drifted ominously close to the back of the waves. I scampered away, cut the hook off the line and re-tied my rig. Frank radio’d in that he was going up the line to where he had success the last two outings.

He skirted the back of the waves, getting pushed a couple of times, while I stayed in deeper water and didn’t get another bite. The wind picked up to 12 – 15 mph and I headed for the safety of the inner reef. The tide had been dropping and the bite really slowed. Frank’s persistence paid off with another omilu on a halalu and a long trumpetfish on a live oama that was so bright yellow it spooked him.

Live oama proved to be irresistible on the first 1/3 of the falling tide but I “farmed” 3 of my 5 strikes. Hope we get another shot at awa awa before the year is up. Here I am with our combined catch before Frank cleaned them on the beach.

We found papio that wanted to bite!

September 13, 2017 By Scott 2 Comments

By all accounts, this summer season has been the best in recent memory for oama and halalu. Both species came in early and are still around in big numbers. Theories for their respective abundance are: 1) previous oama seasons have been very good and the increase in adult weke led to another good spawn 2) akule grow faster and spawn better during rainy years and the last few years have been rainier than those previous.

Whatever the reason for such a great bait season, it’s actually been hard to catch papio lately because they’ve had so much bait to choose from. Kelly had been scouting some grounds on his SUP and invited Frank and me for a dawn patrol outing at one of his productive spots recommended by Erik, our nearshore boat friend. It’s been great to share knowledge in our little fishing hui.

I don’t think I’ve ever arrived at a fishing spot while it was still dark. Early mornings are not my thing but Kelly had a mid morning appointment so dawn it was. The water was sheet glass calm and stayed that way until about 10:30.

In the too-early morning stumble I forgot to take my pack of frozen oama, so I bummed 3 frozen halalu and 5 frozen oama off Kelly and Frank. The guys paddled off on their SUPs and I kept in touch with Frank via waterproof walkie talkie. They were trolling with a small weight on their line and I was using a floater. Kelly hooked up first, followed by Frank. I followed their trolling paths inside the break yet nothing hit my oama. Kelly missed another fish while retrieving his line and suggested I whip instead of trolling high up in the water column on such a clear visibility day. The guys went out through a large deep channel to fish outside the break but I opted to fish the edge of the channel itself, carefully eyeing the small surf wash over the reef shelf.

Frank reported via walkie talkie that he landed his second papio so I knew they were hooking up. I left the floating oama out and rigged the second rod with a sliding weight to drag an oama near the bottom. Something pulled it off and on the next cast I hooked a poopa’a. Well at least that was more action than I got with the floated oama. Frank called in his 3rd papio and I asked what he was using. Halalu! I dug around and pulled out a 6 inch halalu. It was big for the size of Gamakatsu Live Bait hook I was using but I was too lazy to re-rig. I cast it out and as it was settling to the bottom the line moved. Finally, a real fish. Started cranking it in and remembered to turn on the GoPro cap cam. Drifted into my trolling line so I kept the fish on a short leash as I reached for the net. You can see the trolling line in the video. Cardinal mistake, keeping its head out of the water so it could shake the poorly placed hook. Well, at least I had video proof I *caught* a decent fish. I figured I solved the bait secret and looked for another halalu. The last two were pretty beat up with their stomachs oozing stuff but I tried ’em anyway.

Next cast, still in the channel, I hooked something… arrggh, turned out to be a roi. But the halalu bait was on the outside of the fish so I tried to net it before the halalu fell off. Kept it too high in the water again and you can see the halalu sink to the bottom. I stabbed the roi deeply with a knife and sent it back to join the halalu.

I only had one more beat up halalu left so I changed to a larger Gamakatsu Live Bait hook. I like them when just using one hook behind a bullet sinker because their shank is short so the bait fish is butted close to the sinker. I put on a nice looking oama and some kind of shiny papio followed it back to the boat. It kind of looked like a small kagami, but it didn’t commit. Some other fish hit the oama and jumped out of the water but didn’t hook up either. Tired of missing fish, I rigged the last halalu and something, roi I’m sure, pulled it into the rocks. Just then Kelly was making his way in. He said he and Frank found a hot spot past the waves and the bite was really good on the trolled halalu.

I could see Frank paddling in towards me, then start fighting a fish just outside the break. He called me via walkie talkie to report his largest SUP caught fish. The 19 inch omilu was still alive with really dark coloration like it had swum out of a cave. Frank had used his last halalu, a pretty large one that was missing its tail. Man, the fish really wanted halalu at this spot.

Frank was trolling a small lai and I followed behind casting a 1 oz sinking swimming lure. With all the action the boys had I braced to have the rod wrenched from my hands. The lure cast well, swam pretty well, but nothing hit it. Hmm… I swapped it out with a sinking lipped lure that worked on big white papio in the past. Nada. Frank’s lai got pulled off and he put on an oama. I switched to a small tungsten jig. Maybe the dawn witching hour was over, it was past 10am at this point and nothing was interested in our baits. As we paddled in, Frank got bit on his trolled oama near the side of the channel I had fished in the morning. He landed an omilu and missed another 2 before we called it a day.

Maybe it was due to the extremely clear visibility and proximity to a halalu school nearby that caused the predators to strongly prefer halalu baits over oama and show no interest in my lures. Frank had his best day SUP fishing, ending with 6 omilu from 13 to 19 inches, and one lai. I took a mercy papio from him, and he dropped fish off with his daughter on the way home. After proving to be a halalu prodigy, he’s now dominating the SUP trolling scene. Kelly did very well also in the short time he was there and was an excellent host.

Tide, moon phase, time of day, bait, water clarity, location, season – what’s most important?!!

August 4, 2017 By Scott 6 Comments

There were some calm wind days this week so I decided to yak fish a spot I hadn’t since last season. I had missed the early start on the first day because my oama had a major die off in one of the tubs and I had to scramble to try to save the remaining live ones. Took some of them out to troll mid-morning at the top third of the tide. The moon was already more than half full and water clarity was ok at the deep drop off.

Floating debris signaled the slack peak tide. The fish finder detected a lot of bait fish near the surface. The head-hooked live oama were pulled off or the barely hooked predators shook off quickly. Two bigger fish cut me off on the edge of the sharp reef. Very slow bite with live oama, figured the mid-morning start was to blame. The only thing I hooked, at the end of the session, was this table boss.

Figuring the evening bite would be much better, Frank and I hit the same spot two days later at about 3pm. This time the tide was dropping from the high tide and water clarity was poor. Bait fish were detected all around, near the drop off and well into the deep channels but nothing hit the dead oama that had died in my tubs. We paddled away from the shoreline drop off to find cleaner water, and clarity improved but there weren’t a lot of bait holding near the papa edges. Frank did have a strike that pulled on his dead oama a few times, eventually pulling it off without getting hooked. Looked like a small omilu that hits from the tail-side and yanks. I didn’t get a single strike.

Was the oama too stink from partially decomposing in the tubs? Did the fish only want live oama? Was the moon too big, just 4 days before the full moon? Was the falling tide bad even though it coincided with darkening sky? Maybe there’s too much bait so close by that the fish don’t need to check out a hooked bait? What conditions do you guys like to fish?

It sure seems like Screamer Season is over for us. The big strikes that surprised us at the start of the “season” are a distant memory.

Find the bait, then find the elusive white papio school?

July 28, 2017 By Scott 3 Comments

Frank and I have been chasing reports of schools of white papio marauding bait in the deep channels but we’ve always been a paddle or two behind. Bolo-ing on the last mid-morning search, we decided to try the evening bite. Conditions were challenging, with gusts over 20 mph and rain threatening.

Not much was showing on my portable fish finder’s screen so we pushed through the wind to get to the spot we were told held the whites. Fish appeared to be a few feet above the bottom on the protected side of the papa but nothing wanted to take our live oama offering. As we waited for the 5pm witching hour to wake the fish, the steady wind blew me closer to shore. There were pockets of fish hovering near the bottom that I assumed were white papio waiting for the evening frenzy.

Suddenly fish began to show up on the “sidefinder” view of the fish finder, indicating fish near the surface directly in front of my kayak. My Huminbird Fishin Buddy’s display is almost toy-like but I’ve come to learn that when fish are spotted near the surface like that, they are bait fish spread out on the surface over a sandy bottom. I paddled my kayak’s bow like a hammerhead shark surveying side to side until I could also mark fish below me. Suspended fish are either bait schools thick in the water colum or white papio stacked up under the bait fish.

When I took this photo, the surface bait fish weren’t showing up in the sidefinder view on the left of the screen, but the composite view of what I had passed over indicated bait fish thick under me. Despite all this bait, nothing took the live oama I was deep trolling behind me.

Remembering I had brought a jigging rod in hopes that we’d be sitting over a school of whites, I clipped on a 3/4 oz, 2 inch compact tungsten jig and dropped it down but wasn’t surprised when nothing took it. Out of boredom, I cast it out and jigged it back as I watched the fish finder’s screen. Something was pulling back! It felt like a fish but the Shimano Type J rod and Tranx 400 easily controlled it.

When I brought it in view I thought it was a 4 foot gray shark but it turned out to be a 12 inch white with 3 other whites following it. Guess I had been watching too much Shark Week.

Stoked that the compact little jig had worked on the school of whites, I tried to whistle Frank to get his attention but the wind blew the sound inland, not out to him.

Paddling into the headwind as efficiently as possible, the trolling rig went off! I was stunned to land a 12.75 inch omilu on the oama a few feet from where the white had bit. I left the bait out of the water this time and finally made it out to Frank. By the time we made it back in, the whites and the bait fish were gone! Nothing showed on the fish finder and nothing hit our bait. Ugh… I really had hoped Frank and I would finally experience a white papio frenzy.

We headed back to our launch spot and stopped at the spot Frank lost a screamer. The fish finder’s screen was blank so we spread out and slowly paddled in. I took a blind strike near the reef edge and had to put the rod in the holder 3 times and paddle back into the channel before landing a 14 inch white.

What was interesting about these 3 fish were their stomach contents. The 12 inch white was stuffed with small opae despite being around the bait school. The 12.75 inch omilu was full of inch and a half nehu, which looked very similar in length and profile to the tungsten jig. The 14 inch white had a small mantis shrimp and a flat, whitish piece of cartilage stretching its stomach. All were well fed and none appeared to have any oama in their bellies. No wonder our oama baits have been ignored.

Ever the team player, Frank was happy for the catches and new understanding gained but agreed we need to improve communication on the water. He suggested looking into 2-way radios like the offshore kayak guys use. Do you guys have any recommendations?

The yak fishing conditions finally came together, or did they?

July 25, 2017 By Scott 3 Comments

deep trolling oama

The trades finally died down, blocked by the remnants of Tropical Storm Fernanda. The moon was small the night before, and Frank and I launched at the bottom of a big tidal swing. It was overcast, with thunderstorms threatening nearby. I was concerned the water might be too flat, but there was enough chop to make the predators feel comfortable. A very reliable source had found the school of white papio hitting bait that morning, and gave us the location.

All that raised our expectations even though we tried hard not to count our screamers before they hatched.

We paddled straight for the area where the whites had bitten that morning, and the fish finder didn’t mark much bait or larger fish along the way. After about 30 mins of circling the spot, something pulled drag but by the time I cleared the line it jumped off. I saw the splash in the corner of my eye, and so did Frank, maybe a poorly hooked, small awa awa? That was the last good strike we registered.

For the next 3.5 hrs we checked all the likely and unlikely spots and got some weak strikes that pulled at our baits but didn’t stick. On the way in, the area that was reported to have the white papio school had a lot of bait fish near the surface. That bait wasn’t there when we first came through.

So what caused this bolo on a day that seemed to have everything lined up for epic fishing? The whites may have attacked the bait fish early in the morning and dispersed them, or chased them inside where we didn’t check. That I can understand. But what happened to the omilu, awa awa and aha that are normally around the reef channels during the daytime hours? Did the big King tide cause too much tidal current so they hunkered down in a calmer area? We’re beginning to realize the big tidal swings don’t bode well for our deep channel fishing. Or did the fish feel the low pressure of the thunderstorms nearby?

Always get chance when you have live oama…

July 13, 2017 By Scott 2 Comments

peaceful paddle out

Screamah addiction lured Frank and me back to a deep water channel that came up empty the last two times we fished it. Erik had been consistently hooking big papio and ulua with poppers off his small boat, and I stubbornly felt we could get something big to bite our live oama offering.

We launched in absolutely beautiful, glassy conditions and glided to the general area. Hope began to fade as I scanned the fish finder’s blank screen. No bait fish near the surface and no white papio below. Our live oama went on a tour of the likely looking reef drop offs and channels for the next 4 hrs. Maybe the water was too calm and clear? The wind began to pick up, and the tide surged, yet the only things grabbing my oama were reef outcrops and a fat puffer fish. I got stuck 4 times, trolling over shallow water out of desperation, and the puffer was hooked so solidly in its lower lip that I cut off the hook. I was out of trolling rigs, and even bummed one off Frank, so I had to use my 20 lb fluoro main line to make a 2-hook trolling leader.

water has begun to bump up a bit

Frank got stuck a couple times also, but had devised an anchor system for his SUP and could retie his rigs while staying in place on the papa. Brilliant! I drifted a lot while retying rigs because I didn’t want to create an anchor trolley system for my kayak. Frank continues to improve his fishing processes and had built a “rack-a-yak” washing station for me to clean my yak off when we land. Maybe he can help me build the anchor trolley!

We were sun burnt, tired and really disappointed. Besides an omilu that Frank lost right at the net, we didn’t have anything to show for our efforts. We positioned ourselves to let the current push us in, and as we entered shallow, murky water, I took the fish finder’s transducer out of the water that was marking bait near the surface and Frank pulled up his live oama. Even though I had never caught anything this close to shore, in such silty water, I left my oama in the water out of complete desperation. Then the ratchet went off. The sound was faster than I would hear from a snag so it was actually a fish! I got the rod out of the holder, felt a few surges and the fish came off. Ugh… Frank was too far away to hear the ratchet but did hear me yell “HOOKUP!!”. He paddled over as I put the transducer back in the water. 5 feet deep and so silty we couldn’t see more than 2 feet down. He quickly deployed his live oama and I put a new one on and retraced my route.

“HOOKUP!!” Couldn’t believe I hooked something else and was overly excited. I’m so used to saying “hookup” instead of “hanapa’a” after fishing so many years in SoCal, I guess.

Expected a white papio hunting in the very silty water yet it was a fat 1.5 lb omilu that took the back hook down in it’s gullet. The fish bled during the hook extraction process so I kept it. After Frank took this photo, he trolled the inside and when I tracked him down he was landing a similar sized omilu. The fish finder said 3 feet!

We trolled the shallows some more but the bait fish were gone and so were the omilu. I guess God wanted us to each catch a fish and spare us the bolo head.

everything is strapped to Frank or his board for easy transport to and from the launch point

Erik fished shallow water on his bigger boat, and Kelly fished inside the break on his SUP. Both said the bite was very slow. We’re thinking it was because the moon was still so big and the clear night skies let the fish feed at night.

And Frank and I learned that as long as you have live oama in the water, you always have a chance.

Live oama vs big moon and gusty trades

July 10, 2017 By Scott Leave a Comment

The winds were forecast to be blowing 15 – 20 mph and the moon was just shy of full. Not the most promising of fishing conditions but I had some early season oama that were beginning to get skinny in captivity. Kelly invited me to his partially wind shielded SUP fishing spot. The winds were still gusty at times but we managed to slow troll the oama. Kelly let his oama swim unencumbered while I kept mine off the rocks with a floater.

Kelly inched close to the waves and was rewarded with the first fish, a scrappy omilu between a pound and 2 pounds. I was leery of being dumped in my Scupper Pro and played it safe for a while, finally finding a stretch of reef that yielded a bunch of 1.25 lb omilu without pummeling me with waves. I hadn’t brought my tags so all were released.

Fishing closer to harms way, Kelly had a much more diverse hit list: omilu, kaku, trumpet fish and an aha that screamed his drag. The bite was much slower than normal for Kelly, but the live oama overcame the adverse conditions. He even got bit on frozen oama when the livies ran out.

This was my first outing with live oama this season. I was hoping for a screamah but settled for a pretty consistent bite in the protected waters. Still dreaming of the screamahs…

Converting “finding” to “catching”

June 20, 2017 By Scott 1 Comment

Frank and I checked a protected, deeper water spot I hadn’t fished all season. In previous years, the white papio and awa awa would be hitting non-oama bait schools before oama arrive on shore. The plan was for me to locate the bait and predators with the portable fish finder mounted on my yak, and for Frank to bring ’em up for viewing with frozen oama. Once Frank identified the predators I’d try hooking them with a sinking lure.

A few minutes into our launch a large fish symbol appeared on the fish finder, 5 ft off the bottom. Anything suspended above the bottom is a potential predator and sure enough Frank hooked up on his 1 yr old frozen oama he slow trolled in mid-water. The fish battled hard, up and down, and Frank was able to land the first white of the day. I cast out a heavy sinking swimmer that worked well the first time I tried it, but hadn’t worked since. Nothing. Frank baited up with another frozen oama, retraced his route and was on again. This one shook off before he could see it.

The bite stopped so we ventured out into the 12 – 15 mph head wind for a mile and a half or so but there were no bait balls and no bites. I put on a 2 yr old frozen oama and we let the wind blow us back towards our launch point. As we got neared our destination my line felt like it snagged the reef edge. I yanked and pulled and a scuffed up 11 inch omilu came up! It might’ve been pulling a little line off my whipping reel (no ratchet) and I might’ve been dragging it for a while. It was tired but managed to swim back down.

We neared the channel where Frank had his earlier strikes. I checked the opposite edge that had held awa awa in the past after seeing small bait marks on the fish finder but nothing took my oama. When I paddled over to Frank, he smiled and exclaimed “I had a screammmmmmaahhhhhh”. Something hit his oama and made 2 or 3 very strong runs straight down, against his tight drag. Unfortunately the hooks pulled and I wasn’t able to witness the biggest fish he’s battled so far. He asked if he should have run a looser drag but that’s risky too since a big fish could find the reef edge, or take a lot of line in a few seconds. I think I’ve read that 1/3 of the breaking capacity of the line is a good amount of drag to run. ‘Course we go by feel, and don’t pull line off with a scale, but it’s good to remember not to run too tight a drag unless the grounds are really snaggy.

Frank baited up with another frozen oama and circled the area that had been so productive for him. I paddled through a channel closer to shore and my light whipping rod bent over like I had snagged the reef. Line peeled out smoothly so I realized I was actually on a fish. This fish fought up and down like Frank’s and felt bigger than it actually was because of my lighter action rod and small reel. It later measured 14 inches (FL) and was headed for my family’s dinner. I baited up again, paddled over to Frank and we trolled the stretch side by side.

the top fish is only 1/2 inch shorter than the bottom fish but looks a lot smaller due to camera angle

Fish showed up in the same area on the fish finder just as they did when we started the day, suspended off the bottom. Frank had to tell me I hooked up again because my rod was bending from the tip but I couldn’t tell without the sound of a ratchet. The fish felt pretty big but ended up 13.5 inches (FL). While it was fun to battle the whites on small gear it was a big disadvantage not to have a reel with a ratchet to tell me when something was tasting the oama. I liked to imagine I was on Wicked Tuna when a strong fish would scream the small trolling reel.

All in all, it was a successful day. Frank paddled his custom Fishing SUP further than he had in the past, against a stiff head wind. My cheap fish finder found the suspended whites and the frozen oama brought them up for identification. I was a little disappointed that the sinking lure didn’t get bit. Next time I’ll try to drop a jig on the whites’ head and call them up with a popper on the surface.

Oama trolling on kayak and SUP

October 10, 2016 By Scott 6 Comments

My friend Frank, a superb waterman, just started SUP fishing. He wanted to R&D some of his fishing attachments so we did a little oama trolling. The wind was initially light but then the rain came through, and strong gusts came with it. The murky water extended fairly far from shore so it took a while to find clean water.

The first strike came on my weighted frozen oama in a deep channel about 20 ft from the papa edge. It was a chunky white papio, about 1.75 lbs.

By the time I bagged it and rebaited I was blown off the spot and couldn’t find my way back. We eventually found cleaner water inside and Frank’s oama, slow trolled over a shallow reef got hit but the akamai fish wrapped himself up in a hole. The wind started gusting over 20 mph and we began to make a run for our launch site.

On the way, Frank’s next oama, under a floater, got pulled down and Frank landed this omilu in the wind storm. I was impressed that he could find an omilu in the murky chop. We didn’t measure it but it was easily legal.

When we got near our launch spot the wind slowed so we decided to fish upwind of the spot so the next wind storm could blow us in. Then the rain started pelting us but the fish still bit.

A 10.5 inch omilu bit close to the papa edge. It hit the back hook and took the oama for a ride. I didn’t have my tags with me so it was released tag-less.

Then the rain starting pelting us and I hooked a slightly better white. The photo wouldn’t have come out so I didn’t bother taking one. It was closer to 2lbs.

The forecasted increase in wind came an hr earlier and blew us off the water.

All but the first fish were caught on live oama from my tubs. I think that’s what made the fish bite on this bad weather day. The last two unused ones were set free in the murk. Hope they remember how to run from predators.

Frank made sashimi, soup and fried fish with the 2 whites and omilu. Just about everything was consumed by his family except for the bones.

Guest Post: Waikiki Standup Paddleboard Fishing – Catch and Cook

May 31, 2016 By Scott 8 Comments

This is a guest post about a recent stand-up paddleboard fishing adventure in Waikiki. The writer is one of my fishing partners who prefers to remain relatively anonymous while still commenting on most of my posts. His name is Kelly and he’s a master at catching fish near the reef on his foamie SUP with the rod tucked in his shorts.

Playing hooky from work always seems to bring me good fishing luck, so I decided to try my luck on a Friday. Although it was a windy day with poor fishing tides (only a small 1.0’ high tide at about 10:00am), I decided to take my foamie SUP board and paddle around to see if the Papio season had indeed started, as Scott had been hearing through the grapevine. The trade winds were whipping, which limited my SUP fishing location options, so I headed out to Waikiki after dropping off the kidlets at school. I figured at the very least there would be nice blue-green water, beautiful white sand, attractive “scenery” and I would get some much-needed exercise.

I paddled out at my usual spot about 8:30 in the morning, with my brand spanking new cheap-o spinning reel loaded with generic 15lb test mono and my state of the art junk-a-lunka $20 pole. My fishing budget is very limited and I always try to catch fish using inexpensive tackle that still works well for the fish I target (papio). Normally, I just troll dead baits (oama if I can get them) by paddling along with a pole stuck in my shorts and that is just what I decided to do. The pole in the shorts trolling technique is fun and allows me to fish cheaply, with very little gear to pack and cover grounds that are usually less heavily fished.

The sun was out and the tide was rising, so I felt there was a decent chance to catch a legal-sized Omilu or two for dinner. On some days, I have had moderate success near the surf breaks and impact zones with all the turbulence and whitewater, so I headed out to the breakers. After about 10-15 minutes, I felt a light tug on the pole, which was tucked in my shorts right below the small of my back, and in short order pulled up a cute little Omilu. It was quickly released unharmed. A bit later, a slightly larger Omilu hit and gave me a short, but stubborn fight. This one was about 10 ½ inches, pulled a little drag and was bagged quickly. I like to land the fish as soon as possible to avoid stressing the fish – it makes fish tastier to eat (my main objective) but also keeps fish healthier if it is to be released. More on the eating part later.

After trolling for another 30 minutes or so with only one more legal Omilu hitting my bait, it was time to head in to meet Scott for a quick kayak safety exercise near the shore. I reluctantly headed down wind, back to the paddle out spot. The tide was near its peak now and I was slightly disappointed to have to paddle across a “dead area” in order to get to the stretch of beach where we had agreed to meet.

In order to arrive on time, I took the most direct route that was over a very shallow flat, rubbly reef interspersed with sand and a few coral heads. In about five feet of water, my attention focused on the beach looking for a red kayak, all of a sudden BANG! My pole doubled over and I thought WTF!??! Did my dead bait get stuck on a coral head as I paddled slowly?? I grabbed my pole from my high tech okole rod holder and pulled upwards. Well that sure pissed off the creature and he (it was a male, more about that later) made a long run parallel to shore. It was odd because it was not the smoking, head shaking run I experienced on big Papio strikes, but rather a strong steady pull. My second thought was “WTH is this, a turtle??”, since the honu frequent the calm waters in that area and sometimes eat dead fish. Throughout the fight there was the lingering question in my mind about what was on the other end of my line. Occasionally I felt a head shake, but was still flummoxed as I racked my brains trying to figure out what I had hooked. After about three or four minutes, I was able to see a silvery color and a very vague roundish shape, but still could not make out the species of fish. Whatever it was, I knew the size and color meant if I landed him, he was gonna make for some good grinds.

After another 30 seconds or so of him pulling my board in a 360-degree clockwise circle, I was able to make out a Papio … but there was no electric blue color and the tail had a black outline. I was still unsure of what exactly I was fighting. It was definitely not the color of an Omilu and did not fight like a white Papio. Could this be my first Barred Jack? I got excited and the fish must have sensed it, because he made another run that took him out of my sight range. Now I was getting a little nervous and hoped that my hook did not pull. I double-checked the drag and slowly worked him back to the board. After a few tuna-like death circles under the board, I decided that it was time to try to land the big guy. I pulled my long rashguard sleeve over my palm and fingers and grabbed the tail. The tail stump was very girthy and I was very pleased with myself indeed … but then the fish gave a hard kick, slipped out of my hands and started swimming away! “OH $HIT”!!! I screamed! Luckily, he was still hooked and I worked him back to the board again. Made a more decisive grab this time and got a death grip on the tail. Finally after hauling the fish on to the board, I saw that it was a big, fat Yellowspot Papio!!! I checked to make sure the hook was secure, in case he flopped off the board somehow.

After a minute of rest and exultation, I removed the hook and bagged the fish. WOOOHOOO! In disbelief, I started paddling for shore. Every so often, the bag would thrash around and I would have to make sure my once-in-a-lifetime catch would not escape. As an intermediate fisher with limited time and resources, I do not catch nice-sized fish very often. In fact, this was my biggest Papio ever. It was pure luck! I heard that it is not common to catch yellowspots in very shallow water and I would not have fished that area at that time, except that I had promised to meet Scott at 10:30am. As they say “better to be lucky than good”.

The Papio made some nice sashimi, poke and Portuguese style vina dosh. Here are some photos. If you look carefully, you can see the fish was a mature male and you can see the milky gonads with red veins. The sashimi was amazing, smooth and buttery with a nice soft texture. The poke was made with invasive “gorilla” ogo harvested the next day. The “gorilla” ogo is a great ingredient in poke (and a fine namasu), is very plentiful and easy to harvest. I drove up to the beach in Maunalua Bay grabbed the ogo and drove home. The harvesting part took about 3 minutes and I highly recommend this crunchy limu as a food source.

It was a great fishing/culinary experience and I will never forget my lucky luck Waikiki Yellow Spot.

– Kelly

Surfboard trolling scouting report

May 25, 2016 By Scott 7 Comments

Guys have been reporting sightings and catches of 1lb – 3lb papio on the South Shore so I dusted off the longboard and hit a favorite spot. I brought 4 live oama I had been raising and a couple of frozen ones. Being off the board for 5 months took its toll; my triceps and upper back seized before reaching the surf. After a lot of rest breaks, I headed into the 15 mph trade winds so I would be blown back to the launch site when pau.

Nothing bothered the frozen oama I had towed until I got to a wide channel next to a surf break. I paused to catch my breath and saw my floater go under. An oama head came back on the front hook. That gave me some hope. I put on a live oama and started paddling again. Something pulled the floater down but this time, when I checked the bait, a foot long reddish-brown ika was hanging on to it! I pulled the oama away and it had a one inch piece missing. The ika stayed around my board even after I prodded it with my rod tip. I finally fed it the oama in hopes it would be full.

I paddled over to the eastern reef edge to get away from the pesky ika and the floater dipped again with no line taken. This time the middle of the frozen oama was eaten and the hooks remained in the head and tail. 3 baits down and no drag pulled yet. I decided to use the live oama before they died in the bait bucket, and loosened the drag so the weak strikers could take the oama deeper.

Suddenly the clicker screamed and I had trouble getting the rod out of the holder. But when I tightened the drag and pumped the fish back, it felt like something streamlined shaking its head. I expected to see a small trumpetfish but instead landed a 13.75 inch fork length omilu. I guess it spent all its energy on the initial run. It was bagged for my parents since I hadn’t brought fish home for quite a few weeks.

I decided to drift back in but the current and winds tried to blow me out to sea. I wasn’t making much headway and considered belly boarding a wave in, which is fairly risky with the milk crate mounted on the front of the board, but eventually made it around the waves. When I pulled the bait in, I saw a reddish brown ika pull off the oama. Either there was a pack of them or that one ika was a pig. I set the remaining live oama free away from any hungry ika.

The bite wasn’t red hot but there was at least one decent papio prowling around. Maybe the papio season is slowly starting.

More sea monster action

January 22, 2016 By Scott 4 Comments

Kelly joined me on the Windward sea monster hunt today. He was on his SUP, using his shorts as a rod holder, and I was on my heavily loaded kayak. Kelly landed a 12″ omilu right off the bat whipping a live tub-raised oama, then the action really slowed for us. There wasn’t much life at the drop off so we paddled out to the fringing reef but I bailed when I saw small surf coming in. I overshot our landing spot coming back in and had to paddle upwind for half an hr. 3 hrs elapsed during this round trip and we were beat.

We still had some live oama left so despite being tired and hungry, we decided to use ’em up near the drop off. At the inner reef channel edge, Kelly chummed pieces of frozen oama and soon enough a 2lb omilu picked through the chum line. Kelly fly lined a live oama on the bottom of the channel and something big picked it up and slowly swam off with it, settled to the bottom for awhile, then pulled hard in spurts. As Kelly tried to slow down the sea monster, the line parted above the long leader. Was it the same sea monster I hooked a few days ago? My sea monster was hooked about 40 yds away from the drop off and behaved differently.

Down to my last live oama, and with no bites to speak of all day, I decided to fly line it since that technique worked well for Kelly. I slow trolled, hugging the drop off edge, and just as I was rounding the corner to come in I got a hit that screamed the ratchet and pulled the rod down on the rod holder, into my shoulder. I instinctively picked up the rod and started cranking but the wind blew me onto the reef. I felt the sickening rub of the reef and threw the rod back in the rod holder and paddled into deep water. When I picked up the rod again, I could feel the line running through a rock pile at the bottom of the channel. Ugh… I tried to free the line but it popped seconds later. This fish wasn’t the sea monster. It felt like a big, 5 lb plus omilu that was smart enough to cut me off instantly. I should’ve paddled for the deep water when the fish hit instead of fighting it above the reef.

We’ll be back, properly loaded for bear. Or sea monsters.

Red hot 2 hr fishing window

September 23, 2015 By Scott 17 Comments

new best day ever!

Today was supposed to be the light wind day of the week so I took 6 live oama and 4 fresh dead ones out for a surfboard troll. I planned to fish a different stretch of the beach by paddling into the wind and letting the wind bring me back to the launch point.

I started with a recently deceased, medium-sized captive oama so I wouldn’t waste a livey on the way out to the surfline. Nothing bit it after reaching the break and trolling parallel to it for 10 mins, so I was about to put on a livey on instead. All of a sudden my ratchet screamed and the rod bent over. I hadn’t heard my ratchet scream all year so I was initially spooked! It was actually hard to pull the rod out of the holder; man I missed those screamers. The fish pulled drag in a straight line, then let itself be worked in halfway, then took off again. While I was loving the fight, I strongly suspected it was an oio that decided it needed to add oama to its diet, and I really wanted a nice sized papio instead. The fish started shaking its head, which gave me hope, then pulled line straight out again. After a hard fight against a tight drag, the largest omilu I caught in 2 yrs flashed on its side. It was hooked on the front hook and somehow had broken off the hook that was in the oama’s tail. I was stoked and I had only been fishing 20 minutes. I contemplated heading back in but I didn’t want to waste the live oama.

I put a live one on and something pulled it off without sounding the ratchet. I wonder what could have done that? I put on another livey and this one got eaten by a 10 inch C&R omilu. The next livey hooked a 15 inch (head to tail) omilu that pulled drag nicely and was added to the catch bag. 2 good sized omilu make a decent catch so again I contemplated paddling in but I still had 3 live oama and 3 dead ones.

The next 3 live oama were mangled and crushed but I couldn’t hook the culprit despite the two hook setup. I put a dead oama on and saw the floater go under. When I retrieved the line all I got back was the oama’s head. I put the second to the last dead oama on and let the wind blow me back to the launch site. The ratchet went off but the fight felt a little weird. There was a lot of resistance but the fish wasn’t pulling a lot of line. When it got close, I realized why. Somehow a 14″ omilu was hooked on the front hook and a 10″ omilu was hooked on the rear hook! And another omilu was swimming with them, trying to join the party. Crazy. I shook the 10″ omilu off and kept the 14″ (head to tail) omilu. That was more than enough fish for one day, so I dumped the last dead oama and went in.

Darin’s oio

Darin, whom I had met before, was dunking ika from the beach. He said a lot of undersized papio had been hitting his baits in the last hr, with one legal omilu in the mix. I wished him luck and ran into a guy who had been hooking legal white papio on his Crystal Minnow from shore. His C&R lure action was in the last 30 minutes. While we were taking he noticed that Darin was on a nice fish. What the heck was going on? Were all the planets in alignment or something? We went over to watch Darin’s fish make numerous strong runs before being subdued. The oio went 21″ and 4lbs and Darin packed up his gear to get the fish home in good shape for fish cake.

There wasn’t a particularly good solunar activity period today but something made the fish feed aggressively at the break and at the shoreline. I suspect the fish are trying to make up for all that lost time spent hunkering down during the stormy, humid weather. The trade winds have cooled the water nicely and it looks like the papio season isn’t over yet.

The larger omilu I caught went about 19″ (head to tail) and made 3 lbs on my not too accurate hand scale. Not that big as omilus go but bigger than any omilu I’ve caught last year and this year. With so many papio competing for not much bait this season, I suspect larger than normal papio are coming onto the reef to find food.

Trade winds returned bringing cooler water conditions

September 19, 2015 By Scott 4 Comments

What a difference a few days of trade winds make. The humidity dropped considerably and the inshore water cooled off. I took the longboard out in the morning and the water was almost cold. The first fresh dead oama didn’t get touched until I was almost to the surfline, and what touched it just pulled the bait off. My next live oama brought up an 8 inch C&R omilu so I alternated live and fresh dead oama for either more small omilus or yanked baits.

pliers in the background are 11 inches long

The trade winds had exceeded 20 mph and the SSW swell made for a bouncy, choppy outing. I put the largest, strongest oama out and it got hammered and killed but not taken off the tandem hooks. The poor oama looked pretty bad, with raked sides, tattered fins and a washed out coloring. Disappointed with the size of pesky predators, I left the battered bait on and paddled over a bouldery section so shallow my hand hit while paddling. When the ratchet went off I thought the bait was snagged on the rocks but the orange floater moved between the boulders. After a brief fight a 15 inch omilu was landed. This season’s omilus I’ve caught on my board have all been skinny and weak. The omilus of the same length last year were much thicker and fought much harder. Are the omilus not able to catch enough bait fish to fatten up this season? Maybe the unusually hot water makes them weary like we would be if we had to run a marathon in hot, humid weather.

When I cleaned the omilu, I found a parasitic worm that looked like a long udon noodle in its intestinal wall and absolutely nothing in the omilu’s stomach. Other than being thin, the fish looked healthy.

Rain and hot inshore water put a damper on the fishing

September 14, 2015 By Scott 7 Comments

Is it just me or has the El Nino inspired hot, rainy weather shut down your fishing also? With the ocean temps already a few degrees hotter than normal, and air temps hitting record highs, the inshore water has been jacuzzi hot by mid morning.

Well, I didn’t measure the temp so that may be an exaggeration. But I finally trolled some oama on my surfboard last week and felt exhausted by the hot air and water. Other surfers were hogging the shower just to cool off. The larger predators avoided the over heated inner reef, and the 8 inch omilus that did bite the oamas were too weak to pull drag.

The rain runoff has caused an explosion of fine, hairy limu to pile up near shore also, making it impossible to retrieve the Waxwing without fouling that stuff.

Not sure how this extra hot summer/fall has affected your fishing but so far it’s been kind of a dud for me.