The ebb and flow of oama life

September 10, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

I went to my reliable oama spot this week but got there when the tide was a little too high and still rising. The oama school was huddled up against the sea wall, warily watching for predators. A couple late eaters were caught and then the oama ignored my bait as the water level rose. Schools of 4 to 5 inch long papio and lai cruised on the outside like wolves circling a herd of deer.

At the peak 2 foot high tide, 8 inch papio attacked the school. Even after the larger predators left, the oama still didn’t eat until the water level dropped to about 1.5 feet. The 4 to 5 inch papio and lai were still around and when I hooked an oama, they chased it around even though the oama was just as large as they were. These papio and lai had grown up with the oama, and now they are almost large enough to take down an oama.

The water level dropped to about 10 inches as the sun was about to set, and the oama finally spread out across the sand and fed actively. I guess it was shallow enough to make it hard for predators to sneak up on them.

Life is tough when you’re a soft, tasty oama. Everyone including the childhood chums who swam with you want to eat you now.

The hunt for a bigger papio

September 8, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

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.

Dead or alive, all the oamas got whacked!

September 4, 2014 By Scott 1 Comment

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.

Oama – Papio season still red hot

September 2, 2014 By Scott 1 Comment

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.

Small papio continue to slam the oama

August 28, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

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 predators hit both hooks on the slack high tide

August 26, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

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.

The papio want their oama lively or not at all

August 20, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

still small but getting bigger

The papio are definitely coming onto the reef to dine on oama. And this year there are so many oama around that the papio are discriminating. I went to a deeper water reef area to troll oamas I had caught yesterday. 3 lively ones resulted in 3 papio. 2 freshly dead ones weren’t touched at all. Picky papio!

The first papio fell off my back hook as I was trying to measure it. The top hook ended up stabbing my finger but luckily didn’t go barb deep. Still sore though!

I was watching my orange floater behind me as I trolled over the spot I hooked the first papio and saw it go under. I thought I was seeing things until my ratchet went off. I bagged the 10.5 inch (head to fork of tail) papio and put a fresh dead oama on. Trolled all over for nada. Then I put on the second to the last lively oama and within a minute the 12 inch (head to fork of tail) papio hit.

With two papio in the bag I set the last lively oama free. The papio are hitting the oamas hard now. The trick for me is to find where the larger ones are. My previous spots are loaded with 8 inch papio with small man complexes.

Big surf, small papio

August 12, 2014 By Scott 1 Comment

another barely legal papio

To get away from the undersized papio and pesky kaku bothering my oama at my regular trolling spot, I decided to try a spot I had previously been wade fishing. Yesterday I hooked a just legal papio in the first 5 minutes which I released to upgrade to a bigger fish. I got hits on the next 5 oama but none of them stuck. Most of the battle scars looked like they were caused by small papio.

I went back today armed with more live oama and was surprised by the size of the surf. A guy was getting barreled standing up! It must’ve been a south swell combined with an east wrap from Hurricane Julio. Sorry, I didn’t take any pictures on the water.

The only strikes I got today were right in front of where the guy was surfing, so it was a little gnarly to make sure the outgoing rip didn’t pull me into the break. The first fish was just short so I released it. The second fish measured 11 inches from head to fork so he got bagged. My dad, who used to say “papio no ono”, ate the last just legal papio and sheepishly admitted “it was ok, young that’s why”. He now hopes he’s the recipient of my small papios.

It’s been a strange oama season for me on the South Shore. The oama came in early and initially the papio weren’t hitting them. Now the small ones are nailing them but no papio larger than a pound so far. I talked to some fishermen in the parking lot and they said North Shore and Kaneohe Bay are going off but the action is still slow on the South Shore. One guy said he’s actually catching more papio on lures than he is on oama. And to confirm how stuffed the papio are this oama season, there were 2 oama in the stomach of the 11 inch papio.

Eating oama? How could you?

August 6, 2014 By Scott 1 Comment

I used to think consuming oama instead of using them as bait was a sacrilege. I would never waste such a perfect papio attractant but I’ve been hearing that many people are frying up their catch in this bumper crop year.

successful oama outing

My friend Herb, who hasn’t fished for oama since childhood, was interested in the first hand experience of catching, cleaning and frying the tasty critters. After a few pointers and the disclaimer that most newbies take a while to develop the oama catching touch, we stalked the oama on the inside of the flats. There were some moments of frenzied feeding but most of the time was spent coaxing the fish to bite by snapping the bait up and down near the bottom. After nearly 5 hours (yes time really flies when you have oamas falling off your hook) Herb had enough to feed his family and I had enough to keep alive in my fish tubs.

Click here to see how I did with those oama.

cleaned oama

Next Herb had to painstakingly scale, gill and gut the fingerling weke. Later he was told that scaling wasn’t necessary so his next batch of oama were just gilled, gutted and fried.

frying the oama

They were then rolled in flour, garlic salt and pepper, and deep fried. A dipping sauce of shoyu, Sriracha hot sauce and lemon juice topped off the onolicious meal.

finished product

Although his family thought the fried oama was delicious, Herb said he’d have to seriously consider the time it took to catch and clean those little guys.

I have a new found respect for the oama fisherfolks that are catching to eat. It’s a lot of work!

4 strikes and I was out

August 4, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

My short lived success in catching papio, albeit barely legal ones, ended. I trolled 4 oama on my board this morning and all got hit but nothing landed. Most hits were on the back hook, which was ripped out of the oama. The hits weren’t hard enough to penetrate deeply.

On my paddle out I saw schools of large sized oama and some wounded oama doing death spirals. Too many easy-to-catch food for the predators.

I may have to look for a place with less bait in the water.

The papio are finally hitting oama with gusto

July 31, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

it’s legal, barely

With the August traditional start of oama season right around the corner, the papio are finally hitting the oama hard. I’ve been hearing reports of some large papio caught on the East and West Side of Oahu, and even the South Shore is lighting up. My theory is that the water was warmer than normal in the spring and that caused the common white weke and less common red weke to produce eggs earlier and in greater numbers than expected. The papio either were not on the same biological clock or were so stuffed with oama they were biting baits lightly until recently.

Bouyed by yesterday‘s moderate success, I trolled some live oamas on my board this afternoon. The line cutting kaku weren’t bothering the baits so the papio had them all to themselves. This 11 inch (head to fork of tail) omilu hit the back of the bait hard enough to get hooked on the outside of its mouth. It was small but of legal size so I bagged it. The first official papio of the oama season.

My next strike was stronger but the fish pulled line and rubbed the hook off on the reef. It had been so long I wasn’t prepared for a line ripper like that. Then the bite abruptly stopped. No papio, no kaku, no nibbles. But I’ll take it. Bolo head is officially over. Now I can select the poll response “Avid fisherperson, using oama for bait. Had some success this season.”.

For those of you who have participated in the poll, thank you! So far it looks like a large group of readers are just casual fisherfolks looking for ways to improve their fishing success. The next biggest group are avid fisherfolks who aren’t using oama for bait. Interesting, I’d love to know how these folks are fishing during this epic oama season.

The papio traditionally hit the oama best in August, then the oama get larger and become uncatchable in September. So take your best shot now but only keep what you can eat/use. That applies to both papio and oama. Good luck!

Does this end the bolo head?

July 29, 2014 By Scott 3 Comments

Well, I trolled some live oama on my surfboard again. The first couple got scratched up and the back hook bitten off. I was retrieving a wounded oama to replace it and a silvery white, short but thick fish shot up to take a bite. What do you think that was?

After paddling in a big circle I returned to that spot and finally stuck a fish. Turns out it was the fattest 10 inch (head to fork of tail) omilu papio I’ve ever seen. So that’s what the silvery white flash was. The predators are gorging on the baby fish bloom and getting downright chubby.

The omilu was released after the picture was taken. Does its capture end the bolo head or do I have to catch one I actually keep?

It’s bite pattern matches the parallel bite marks of the top oama in this picture.

10 inch fatty

Mauled oama, still no papio

July 25, 2014 By Scott 8 Comments

mauled oama

I trolled 4 live oama today. Each one got bit but still no papio landed. My bolo head streak extends to 6 trips.

The first two oama were trolled with just a hook through their nostrils and the attacking fish mauled and killed the oama but didn’t pull much line. The top oama in the picture has two parallel bite marks that seem to indicate a narrow mouthed fish. Maybe a barracuda or stickfish?

I added a second hook near the anal fin of the last two oama. The attacking fish got hooked on that back hook and immediately bit through the line. The bottom oama was one that had hooked the attacker before the back hook was cut off. Guessing a toothy barracuda did this.

The South Shore beaches are filled with juvenile fish now. And no one I talked with has caught any papio on their oama baits. The current theory I’m hearing is the papio are filling up on the bait fish and don’t need to go after bait with hooks in them.

Drop me a line if you think something other than a barracuda mauled my oamas. Hopefully I catch the offender soon, or better yet, break my bolo head streak.

Poll: What kind of Nearshore Fisherperson are you?

July 17, 2014 By Scott 2 Comments

The page views on this blog increased almost 10 fold since the summer fishing season has arrived. Judging from the search criteria that brought folks to this blog, a lot of you are interested in oama fishing.

I’m very curious to know what type of fishing you do. If you’re using oama for bait, have you been successful this season? I haven’t been. So far it seems that only kaku are interested in chopping my bait up and cutting my line.

Please participate in this poll. There’s no way to track you and you won’t be spammed. I’m hoping to get a feel for who reads my blog and how the summer fishing is going.

If you have any specific comments to provide, please get in touch with me through the Contact page. Thanks!

Update: Poll closed after a month. Thanks for participating! For poll results, click here.

Early oama, late papio?

July 7, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

oamas in captivity

Oama season traditionally peaks in August so the fact that they’ve been seen at the usual spots appears to indicate an early start. From my informal poll of the shore fishermen I met recently, it’s been a solid start of the season but the papio haven’t followed them in yet. The results of 3 surfboard trolling outings support that: a few body-less oama returned, a clean cut leader and a sub-legal omilu.

We can only hope the papio realize the oama are already in. In the meantime I have to perform daily water changes to keep my oama alive and healthy. And refrain from naming them.

Kaku at the He’eia Fishpond

June 14, 2014 By Scott 1 Comment

Paepae o He’eia fishpond at minus tide (zoom in to see the fisher folk on the wall)

Some friends and I had the privilege of fishing the Paeapae o He’eia fishpond on their first predator eradication day of the summer. The purpose of these predator eradication days is to provide some education about the ocean and the working fish pond, and lessen the predatory pressure the herbivore fish feel from the kaku, papio, toau and tilapia. So you can spend a day fishing and picnicking with friends and family, and feel good that you’re helping the pond!

The good folks at the pond welcomed us, provided an orientation tour for those who were interested and made sure we knew what we needed to know to stay safe.

Soon we were off and fishing. Right away, small kaku were brought up on bait by others but it took our group 3 hours to catch our first one. We had to wait for the tide to rush in through the “makaha” gates in order to get the kaku wildly feeding on the bait fish.

The kaku bit our flashy gold and silver/blue kastmasters and preferred the smaller 3/8 oz size to the 1/2 oz size but the 1/2 oz size did yield the largest fish. It was a challenging day in a very relaxing setting surrounded by happy families who out fished us with their Snoopy rods.

don’t be too impressed…

Looks like a great catch but if you zoom in, you’ll notice that the Sprite can is a diminutive 7.5 ouncer! Our job was to eradicate predators so out they went.

To learn more about the Paepae o He’eia Fishpond and their charter to preserve the Hawaii fishpond culture and heritage, please visit them here.

Kinda flat on the Flats

May 29, 2014 By Scott 1 Comment

The plan was to have the visiting fishermen, Justin and Pete, feel the raw power of an oio racing across the flats. Unfortunately the oio had other plans.

There were a number of waders, dunkers and bait casters targeting the oio, and some of them got their intended quarry but we just got a few random reef fish.

Highlights were an omilu on Justin’s first cast, and a Hawaiian knifefish for me, which is some kind of small nabeta. Justin had another story of the one that got away; this time I wasn’t around to witness because I was off fishing unproductive water.

We fished a new area of the flats and I wasn’t able to find the productive channels the oio frequent.

Lesson learned: Fish the flats on a rising tide before the inside section heats up from the morning sun. Once that happens, fish the deeper channels closer to the break.

some sort of nabeta?

Small kine omilu action

May 28, 2014 By Scott 4 Comments

Pete’s first omilu

Took Justin and Pete from Berkeley, CA out while the reef was low enough to wade to the breakers. Pete, whose main sport is cycling, got the hang of avoiding snags and did a number on the fish. He went from losing hinaleas in the pot holes yesterday to catching a mix bag of omilu, various types of hinalea and a humu.

Justin’s first ever omilu

Justin tried his homemade Thai fish sauce flavored bait and brought in omilu and hinalea, and ended the day with a mystery fish that broke him off just as we were about to leave.

The omilus bit best as the tide started to come into the reef, even though it was after 9am. I like these fish that allow us to sleep in a bit.

Pete and Justin w/the state fish

Sorry for the bad PhotoShopping. Didn’t want to upset the regulars by revealing the location. All the fish were released.

Tomorrow we plan to hunt the oio on the flats.

Fishing the Diamond Head – Waikiki Fisheries Management Area on a blustery day

May 27, 2014 By Scott 3 Comments

Potholing the FMA

Justin from Berkeley CA was researching spots to fish for his upcoming South Shore visit and stumbled upon the posts about the Diamond Head – Waikiki FMA. He contacted me and along with his friend Pete, we fished the area of the FMA that’s wadeable on the minus tide.

The 15 – 20 mph trade winds made it hard to cast against the wind so we “pot holed” the cracks and crevices in the reef and cast with the wind onto the shallow reef.

The reef fish bit furiously but quite a few immediately holed up in the rocks and avoided being yanked out. Maybe we broke some jaws today.

Chop and slop

Justin won “the fish that got away” honors for the black tip reef shark that bit a long Makata Lure strip but the shark rubbed the hook off on a rock. Sounds like a fish story but I saw the 5 foot shark swimming towards us. I guess the folks at Makata Lures have to update the packaging to say “Papio, moi, kaku and shark”.

Since Justin and Pete didn’t strike me as poachers from the mainland, or guys that would expose the hot spots on the internet, we’ll be going to another spot tomorrow for a little omilu action.

Different conditions, different bait, different results

May 10, 2014 By Scott 2 Comments

Yesterday I went back to the flats to try a new cut bait, aku belly. I was told that the smell of aku belly draws the predator fish like papio and kaku in, so I geared up with 20lb test fluorocarbon and a bigger bait casting rod/reel. The wind was light and the skies were clearer which allowed me to see the hinalea and moana flitting around but also provided the predator fish a good view of me and my offerings.

I didn’t get any hits after about 15 mins so I dropped the aku belly bait in front of the hinalea and they sniffed and retreated. I then put on a piece of my go to secret bait and they immediately swarmed that. I guess aku belly isn’t high on the list of delicacies for reef fish.

I swapped between the few secret baits I had and aku belly. Caught a 7 inch omilu on the secret bait before I ran out of it.

It was a slow bite on a beautifully calm, clear day. There were 2 fly fisherpeople working the shallows. Then a small skiff came in and its fly fishing occupants got out and joined the sight fishing activity. I was told that a few small oio were sighted but they didn’t want to eat feathers and fur.

Take away: Aku belly isn’t the best bait to drag the flats unless the larger predators are in. Clear conditions cause the fish to be very wary. Or maybe it was because I didn’t use the orange weight?