Whipping dead oama works, who knew?!

September 29, 2015 By Scott 4 Comments

I had a few fresh, dead oama that I wanted to use instead of freezing them for later. My last board fishing outing was outstanding but it was much too windy for that today. Hmm… since trolling fresh, dead oama worked, what if I could somehow cast them out and retrieve them? Stands to reason that the papio would whack ’em right?

I had never done this before and don’t know of anyone who regularly whips oama since dunking live oama is so effective. Somehow I had to be able to cast the oama far enough in the wind to reach the areas holding fish. I decided to use my trusty level wind Calcutta 200TE bait caster that had been sitting idle during the Waxing and trolling expeditions. I waded out on the low tide but had issues with the Jim Rizutto sliding double hook setup slipping and causing the oama to bend. I ended up having to hook both hooks in the oama’s head and hope that something would hit head first. The bait caster, doing what it was meant to do, cast bait, worked marvelously.

Using the wind, I was able to reach the surf zone, and hooked a 10″ white papio on the first cast! I let it go, and put on another fresh, dead oama. That one got hammered by a 11″ white. I missed some hits and ended up with mangled oama but the next 2 oama got hit also. Then I hooked a fish that pulled drag and brought in a 13.5″ (head to tail) white that went into my fish bag. I couldn’t believe the action I was getting on the dead oama so I moved spots slightly and the bite slowed dramatically. Eventually my remaining baits were hit by 8″ – 10″ whites and omilus. I put on a blue sardine Waxwing to see if I could fool the papio so attuned to oama and came up empty.

Who would’ve thunk that whipping dead oama would be more effective than trolling them inshore? It’s a really strange season due to the early, extra hot water and humidity shutting down the bite, followed by strong trades and cooler water causing the papio to make up for lost time. I don’t think whipping dead oama would’ve been as effective last year when the papio could get their fill of free swimming oama.

I’m still refining my dead oama whipping setup to increase casting distance and hookup ratio. Stay tuned for more oama whipping catch reports.

P.S. Look what was in the white papio’s stomach! A slightly digested tang and a completely intact baby mantis shrimp. The white was stuffed and still went after the dead oama.

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.

Awa awa on the kayak!

August 18, 2015 By Scott 7 Comments

Eddy and Kris pedaled out on Eddy’s Hobie tandem and I tried my best to keep up with them on my oldie but goodie Aquaterra Swing sit-on-top. The light wind conditions made for a beautiful day to be out on the water.

My fish finder was marking fish throughout the water column and we could peer down and see omilu and white papio through the sheet glass surface. With so many fish around it was a good day to try various baits and lures. The fish could see the difference between lures and real bait, and ignored the fake stuff except for Kris’ small lures fished deep.

I started with fresh, dead oama and two were taken off the tandem hooks without much sound coming out of my non-levelwind Calcutta 400’s ratchet. I put on a live oama and immediately hooked a small white papio. The guys began catching small, feisty whites on frozen, year old oama. As I crossed a deep channel, my rachet went off, slowly. I pulled the rod out of the rod holder and started reeling, and the fish shook its head like a very small omilu. Then it got mad and powered away, taking at least 75 yds of line with it. I had made the cardinal mistake of leaving my partner kayak without telling them where I was going, so they were out of ear shot.

I tightened the drag when 1/3 of the spool was gone, and the fish slowed. I could feel head shakes and tail pumps and was hoping I finally hooked a large papio. When I brought the fish close it powered straight down, bending my 7’6″ rod into the water. It spun my kayak a few times before I could make out a long, slim, silvery shape. Oio on a live oama? I guess it was possible since I was fishing deep and had hooked an oio on a subsurface lure in the surf before. Click here to read about that surprise catch.

Then I saw the top lobe of a very large tail sticking out of the water. Awa awa! The previous awa awas have always jumped out of the water, but those were hooked in relatively shallow water. I hooked this one in at least 50 feet. I tired the fish out to grab it by the mouth, largemouth bass style, since I didn’t have a net or gaff with me. The fish was too tired to put up much resistance.

I decided to keep it since I heard of other yak fishers recently catching awa awa in the general area, and had only kept two others ever. I paddled back to the guys and Kris took this pic.

The guys pedaled off to the white papio hot spot as I replaced the line that the awa awa shredded with its sandpaper mouth. Once again, they were out of ear shot when I landed a smaller awa awa on another live oama. That was released and when I caught up with them, they both were battling 2lb whites that bit fresh dead oama.

Somehow those guys can catch the larger whites when I’m stuck with the 9 inch ones that steal my precious oama baits. Eddy followed that up by catching this beautiful awa awa on a frozen oama.

Soon after, we ran out of oama and made our way in.

Perfect kayak fishing conditions. All fish were released except for my awa awa and Kris’ 2lb white papio. The awa awa measured 32″ and weighed 5 lbs. My dad much prefers awa awa to oio for fish cake and was happy to receive it although I did have to clean it for him.

Kayak fishing with oama

August 12, 2015 By Scott Leave a Comment

I ended two of my boycotts: no kayak fishing and no oama for bait. Kris and Eddy have been fishing off a tandem Hobie pedal boat in somewhat sheltered waters and have been encouraging me to dust off the kayak I haven’t fished in 10 years. And I’ve been shunning oama for bait this season, instead throwing the Waxwing.

Yesterday I shlepped my kayak and the required gear down to fish some papas surrounded by deep water with Eddy. A couple minutes into the paddle out and my back was already cramping up. I couldn’t slow down my drift like I can when sitting on my longboard, kicking with my feet, so I had a hard time casting to the desired spots before I swept past them. And when I fished the papas my Waxwing got stuck in the deep crevasses and I lost two Waxwing Babys. I was yearning for the simpler surfboard fishing days.

My fish finder detected a lot of fish near the papa edge and on the flat bottom but none of those fish wanted anything to do with the kastmaster I dropped down.

soon to be released

Eddy did much better using a heavy egg lead and plastic strip bait for small omilus, and caught a 1.5 lb white papio on a deep diving Crystal Minnow. He ended the day losing that lure to a papa also.

I initially started another kayak fishing boycott after my miserable performance but decided to attempt to avenge the loss of my two Waxwings. Eddy, Kris and I fished the same spot today on the kayak. I started by dropping cut bait down into the depths and the guys deep trolled live, fresh dead and year old oama. The guys’ oama initially got munched from the back, and since they weren’t running a rear hook, the fish got away.

Then Eddy took a screaming hit and battled a muscular 2lb plus omilu to the boat. I was just getting nibbles and small omilu on my cut bait so I bummed a fresh dead oama and immediately got a hit. It came up as dead weight and turned out to be a small hammerhead.

I bummed another dead oama and hooked a 8 inch white papio within a couple of minutes. Guess the fish were around but waiting for the real thing. The guys were getting bit on fresh dead and frozen oama but since none of us were using a trailing hook we all lost our best fish (or at least it appeared to be that way). All besides Eddy’s omilu were white papio and a few small hammerheads.

pack of whites

On the way in the fish finder lit up with a bait ball. I dumped the cut shrimp, ika and aku belly overboard that failed me earlier. Hoping I caused a frenzy, I dropped cut shrimp all the way to the bottom and it went untouched. Remembering the two opae lolo a fellow kayak fisherman gave me when we launched in the morning, I dropped the fresh but dead lolo down to the bottom.

As soon as it reached bottom I hooked up with a 10″ white that was followed by his friends. Kris and Eddy had a double hookup on oama and Kris took this awesome photo of the whites chasing the hooked fish up.

The next lolo was slammed instantly also, but this time it was a hammerhead.

The fish are really keyed on natural bait now, even if it’s dead bait.

Lazy fish on a hot & sticky day

August 7, 2015 By Scott Leave a Comment

Tropical Storm Guillermo passed to the north of us but made for a hot, sticky, drizzly morning. The wind was relatively light so I took the board out to the break where I hooked the oio on the Waxwing Boy last week. Using the same lure, I hoped lightning would strike twice. Instead I didn’t have a follow or bite for 75 mins. I eventually reached a deep channel and cast the Waxwing across to the west edge. A 1 lb white papio hit the lure and flipped on the surface but didn’t hook up. I was stunned after going so long without a hint of life, and watched as it hit two more times. Somehow it missed the rear double hook, focusing on the underneath belly of the lure.

Zoom in to the photos to see what it did to the previously unmarked lure. It was smart enough not to try again and I couldn’t get anything else to hit the Boy.

Disheartened, I switched to the smaller Waxwing Baby and fished another hour and missed two weak strikes. Meanwhile friends waded out a mile up the coast and caught a few papio on cut bait. They said the bite was slow but fairly steady.

I blame the lethargic Waxwing bite on the drop in barometric pressure. Just like we feel lazy when the weather turns unbearable warm and humid, so do the fish. A still bait can coax the lazy predators into slowly feeding but they don’t have the energy to chase an aggressive lure.

Off day or were the fish lackadaisical?

August 4, 2015 By Scott 1 Comment

Fished with Kris at two of our on shore Waxwing testing grounds. The tide was at a good height and we could see a lot of bait in the water at the first sandy/muddy beach we fished. Kris caught 3 small white papio on the Waxwing Baby and 5 on the bubble and grub. I couldn’t buy a solid bite. The most action I got were some follows and weak bumps on my Waxwing Baby. When your fishing partner is having an outstanding day and you can’t even hook a single fish, it messes with your confidence! I asked Kris how he was retrieving and he said he was retrieving slower because the water was so murky. Even with that valuable info I couldn’t adjust my retrieve to entice the fish.

We moved on to another sandy/muddy beach that could handle a higher tide and the water level looked perfect as well. With a slightly slower speed I got some boils and hooked a very small kaku. Man did it feel good to land that fish. I think Kris purposely introduced wind knots in his spinning reel to give me time to catch a few fish and get my confidence back. I had a few more boils and chases, and hooked another kaku but overall the action was slow.

Was it just an off day for me? I’m now thinking that the fish were lackadaisical due to the large moon messing with their feeding pattern. White papio and kaku can easily locate prey under a bright moon, so maybe they were just full? Kris’ slower retrieve and use of a small curl tail grub provided an easier meal for the fish. I hadn’t fished the first testing ground with my high speed Curado 300EJ before, and I probably didn’t slow down enough to present the Waxwing properly.

The conditions and result made for a very valuable fishing log entry.

Oio on a Waxwing, are you serious?

July 28, 2015 By Scott 9 Comments

If you weren’t a believer before, this may convince you. I fished a Blue Sardine Boy Waxwing at the surf break in hopes of catching something worthy of the Waxwing Lure Review I’m writing for Lawai’a magazine. Prior to this I was using the smaller Baby size. The Boy is 3.5″ long and weighs 7/8 oz. With a tail wind, it casts really far; with a side wind it curves more than the Baby because of its larger profile.

It’s the perfect lure for me to throw seated on my board at water level. I only need a few inches of line past the tip of my rod to cast, and the lure swims so well because my rod tip is so close to the water.

For reference, I’m wearing size 9 surf booties

I didn’t get a bump for 20 mins and was wondering if it was too large a lure to use. In comparison, the Boy is 2.7″. Then I got a hard strike and a strong run. I fish my drag really tight to set the swinging, upward facing hook, and the fish pulled line in hard spurts. It swung me around, toward shore, instead of into the waves and took all my fluorocarbon top shot. Not sure how much line that is though, maybe 70 yds? I was convinced it was the biggest papio I hooked on my surfboard and when I finally had the fish at color I saw a long thick shape and thought it was a kaku on steroids. It was a 5lb plus oio and was foul hooked behind its eyes. Oio have very tough skin, luckily, and both hooks were embedded. I took some pics and let the fish go.

An oio on a subsurface lure right in front of the white wash. Oio normally feed on the bottom and are rarely hooked on fast moving subsurface lures. I’m working with some Lawai’a supporting tackle shops to put a promotional Waxwing package together. There were a few mods to the lure system I had to make to improve my catch ratio. Stay tuned.

Waxwing shines again

July 24, 2015 By Scott 6 Comments

I went back to a shallow, rocky area with a sandy pond to look for oama. A few weeks ago the oama weren’t in and I had some follows on my Waxwing Boy in the Chrome pattern, but no hookups. Today there were mid-sized mullet and micro aholehole in the protection of the rocky shoreline, and the kaku and small white papio were nailing the Waxwing just 15 feet from shore.

caught on the Waxwing Boy size

I missed a couple larger kaku and landed a kaku and 3 small whites. There were even some very small oama running back and forth in the pond

The bite shut down an hr before sundown, right before Kris arrived. Just before dark Kris hooked a small moi on the sandy beach. Such a drastic change from the slow action I experienced the last time I visited. The summer action is definitely heating up.

All the fish were released unharmed.

Red hot Waxwing action

July 23, 2015 By Scott 1 Comment

Went to check my favorite oama spot yet again, and there were none to be found. Kris was throwing a small plastic curly tail and caught some small omilus and chunky white papio. I started throwing the Baby Waxwing on the Curado 300EJ with fluorocarbon and soon enough was picking out backlashes just like I had been with braid. I was backlashing with all the centrifugal brakes turned on! How is that possible?

(Click here to see why I switched from braid to castable fluorocarbon. )

Out of desperation I set the spool tensioner so tight the lure couldn’t fall in free spool. I cast and the spool spun under control with no backlash. The spool shouldn’t have had to be tensioned so tightly, something must be wrong with the spool tension bearing.

Don’t I look stunned?

The sun was going down, it was time to leave and I didn’t even get a bump. As we walked back on the sand, Kris threw a Crystal Minnow but the water was so shallow he kept snagging limu. I carefully lobbed the Waxwing which swims a few inches below the surface and hooked and lost a kaku in 15 inches of water. My drag was set too light because I was backlashing so much!

My next cast was boiled on so Kris started videoing with his iPhone. Next cast, no backlash and another boil. Usually the fish only follow or hit twice and then wise up. During this pre-dark witching hour it seemed like a pack of hungry predators were looking for Waxwings to swim by. On my next cast, something hit halfway in and ripped drag. Turned out to be a 14 inch white papio (head to tail).

Here’s the video, sorry for the jumpiness.

It was a very impromptu shoot and I edited out the landmarks which shortened the length of the video. When we pau fishing I checked my drag and I had locked it down after missing the first kaku. No wonder the papio didn’t get too far.

very respectable kaku a few feet from shore

Kris captured the cast, strike and fight on video and I wanted him to get in on the red hot action. He took off his Crystal Minnow, put on the same Black/Chrome Baby Waxwing and hooked an angry kaku on the next cast! After releasing it, he got an even bigger boil that didn’t stay hooked. The boils lasted until the sun began to set, then completely shut off.

The Waxwing really performs in shallow water conditions. The red hot action with the large shallow water predators almost made me forget the backlash frustrations I’ve been having and I didn’t backlash once in the dark. I guess the spool tensioner was finally set tight enough.

Update 9/25/15: Charley’s Fishing Supply in Kakaako has the Waxwing Baby in Black/Chrome, Blue Sardine and Ghost Blue Shad.

Papio action heating up

July 22, 2015 By Scott 3 Comments

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!

My Waxwing System has a glitch

July 17, 2015 By Scott 7 Comments

Braided line is so thin and slippery that it digs deep into a loose packed bait casting reel’s spool if you pull hard on the line. To pack the line tight either your lure has to provide enough resistance, or you need to provide tension with your thumb and forefinger when you retrieve. However, I found out yesterday that pinching the line with wet fingers leads to line cuts.

So today, I had Flexi-Wrap tape over my thumb and forefinger and couldn’t feel how tight I was pinching the line. That lead to a loose spool, which lead to a backlash when I cast into the wind. I pulled hard on the backlash and caused the line to bury itself deep down in the spool. Next cast ended about 20 ft in the air.

Every other cast ended in a backlash. And I pulled harder on the line to free it, only to cause deeper line buries. If I were smart I would have stripped off all the loose line and packed it back tightly. I wasn’t smart and eventually quit.

The Waxwing System’s red Powerpro is very unforgiving when things go wrong. It casts and retrieves well under calm conditions but is prone to backlashes when mismanaged. So far I had two windy, backlash days and one calm, backlash-free day with the Waxwing System. I have to figure out how to cast properly in the wind, or go back to fluorocarbon when it’s windy.

Pfft… oama, who needs you?

July 16, 2015 By Scott 8 Comments

I went out looking for oama again and the school of about 8 scattered when I threw chum at it. Waited for more to show up, and waited and waited. Went home demoralized.

The conditions were still good with moderate wind and a steeply rising tide so I took the fishing board out in the afternoon for some exercise. The Waxwing System performed well in the trade winds, much better than it did casting into the wind from shore. Sitting at water level, the lure tracked well and I got a bump before I made it out to the break.

I always seem to do best fishing in front of where the surfers surf so I did just that and probably annoyed the SUPers. Bam! My first real fish on the Wing! The rear double hook held and the Curado 300EJ’s drag didn’t feel as strong as the Calcutta’s but did it’s job. I finally caught a legitimate papio. I couldn’t unlock my phone through the waterproof case so I couldn’t take an on the water shot. The fish taped out at 15 inches, head to tail.

Paddling parallel to the break, I whipped some fishy water for a couple hits and misses and when I got back to the main surf break smaller omilus slammed the Wing. The Curado 300EJ’s fast retrieve definitely made the Wing more enticing. My left thumb started to sting and it turns out that the Powerpro was slicing into my skin as I pinched the line to provide tension for the bait caster. Ouch. I’ve never used braid as my main line before. Gonna have to change the way I fish the reel.

Maybe I don’t need oama after all. It’s much easier to throw a lure into the waves than to troll a live oama as close to the waves as possible. Pfft, oama, who needs you?

Note: The omilu was skinny for its length because it wasn’t gorging on oama. It did have a small bait fish in its stomach.

Curly tail grubs trounce Waxwing

July 14, 2015 By Scott 2 Comments

Kris and I whipped a new spot on the East side of Oahu which faced directly East. Kris was throwing a curly tail grub on a 9ft spinning rod with a pretty heavy egg sinker and masterfully punched through the 15mph on-shore wind. My 1/2 oz Waxwing, in contrast, got caught up in the wind and I eventually had a backlash so bad I had to remove some of my red PowerPro.

Kris started with this malu (sidespot goatfish), and caught numerous omilus and even a 1.5lb yellow spot papio. When I was able to cast my Waxwing out it just didn’t swim right with the tail wind and waves blowing it back to shore. Either that or the fish didn’t want to chase something larger than a 1 inch grub.

Smaller lures swimming deeper often get more bites than larger subsurface lures when the conditions are bumpy on the surface.

Bought into the Shimano Waxwing System!

July 7, 2015 By Scott 10 Comments

Shimano recommends that their Waxwing lures be paired with Shimano Terez rods and Shimano high speed spinning and bait casting reels, loaded with red Power Pro braided line. The skeptics sneered, saying it was a poorly masked marketing campaign to sell their lures, rods, reels and PowerPro, which Shimano also owns. Well, I started using a G Loomis swimbait casting rod and an old Shimano Calcutta 200 GT TE bait casting reel. G Loomis is also owned by Shimano so I was staying in the “family”. I had fluorocarbon on the Calcutta TE which didn’t cast as far as braid. I had to crank as fast as the little reel’s handle could spin but had too many follows and no bites so I moved up to the newer Calcutta 200D. It had a slightly faster retrieve but wasn’t really geared to rip small lures.

Curado 300EJ with red PowerPro

I finally broke down and purchased the recommended Shimano Curado 300EJ with a smoking 32 inches of line retrieved per turn, 7 more inches than the Calcutta TE I started with. I spooled the Curado with the red Power Pro and boy does it cast better. Fluorocarbon has a lot of line coil memory which cuts down on casting distance. The Curado retrieves line so fast I was popping the Waxwing out of the water and I had to slow down and let the lure sink a bit.

looks like it worked

On the second cast I caught a small kaku that was hooked in the mouth because it couldn’t overrun the lure and hit it in the middle.

I’ll have to do a lot more testing but I like what I’m experiencing. Far casts and relaxed, fast retrieves. I added a Gamakatsu assist hook which doesn’t tangle like the DIY assist hook I was using. Now if only there were bigger fish to play with. My oama spots are still barren so the predators aren’t inside the reef yet.

Maui lure fishing catch and release

June 29, 2015 By Scott 4 Comments

Mike from Florida, whom I met through this blog, is vacationing with family on the west side of Maui.

beautiful but deadly

Very adept in the use of soft plastics, hard bodied lures and jigs, Mike started off by dancing white bucktail jigs across the reef floor. The resident roi found them irresistible and Mike landed 6 before a monsta roi broke off his last jig. Unfortunately Mike had released these invasive destroyers of reef fish before I could text him: Kill Them All!

$18/pound in the fish market!

The following day, Mike pulled out a large Bomber Badonk-A-Donk plug, so named because it swims like shapely woman swishing her behind. He proved that Big Baits = Big Fish and landed this 4lb moana kali, breaking his rod in the process. Even though he realized how valued that fish was, he released it, not wanting to impact the local fishery.

Maui lizard fish

Here are two other pics of Badonk-a-donk caught fish. Mike found that the suspending model worked better than the top water model on the Maui fish.

Maui kaku

Both the lizardfish and the kaku really wanted that sashaying Badonka!

A well retrieved lure can be very effective, especially if the fish aren’t used to seeing it. Sure hope I have a fraction of Mike’s luck soon.

Update: Here’s the Bomber Badonkadonk’s Mike used. 1/2 oz – 3/4 oz top water and slow sinking models

Waxwing training

June 23, 2015 By Scott 3 Comments

caught with both hooks

My fishing buddy Chester had purchased some Waxwings but hadn’t gotten the chance to try them until today. We went to one of the test grounds and as I was demonstrating how I like to retrieve the lure, this white papio hammered it on cue. This was the first time a fish was stuck by both hooks. Because I had smashed down the barbs, I was able to shake the fish loose, unharmed.

Chester had papio bump his Waxwing and landed a white papio. I had 3 papio hit and shake off the hook. Hopefully when the larger papio come into the shallows, they’ll inhale the lure and get hooked well. Still waiting for the oama school to seek shelter inside, bringing the larger predators with them.

Better fishing 1 day after the New Moon

June 17, 2015 By Scott Leave a Comment

Kris fished his oio spot today and I went back to fish the Waxwing test grounds where it was slow yesterday. We both fished shortly after the tide began to rise and both saw a lot of bait fish and target fish. Kris caught two oio and some small papio. I saw oio, and had kaku and small white papio chase the Waxwing, but nothing stayed on the hook.

Take away: When fishing days with large tidal swings, start fishing shortly after the tide begins to rise. If you wait too long like we did yesterday, the fish may be done feeding and you can’t see them through all the murk.

Tough fishing on a new moon day

June 16, 2015 By Scott 6 Comments

one lonely fish for me

The tide was coming up fast today (New Moon) and we had high hopes for the dark moon conditions. The tide had already reached 1 foot by the time Kris and I started fishing and as the water got murkier, and the bait fish grew scarcer, it appeared that we missed the prime period to fish. Kris took turns throwing a Campania grub and a piece of cut bait, and I threw the trusty black/chrome Waxwing. It was very slow going until Kris caught an obake weke on the bait. I was still looking for my first follow when I cast near Kris’ bait and immediately hooked a small white papio. I suspect Kris’ bait had drawn the papio to the area

moi on the Campania

The lull continued until Kris got a hit on the Campania grub and caught a small moi on the next cast. Sadly, that was all we had to show for a few hours of fishing. We talked to a bait fisherman going for oio, and he said that he had fished for most of the day without getting a decent strike. Slow day indeed.

maybe my shirt scared the fish?!

As a consolation prize, Kris took this photo so I could check my casting form. Always good to fish with a professional photog!

All fish were released unharmed.

2015 Tokunaga Ulua Challenge

June 15, 2015 By Scott Leave a Comment

I had the opportunity to hang out with the Lawai’a Magazine guys at the Tokunaga Ulua Challenge in Hilo yesterday. The Tokunaga event is the largest ulua tourney in the state and this year 611 entrants participated, 20 of whom were female.

Tokunaga prizes!

Up for grabs were a very generous amount of custom rods, Shimano reels, quality coolers, Naoki fish prints, fishing line, lures, hooks, etc. And the Jackpot was huge also.

First fish

The weigh-ins started up with a 78lb GT. It held first place for a few hours and the big fish holders sand bagged by getting in line just before the 2pm cutoff.

the Winnah!

Weigh-ins continued for more than an hour after and the winning ulua ended up going 93.9 lbs and was caught on a barbless circle hook. The largest fish in the omilu category went 22.6 lbs.

final placings

Here’s the final placings in both the Ulua and Omilu categories. A nice friendly, family vibe was felt throughout the whole event.