The inshore bite really slowed in the late December, early January time period.  The 8 – 1o inch omilu have shown up sporadically but the larger ones appear to have gone wherever they go during the winter.  Awa awa have been saving the day for Kelly, as he nimbly trolled dead oamas between sets on his SUP.  Lacking the paddling speed and courage, I fished away from the impact zone on my longboard with not much to show for it.

As a last ditch attempt to find a feisty predator, I kayak fished the deep waters of the Windward side solo today. The winds were very light, and armed with live tub-raised oama, I had high hopes.  After an hour of aimless paddling I finally got a strike.  It felt like a decent omilu, but it broke the surface halfway into the fight.  What I thought was a short awa awa turned out to be a pretty large lai.  My family doesn’t eat lai so I shook it off the hook.

Hopes raised, I paddled through bait marks on the fish finder, skirted the edge of dropoffs, and even dropped my oama to the bottom.  Nada.  The evening witching hour came without any predator activity and I dejectedly paddled for home.  As my landing site came within view, my ratchet finally screamed.  I hoped it was a thick papio but suspected awa awa in such deep water.  The fished towed me a bit and spun me around before I could see color.  Awa awa it was, and it saved the trip for me.

It taped out at 26 inches (forklength), not as large as the previous one I caught here in the summer, but my first keeper of any kind in 3 trips.  The papio continued to prove elusive.

Chester made lomi lomi awa awa out of the fish and said it had a delightful fresh, mild taste.  With the left overs he made taegu for us, using recipe below.  Yummm!

This taegu recipe had been featured in Lawai’a magazine.  Chester uses a small convection oven and dries on the lowest setting.  He puts it outside so it doesn’t stink up the whole house. Genius! Oh, and he only uses a half teaspoon of chili pepper flakes. Adjust that to your heat tolerance.