Guest Post: Young angler hooks omilu off the sardine pile!

June 27, 2018 By Scott 8 Comments

Matthew is one of the Next Generation anglers who has been learning the ways of the Lawai’a (Hawaiian fisherman) by respectfully watching and learning from the uncles. He’s a very active fish tagger and has a large following on Instagram (@Shorefishing_Oahu_Style). I had communicated with Matthew over social media for almost 2 yrs and thought it was time we should fish together!

Matthew:
It was a good day with light winds, and a favorable tide, so I invited Scott, the owner/editor of this blog, to come out and fish with me at my sardine and halalu spot. The spot that we went to is usually junk unless the bait comes in.

I got to the spot before Scott did and quickly spotted the dark blob in the sandy area that meant there was a school close to the beach. I got my flow-troll and rope and tied it to me as I waded in the clear water. The school was only around 20 yards from shore which was good, but what wasn’t good was that I was barefoot and my feet were getting bust up from the scattered sharp rocks.

There’s a sardine in Matthew’s left hand if you look closely.

I used the smallest size damashi (which is basically a dunking rig with 6 hooked flies on it). Size 4 will work, but size 3 is the best – any larger and they wont bite it. You could also snag them, but they get smart after a while. I was averaging one sardine per 3 casts which isn’t that bad. When Scott arrived, he was whipping with a sardine-colored Shimano Waxwing Boy. The few predators that were busting up on the pile were smart enough to not eat his lures, unfortunately.

After I got enough for bait, I rigged up a live sardine rig, hooked a rather large sardine in the mouth, and cast it right past the pile exactly when an Omilu blew up on the school. Not even 3 seconds after the Sardine hit the water, my rod bent and a good sized 14 inch Omilu was on! It was a rather short but hard fight. I tagged and released the Omilu for it to hopefully get recaptured someday. If any of you are interested in tagging fish, you can visit fishtoday.org/tagit. After multiple attempts to catch more big fish, but to no avail, I switched back to sardine fishing. At around 5:00 P.M., they really started biting. I was getting one or two almost every cast. Then something really big came in and went bananas on the pile. Every minute, the whole pile jumped and there was a huge splash as the either big papio or small ulua busted the pile.

In the end, I caught 54 sardines, 2 halalu, and that Omilu. I ended up catching a decent Oio the day after and then another good sized Omilu.

The sardines are in, the Oama are starting to trickle in, and the Halalu are in if you know where to find them. The predators are often too smart to eat lures. Live bait is always best. It’s summer! Go gettem guys!

Matthew Ikeda
Instagram – @Shorefishing_Oahu_Style

Editor’s note: I’m amazed at Matthew’s ability to become such a successful fisher guy after only fishing for 3 yrs and just being in middle school. His writing is top notch and he even snuck in a bait status report. He might be “angling” for my job. But… he did make one mistake. He caught 53 sardines, not 54, because he insisted I try to catch one with his damashi rig. After I tangled the rig a couple of times because I reeled it through the top guide, I finally caught a dumb sardine that swallowed the hook and Matthew had to yank out the hook.

The sardines are in, and getting whacked!

May 31, 2018 By Scott 2 Comments

Sardines getting attacked. Photo by Kelly.

The sardines have been in at the usual spots for a while. Now that the summer season is starting up, the bigger predators have been hitting the piles with regularity. Sardines make great bait, especially when fished live near the piles.

Sardine pros palu (chum) the school to keep it close and whip damashi flies or small glitter strips. Sardines don’t stay alive in buckets too long so the pros keep catching them while they have a live sardine out just past the school. Because the school runs out to deep water at night to feed on plankton, the sardine spots are usually close to fast drop offs. Fast drop offs mean access for big papio, lai, awa awa and kaku.

Matthew, a 7th grader next fall, was whipping the shoreline when he saw a black ball of sardines enter the inshore sandy area. He quickly changed to a damashi whipping rig.

Even though the school moved out a ways, he kept them within range with palu and ended up with these sardines to use as bait later.

Since the early oama schools haven’t settled in yet, sardines may be the best bait option right now. Go get ‘um!

Kayak fishing the deep in light wind, small moon conditions

May 14, 2018 By Scott 6 Comments

The rare light wind, small wave, small moon day presented itself. My fishing partner, Frank, was out of town so Kelly graciously filled in. Kelly planned to troll frozen oama on the way out to the deep and then switch to damashi tipped with ika when fish showed up on the EchoMap 44CV fish finder/map charter. I planned to keep things simple and bottom fish with frozen opelu and maybe drop a jig with the other rod.

I hadn’t bottom fished with bait at this particular spot and wanted to see if that would be the difference maker. Kelly hooked an undersized omilu within minutes of launching and released it. I steadily paddled out, telling him my depth via walkie talkie as he followed behind. Before I reached the 100 ft mark, Kelly battled and landed a big aha which he also released since he hoped for better fish in the deep.

Fish gathered under me so I dropped a frozen 6 inch opelu down on a relatively small offset circle hook. The first couple were getting pulled off the hook without me even detecting the theft. Then some came back with 2 inches missing off the tail, or puncture marks through the body. At first I was excited because our last two big moon bottom fishing trips yielded no bites, but as I quickly went through my bait supply, concern mounted. Kelly damashi fished and after a while got a bite. Up came a big nabeta! Whoohoo! I was surprised they were in 100 ft since I thought we were over a rocky ledge, not the sand that nabeta hide in.

More of my opelu were mangled and the bite pattern sure looked like fang-toothed nabeta, though maybe I was wishful thinking. I was down to a 3 inch piece of a big opelu head and three 8-inch whole opelu. I changed to the 12/0 VMC circle hook I had been using in the past, since the offset hook I was using had too small a gap to slip around the bait. With the opelu head securely hooked through the nostrils, I dropped down and waited. Tap, tap, tap. Kelly was watching nearby when the fish ran hard with the bait and took drag for a second. It managed to pull the bait off without getting hooked. Sigh…

Kelly magically brought up a moana on his damashi and I hooked it through the nostrils and set it down. I drifted that moana further out, over ledges for a good amount of time and nothing hit it. It was a good test and in the future I’ll stick to opelu if I have some.

We started fishing our way in, and Kelly stretched his body by standing and fishing off the SUP. Takes a lot of dexterity and calm water to do that. At 60 ft he got a bite. Here we are, hoping the fish isn’t “black”.

I ended the day with no fish landed, extending my bolo head streak to 7. Kelly felt bad and insisted I take home the nabeta since that’s the only fish my wife wants to cook and eat. He said to gill and gut it right away and place it on paper towels in the fridge to keep it dry.

I rolled it in corn starch, deep fried it lightly, pulled it out to let it cool and fried it again, “Coach Haru style”. I slightly under fried the outside so it wasn’t as crispy as it should have been but my wife ate it to the bones. Nabeta is the best! Thanks Kelly!

And while I got skunked once again, I do believe I got so many hits and steals because of the dark moon phase and moving tide. Just gotta convert that knowledge to fish caught, next time.

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.

2nd kayak damashi attempt

January 1, 2018 By Scott 12 Comments

It rained really hard last week and I waited a day before attempting to kayak fish while the storm system was blocking the trade winds Expecting brown water, I was stunned to see so much debris on the beach. The brown tint extended a half mile out of the protected bay.

My fishing buddies couldn’t make it but since it was forecast to be the lightest wind day that week, I paddled out for more damashi training. Taking the advice of friends, I brought 4 to 8 oz lead weights with pre-tied line, short 2-hook damashi rigs and Gulp grups. The best thing about the gear was that it was stuff I had around the house. The lead weights were from my grandfather’s pre-1970 shore casting days.

On the previous outings I had marked clouds of bait with my new Garmin Echomap 44CV in the 100 to 125 ft depth range but on this day a bait cloud passed under me at 55 ft. I dropped a damashi rig with 2 small artificial fish skin hooks weighted by a 4 oz torpedo sinker. The weight was heavy enough to sink straight down and after the second pull I felt a strong tug on the line. The fish pulled like I imagined a strong opelu would pull, and assuming it was just a bait fish I was lifted and cranked fairly quickly. There was a good bend in the rod and about 20 ft from the surface the hook pulled! The fish had straightened the small damashi hook. I was playing the 7lb test branch line, not realizing the hooks were so soft. Both sets of fish skins were pulled off the hooks, just leaving a bead and bare hook.

I put on the heavier rig with the small squid skirts but the bait school had moved on. Continuing on to 125 ft, I dropped down on small pockets of bait but nothing bit. Giving up on the deep bait school, I put a Gulp grub on one of the two squid skirted hooks and paddled into the 70ft range. When I checked the rig, there was a deep water lizardfish head, chomped up, hooked on the Gulp grub hook. Shucks, missed whatever took that lizardfish. Got another hit that ripped up that Gulp grub but didn’t stick. I also diagonally whipped a 60 oz swimming jig unsuccessfully.

By this time I had been out for 2 hrs and hadn’t landed a single fish. I was a mile from shore and the trade winds began to blow above 10 mph. There was heavy rain in the valley. Began to paddle towards the safety of the shallows and the wind really started gusting. I was paddling directly into the 15 to 20 mph wind and the heavy rain had reached me. It took 30 mins of hard paddling to cover the half mile distance to a more protected spot in the bay. In 25 ft of water a small trumpetfish got hooked on the Gulp grub and I hastily unhooked it and resumed my paddle in. The conditions were so treacherous at times that a boat came by to check on me. That was comforting to know that some caring boaters watch out for the smaller craft.

The rain let up for about 10 mins and then another squall with strong winds came through and tried blowing me back out to sea. I pulled my line in and made the paddle of shame back to shore.

Lessons Learned

Unstable weather can generate rain squalls, which can generate very strong winds.
When wind starts blowing out to sea, don’t stop paddling until you’ve reached safe water.
The damashi rig is much more effective when it can be fished straight up and down.
Fish the damashi with a light drag since the hooks are soft and two fish could be pulling against each other.
Adding scent or bait makes the damashi flies more attractive.

Well, I was stoked to hook something in the bait school even though I didn’t see what it was. I’ll try tipping the damashi hooks with ika or shrimp next time, and may even drop down a frozen oama. And I’ll keep a more watchful eye on the weather conditions.