Ewa Beach kayak papio
Been hearing that the papio bite is taking off on the West side and East side. Alan trolled curl tails and hoochies (small squid skirts) from his kayak off the shallow reef dropoff for his best day so far. The omilu he’s holding weighed in at 6.75lbs. Now that’s a big omilu!
My buddies and I are still trying to find the hungry omilus on the South shore. Maybe we gotta go deeper?
Thanks for the report Alan!
modified board mount sitting on a bucket
Boaters have serviced their boats in anticipation of Ahi Season. My prep for Papio Season was much easier. I cleaned the old wax off my longboard and modified a board mount I got from boardfisher.com to be more wind resistant. The original milk crate setup was very ergonomic but caught a lot of wind when stuffed with gear. I simply cut off the back 1/3 of the crate, letting the wind blow through, and reinforced it.
I took the mount out yesterday, with my last batch of `opae lolo, to see if the papio started prowling the reef. The lolos got hit by small fish but nothing stayed on the hook. I switched to the blue sardine Waxwing Baby with high hopes after the successful field test and addition of a much stronger, sharper double hook. After flailing the water for more than an hour, all I caught was a small cornetfish.
I guess it’s not papio season yet. No influx of bait fish to draw them. Shucks.
My out of season oamas had a sudden die off and I was left with just two. They were 7 inches long and skinny so I figured I’d better use them before they expired. I also took a bunch of `opae lolo.
I was halfway out to the break when a SUPer asked if I caught anything. Just as I sat up the drag zipped and that was it. The jumbo oama was gone and the line was cleanly cut. Must’ve been a kaku. I put the last oama on but nothing touched it. I replaced it with an `opae lolo .
The lolos got hit but the fish weren’t large enough to hook themselves on the size 1 Owner baitholder hook. The floater would be pulled down and a mangled lolo would be left. Trolling such a delicate bait didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.
sorry, it was getting dark
I started heading in, trying to figure out a better way to use them when the drag screamed. It was nice to fight a decent sized papio after so many weeks of small papio and drag burning oio. The omilu taped out at 15.5 inches, head to tail, and will make my parents very happy.
For comparison I plan to fish the same conditions with swimming plugs and kastmasters. I’m hoping the papio and kaku put on their predator hats and attack them.
(Click here to see how I did just using lures)
out of season papio
The waves on the South Shore were down and the winds were very light this morning. I decided to check my deeper water spot that’s normally exposed to surf and wind. I hadn’t trolled oamas there in 2 months and I wasn’t expecting much after blanking at my other trolling spots. I still had a few oamas left in my tubs at home and it was really hard to take my pets out to use as bait.
The first live oama went untouched for an hour until a lizard fish somehow hooked itself on the back hook while the oama still dangled on the front hook. You would think an oama followed by a lizard fish would make an excellent presentation but nothing wanted them.
I replaced the two with a lively 5 inch oama and continued paddling around on my longboard. 30 minutes passed. The last two times I had trolled here, all the baits were hit within 10 minutes. I guess the epic oama season of 2014 finally came to an end.
I headed in, staying on the reef edge of the channel and my ratchet went off. The strike was completely unexpected and the fish felt very strong. I felt the line rubbing on the reef off and on and tried to paddle over to free it. Once it came free I buttoned down the drag and the fish came in fairly quickly, having spent most of its energy on the early runs. For some reason the 14 inch papio fought so much harder then the others caught during the oama season. Maybe it was upset that it fell for the out of season oama.
My take on all this is that the predators aren’t looking for oama anymore but if they happen to stumble upon one they’ll still eat it.
There was finally a break in the weather before Tropical Storm Ana is expected to hit Oahu in 3 days. The barometer was falling this morning which generally isn’t good. Since the weather is expected to be rainy days after the storm hits, I decided to take some big oamas and troll while the trolling was good.
I started with a 5 inch oama and it went untouched until I found a small sand pocket in the break. A 14 inch papio hit the back hook and I worked to bring it in before drifting into the surf zone. Not the bigger papio I was hoping for. I put on another 5 inch oama and before I reached that deep sand pocket a 13.5 inch papio hit. This one swallowed the back hook deep and when I unhooked it with my long nose pliers it coughed up blood so I had to keep it. Shucks, my plan was to let go the small papios for the remainder of the season.
I put on a moose oama caught earlier this week, to deter the smaller papio. Well I didn’t get any more papio bites but the aha, kaku and pipe fish all tried to take down the moose. They sliced and diced a couple of the moose but couldn’t turn them lengthwise to get hooked. Maybe 6 inch plus oama are too large for inshore reef trolling?
I’m not sure if the fish felt the falling barometric pressure and bit before the storm, or just ate normally. I hadn’t trolled this location for a few weeks, and after last week’s too warm conditions at my other spot, it was good to know this spot still produces.
papio soup and sashimi
The deep hooked 13.5 inch papio was much appreciated. My friend Dean’s mom made the traditional Japanese meal of sashimi and fish head soup. Oishii!
It’s the middle of October and the oama are still hanging around the safety of the shoreline. Mixed in are legitimate Moose-sized oama, practically junior weke. I found some 5 inch oama grubbing around in the shallow sand patches and was able to land a few without tearing off so I went hunting for the really big ones.
The 6 inch plus oama with the bright yellow tails were in deeper water, at times out of range of my straight pole. When they smelled my bait they’d charge it like a pack of ulua chasing a popper. Once hooked, the fluorocarbon 4 lb leader would make a hissing noise as the moose oama raced back and forth trying to pop the hook. I let the soft pole fully flex and tried to slowly work them up to the surface, then slid them out of the water and into my net. I lost a few but not nearly as many as I did when I tried horsing them up while they were still green. Read how I had even tried using a rod and reel to land them.
now that’s a moose
Hunting and landing these moose was the most fun I’ve had catching oama. Oama this size don’t often take a bait but they do tend to want to eat their last meal of the day an hour before sun down. They eat heartily in captivity and are hardy when trolled. The bigger papio like them and the bait stealers think twice about trying to pull them off the hooks. Every time I catch them I’m grateful because they could decide tomorrow to leave the safety of the shallows.
Hoping to build on last week’s catch, I was chomping at the bit to get back to the spot. I first needed to restock my oama supplies and then had to wait for the brown water to clear. In the meantime the days with higher tides passed and I was debating whether to go out on an afternoon high tide of only 1.6 feet. Decided that worst case, I’d find out what happens on a relatively small afternoon tide.
The afternoon sun, combined with humidity and light winds, had heated the water to hot tub temperatures. The predators were either absent or sluggish. Without a lot of new, cold water coming in with the rising tide, I just registered some weak strikes that pulled off the oamas, left me a body-less head, and mauled my last bait. I’m theorizing that the predators didn’t have the energy to slam the baits hard enough to get hooked properly.
oama left side
This last oama was alive and swimming strongly over a shallow reef when something came up and chomped down on it sideways.
oama right side
The fish didn’t really run with the bait, it just held it in its mouth until I lifted the rod.
oama top view
Look how deep the wound is behind the head. The culprit could be the body snatcher that’s been leaving me with oama heads. I didn’t see the splash of an aha (giant needlefish) but it was in the location where baits have been mauled by aha. Does this look like an aha bite?
Lesson learned: During this unusually warm fall season, either fish days with a morning high tide, or days where the afternoon tide is close to 2 feet.
best day so far
Since the “productive” spot still had some papio yesterday, I wanted to check on my other spot that had been filled with bait killing small papio and aha. I had let this spot rest for more than a month, waiting for the papio to be large enough to take the hook properly.
I ran into a fishing friend on the beach that had seen me land a papio at another spot a month ago. Always good to have a witness in case people are thinking I’m just photo shopping pictures! Click here to read what had happened that day. My friend, who is a world class oama catcher, gave me some pointers on where to troll today.
As I was about to paddle off, a guy called out to me, asking if I was the guy writing all these crazy posts about South Shore papio fishing. He explained that he had been searching the web to gather knowledge since he recently moved from the mainland, and recognized my surfboard rig from the blog pictures. Luckily he appreciated the blog info and wasn’t part of the fishing mafia that might want to censor some of the info being distributed!
eBay Calcutta 400 – half price!
Feeling good about the advice I got and the good will exchanged, I paddled to my go-to spot but only had yanked baits to show for it. Ugh, the bait stealers were still around and even they weren’t biting that frequently. Down two baits, I had five good sized oama left. Then it slowed even more. An hour of no bites went by and I was beginning to write this spot off. Remembering the advice my friend had given me on the beach, I paddled further down reef than I normally do and looked for the sandy cut in the surf break that would allow me to fish deeper without getting hit by the waves. Bam! My rachet on the newly purchased, used eBay reel went off. It sounded good as I tried to remember how to fish a bait caster without a level wind; basically a very small conventional reel. The fish pulled drag, then came in pretty easily. Turns out it was a 5 inch papio foul hooked on its dorsal fin. Hoping it was meant to be a practice fish, I put on oama #4.
how heavy does this look?
Bigger Bam! The rachet went off again and the fish felt much more solid. Took a little while to remember how to crank and evenly distribute line. When I looked up I was close to getting battered by waves so I tightened the drag a bit and worked the fish in. 16 inches, largest this season, on a new (used) reel. Yay!
I put oama #5 on and paddled back to the 20 ft x 20 ft break in the reef. Smaller Bam! A hard fighting, elongated 13 inch papio came in. Thinking I didn’t want to fish out this little spot in the reef I headed in. Halfway to the beach I put on oama #6 just to see if there were fish closer to shore. Big Bam! The drag pulled and it felt like another bigger papio but turns out I had foul hooked this papio on its dorsal fin also. They must’ve been slamming the fish in the middle and getting hooked on their fin as they tried to make their getaway. Bait stealers eventually get their due. This last one was another stretched out, not so deep, 13 incher. I was about to let it go since it just had a small hole in its fin, but decided to keep it for my advice giving friend.
3 papio in the bag, I gave my last oama his freedom. I ran into another friend on the beach who has really helped me figure out how to fish this spot over the last year. Proudly showing off my catch, I asked him how much the 16 incher weighed. His mental “Hilo scale” put it at 1.5 lbs while I was hoping it was a legitimate 2 pounder. I couldn’t find my fish scale at home so I weighed myself on the bathroom digital scale, and then myself holding the fish. The fish varied between 1.8 and 2 lbs. I’ll take the 2 lbs!
will this be the last of the season? (11″ pliers)
I was fearing the worst after the last two failed attempts to catch a keeper papio on a trolled oama. Thinking the season was over, I took a couple mid-sized oama, and 4 emaciated ones that failed to gain weight in captivity. Figured I may as well set them free if nothing was biting. As the ultimate test I trolled my most productive spot.
The bite definitely wasn’t red hot, but I did land a hard fighting 14 inch omilu in front of the surf zone and had another strong strike come off. I was down to the emaciated oama whose bodies were narrower than their heads. 2 trumpet fish and two small papio liked the looks of those appetizers and got hooked.
papio sushi
My friend Dean, a former sushi chef, turned the papio into this beautiful sushi platter. The brown maki sushi in the middle row are a papio poke mixture, and the light colored maki sushi were made from the papio filet. It’s amazing what some people can do with a fresh caught fish.
Guess the season isn’t over yet. I plan to take the remaining jumbo oama out for a swim at another spot I’ve been letting rest. Click here to see how I did.
To determine if yesterday’s slow fishing was due to the incoming storm or, ugh, the end of the summer papio season, I went back to the same spot. The winds were about 15 mph instead of 20+ mph, so it was much more manageable to troll The water level was lower than I prefer for this spot but that was the highest it would be all day. Sad to say, I just got a few aha strikes (saw one jump in the air to spit the hook); had some weird bites where the oama appeared to be stuck on a rock but when retrieved it had bite marks; and hooked another 4 inch omilu. No papio or kaku strikes.
Does this mean the epic summer bite on live oama is over? Say it isn’t so! Earlier in the season divers told me that there were schools of oama just outside the break not being harassed by predators. Maybe the oama school has moved out to deeper water, and the papio have no reason to be be cruising the inner reef anymore.
I’ll check another spot before putting a fork in this summer’s oama trolling season.
Some of the trophy oama I caught just two days ago started to die from some form of ich. To salvage what I had, I took a mix of 3 large and 3 small oama out for a troll. My favorite spot that has always seemed to be in a wind break was funneling the NNE winds through the valley today and diagonally out to sea. Paddling through the chop and slop was really tough, and to add to my misery it started to rain hard for a while. The only thing missing from the perfect storm were waves to capsize me. It actually got kind of scary when I realized I was paddling toward shore for a really long time and not making much progress. A stand up paddler was lying down and trying to make it back to land in as least a wind resistant manner also.
Usually these kind of conditions just make it hard to rig up and paddle but don’t normally affect the bite. Today something put the fish off their feed. After paddling for almost 2 hours I just had one strike that came off. First I thought the jumbo sized oama was scaring the predators but even a peanut oama went untouched. The only winners today were the 3 oama I set free.
I’m really hoping the papio season didn’t suddenly end and instead, the cause of the poor fishing was the drop in barometric pressure due to the storm. I need to blame something for this goose egg.
late season oama school
I went to my early season South Shore oama spot and sure enough the oama had left town. Panicked, I hurried to the spot where I’ve been finding them lately, and there was still a large school in the protected shallows. I was relieved to still find them there but frustrated that they wouldn’t even follow my bait.
I went off looking for some hungrier strays and found some jumbo (5 – 6 inch) oama that would be heading out past the reef soon. They bit but they were so strong they would rip themselves off the hook before I could land them. It was a lot like sight fishing for oio. I would hunt down these larger oamas cruising the bottom for food, hook them, and try to let the pole take the impact of their panicked runs. 90% broke off before I could slide the net under them.
jumbo oama
After all that work I ended up with only 10, but hopefully the size of these bruisers will deter the smaller papio from whacking them when I troll ’em.
With the wind and surf light, I thought today would be the day I’d finally get a decent sized papio.. I trolled the spot I had previously fished in large surf and was hoping the papio would be around in the calm, clear water. The first 3 live oama got ripped so hard it was difficult to pull the rod out of the holder but all unbuttoned in a few seconds. I got one oama head back; the other two oama were pulled off the double hooks.
large trailer hook on left
I was using a large Owner bait holder hook in the oama’s tail to prevent papio from swallowing the hook and maybe it prevented the aha (giant needlefish) or kaku (barracuda) from getting hooked easily. Those strikes were much harder than the papio strikes I had been getting and I never saw the perpetrator. When I checked on my fourth live oama bait, the oama was still nose hooked but there was a 4 inch papio foul hooked on the trailer hook! Funny that the little papio could get hooked but not the larger fish that were stripping the baits so ferociously.
I trolled dead oamas in between the live oama strikes and never got any hits. I think the water was so clear the aha or kaku could tell whether the oama was alive, and could aim it’s attack to miss both hooks.
…don’t. The hooking of papio once the trolling rig (mainline to floater to leader and two hooks) is properly deployed is the easy part. The hard part is dealing with two hooks on a rolling surfboard while trying to delicately scoop a live oama out of the bait bucket and hook it in its nose and tail. Every time I go out I snag just about everything with those hooks including my surf booties, clothes and finger. And the line coils seem attracted to my leash and booties.
Today, with the big surf and 15 mph wind, it was particularly frustrating. The rip current created backwash against the white wash coming in, so I was bobbing like a cork while trying to keep the hooks and line off my gear and body.
The predators (papio, kaku and aha) were still hunting at the top of the high tide and I caught a papio on a live oama, and another papio after an aha shredded and killed the next oama. Then I got such a gnarly tangle near the tip of my rod I had to paddle in to where I could stand, to cut the line free and re-rig. By the time I got back to the spot the predators were hitting, the larger papio were gone and I just had the smaller fish pull off my oamas.
landed before the tangles
The papio landed were 13 and 14 inches and pretty thick. At least I didn’t deep hook any small fish.
these seemed larger before they got bent
I went back to troll the “strike every 5 minutes” hot spot. Took the jumbo sized oamas with the hopes that the small papio would leave them alone. The first two papio bit within 5 minutes and seemed larger so I bagged them. I thought they both were 13 inches head to tail but the one in the foreground looks smaller yeah? It was still curled from sitting in my game bag. The pliers are 11 inches long.
The papio that followed took about 7 minutes to strike and were the just legal or under legal size so I released them. One was a 4 inch papio that somehow dislodged the 5 inch oama and got hooked on the back hook! And the last papio landed was short but took the hook fairly deep in its gullet. I was able to unhook it but it didn’t revive well after trying to resuscitate it for 5 minutes. I had to eventually release it wounded since it’s illegal to possess a papio under 10 inches (head to fork). That was a downer.
I trolled two 3 day old dead oamas and they got bit too. My dad fished a very popular pier on a military base and said there were hundreds of 4 to 8 inch papio and very few legal ones. I guess we have to count our blessings and wait until these little guys become 5 lb papio.
I tried a deeper water spot a mile down from where I’ve been getting pestered by barely legal papios. This new spot had deeper channels leading to a 20 foot dropoff, but was also windier than my other trolling spots. The wind made it a bit of a workout to get out, even on a light trade wind day. After trolling the inner reefs for the last two months it was a little spooky to not see the bottom and the occasional wave breaking on the outer reef added to my uneasiness.
My live oama didn’t get any action, probably because it was on a 5 foot leader connected to a floater, so I happily made my way back to the inner reef. I headed in the direction of my familiar spot and expected the same kind of frenetic action, but the bites were infrequent and less aggressive. A few baits were pulled off the hooks, one hook was cut off, and the two barely legal papio I landed were a lot thinner than the ones I have been catching. I’m guessing there’s less bait around this area to fatten up the fish.
There was a different strike that didn’t feel like a papio. It ran in spurts like a small oio and immediately found the rocks. I didn’t feel rubbing but somehow the fish dislodged the hooks on a boulder and I had to break off the line. This had happened to me a couple times in the last month. I don’t know how roi feel when hooked but would imagine that roi were lurking in the bouldery reef waiting to ambush a wayward oama.
Well, I branched out to a deeper water area only to end up getting all my hits on the inner reef. I’m still looking for the first fish of the oama season to scream out line. All fish hooked were either purposely or inadvertently released.
double hook trolling setup
The surf wasn’t as large as forecast so I went back to the spot I fished last week to see if I could find a bruiser papio amongst the barely legal ones. 5 oamas that I was medicating for ich died this morning so I took them along since they shouldn’t be consumed. With the 5 live ones, that made an even 10, much more than I normally take.
I paddled out to the start of the surf break and within a couple minutes I had a strike on a live oama that ended up cutting off the back hook. Dang kaku! Instead of wasting another live one I put out a fresh dead one and gave it 10 minutes to produce. Since I hadn’t caught anything on dead oama this year I wasn’t expecting much and checked my watch as I paddled around. 4 minutes later a 15 inch lai (leatherback jack) was hooked on the back hook. Not the big papio I was looking for but I was pleased that the dead bait worked. I put out another dead bait and 3 minutes later an undersized papio was hooked on the back hook. Still not the big papio I wanted so I put a live oama on and paddled parallel to the break. I checked the time and within 5 minutes a very small papio pulled the oama off the two hooks. Ugh… down to 3 live ones left I put another dead one on and this time a papio about the same size as the oama was hooked on the back hook!
And so it went, whether dead or alive, all the strikes occurred within 5 minutes of the bait hitting the water. All hit the back hook and a few keeper papio swallowed the hook deep where I had to use longnose pliers to pull it out of their gills. I’m using a pretty large Owner Ebi Baitholder hook as the back hook in the hopes that the long shank would prevent the kaku from biting through the line (please see pic). Yet the bigger fish are taking the hook deep as they inhale the oama tail first. That hook is almost too big to use on the tail of the oama and it definitely impedes the oama’s swimming ability.
Maybe I should try a circle hook and risk lowering my hookup ratio?
While all the dead oama got hit, the larger papio hit the live ones. I decided I’ve kept enough barely legal papios for now so all the fish were released.
getting a little bigger
I was able to surfboard troll my deeper water spot because the winds were lighter and the waves were small. I ran into some fishing friends who just finished throw netting and they were just leaving when I hooked up with the 10.5 inch (head to fork) papio. Nothing like performing for an audience!
Something took my next two baits off my hooks. An hour into my trolling run, the 14 inch (head to tail) papio hit all the way out by the first break. I was about to reel in the oama to check it when the papio struck. I felt the initial strike as if I was whipping the live oama, very cool. 14 inches is a small papio but sadly, the biggest of the oama season for me. The larger papios others have caught were landed at first light. Ugh, I may have to start fishing earlier in the morning.
There are still some smaller oamas at the usual spots, but not as many as a week ago. Some of the oama we’ve hooked and lost were the 5 and 6 inch variety so those will be out to sea soon. Typically, oama season ends in August but this is an especially good and long season. Get your oama before they and the papio are unreachable.
The pre-adolescent papio that were scratching the back of the oamas a month ago are now big enough to swallow the back hook. That’s fine if the papio are keepers (larger than 10″ head to fork) but bad if they’re undersized. I went up in hook size to avoid gut hooking the undersized fish, but still had to cut the line to release a deeply hooked 9 inch papio today.
Also landed a 3 ft aha (stickfish), had 2 oamas ripped off their hooks, and landed a legal papio on my last bait. I was trying an area I had never trolled before, and like the other spots I’ve recently visited, this one was full of pint sized papio.
It’s great that the bite has turned red hot lately, but sad that the hardest fighting fish of the season has been a stickfish!
I haven’t been taking any pics of the recent just legal papio. I just take 4 or 5 live oama with me to limit the amount of papio juvies I may hook.
Maybe I should troll a jumbo sized oama to deter the little guys from taking a bite?
the pliers are 11 inches long
My captive oamas continue to expire prematurely, taking their tank mates with them. I’m convinced dying oamas let out a toxin that is hard to remove. I’ll blog about that and other difficulties in keeping oama alive, soon.
So without a supply of lively oamas, I planned to catch some fresh ones in time to troll them on the early afternoon rising tide. Turns out I’m a lousy oama catcher. A nice couple, Lance and Dianne, took pity on me and gave me some of their oamas, and yet I didn’t get out to troll them until the tide had almost peaked. The bite was as slow as the tidal movement so I was surprised to reel in the first kaku of the oama season. The kaku was lip hooked by the front hook and looked secure so I paddled away from the surf zone to delicately land the toothy, snapping creature. A feat not easily accomplished on a rolling surfboard. When I lifted the kaku it managed to flip and cut the line. Arrgghh, that was the first kaku of the oama season that didn’t cut the back hook off immediately and swim free.
I put on a new pre-tied leader and double-hooked another lively oama. Another kaku was hooked by both hooks, this time the hooks held and I was able to drop it into a dry bag and cut the leader off, all without losing a digit. I’m guessing the kaku like the slack tide since they often feed in placid water.
The slow bites slowed even more so I headed in and my clicker went off again. This time it was a 13 inch (head to tail) papio getting hooked on both hooks.
The first oama I trolled got weak and died on the hook. No bites. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th were lively and got hit hard.
Not exactly sure why it worked out this way but all three fish hit both the front and back hooks. No previous fish did that this season. Maybe the fish are really gulping down the oamas now? The last oama in the bucket earned its freedom.