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Oama and halalu status – late Sept 2017

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Oama season traditionally runs from July through September but the last 3 years have deviated a lot from tradition.  This year the oama were in by June and have kept coming in.  I’ve been hearing that the oama schools are still around but the oama have learned to be avoid most baits.

Halalu traditionally come in around August but came in early also, in larger numbers than recent years.  Their inshore presence has been drawing mid-ranging fish like kahala, kawakawa and kamalu (rainbow runner).  Some halalu spots are thinning out but there’s still some around if you know where to look, and don’t mind fishing shoulder to shoulder.  My halalu ban, due to too many failed attempts, continues, so this will be about the oama.

Kelly and Frank have been doing well trolling dead oama on their SUPs and were running low on bait.  I scouted a spot for them that supposedly had oama with lock jaw.  As I entered the water, schools of light green colored fish moved away from the shallows but when I threw palu, most were 3 to 5 inch papio.  For the first 20 mins, all I could keep near me were papio.  I have never seen so many small papio this late in the season, and at least 3 species (omilu, white and some striped type) were running in mixed packs.  Finally, I noticed the scattered oama on the outskirts of the papio.  They wanted to eat but the papio were much quicker to the baits.  I had to resort to chumming the papio off to the side and quickly dropping a bait down to the oama.  Even with that, most of the baits were pulled off or eaten by papio.

The few oama I was able to reach were thick and strong for their length. Perfect baits to troll on our water craft.  The bigger oama teenagers were actually hunting with the papio packs like larger goat fish do.

Kelly, my oama sensei, suggested we tag team to separate the pesky papio away from the target oama.  A couple of days later, on a lower tide, I scouted the school early and found more oama and less papio than the previous outing. The oama took a while to bite but when the papio frenzied on the palu, the oama roamed around looking for scraps to reach the bottom.

Kelly joined me and was able to get the oama to feed more consistently while distracting the papio. What a true Oama whisperer!

Check out this oama-eye view of how oama take the bait.  A papio investigated the bait initially but gave up pursuing it.  Kelly lifted his bait and an oama followed it up, then as he dropped and lifted again he hooked a different oama.

We were able to catch enough thick oama to use live on our next outing so we dumped our baits to help the over-stressed ecosystem.

I’m surprised that all those papio can find enough to food to survive, and would guess that most will be eaten by something larger than they are.  Those that survive and move on to the reef will be making an impact on the food supply there.  I wonder if we are experiencing a boom in certain species and a subsequent bust in others, due to “climate change”?

We found papio that wanted to bite!

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By all accounts, this summer season has been the best in recent memory for oama and halalu.  Both species came in early and are still around in big numbers.  Theories for their respective abundance are: 1) previous oama seasons have been very good and the increase in adult weke led to another good spawn 2) akule grow faster and spawn better during rainy years and the last few years have been rainier than those previous.

Whatever the reason for such a great bait season, it’s actually been hard to catch papio lately because they’ve had so much bait to choose from.  Kelly had been scouting some grounds on his SUP and invited Frank and me for a dawn patrol outing at one of his productive spots recommended by Erik, our nearshore boat friend.  It’s been great to share knowledge in our little fishing hui.

I don’t think I’ve ever arrived at a fishing spot while it was still dark.  Early mornings are not my thing but Kelly had a mid morning appointment so dawn it was.  The water was sheet glass calm and stayed that way until about 10:30.

In the too-early morning stumble I forgot to take my pack of frozen oama, so I bummed 3 frozen halalu and 5 frozen oama off Kelly and Frank.  The guys paddled off on their SUPs and I kept in touch with Frank via waterproof walkie talkie.  They were trolling with a small weight on their line and I was using a floater.  Kelly hooked up first, followed by Frank. I followed their trolling paths inside the break yet nothing hit my oama.  Kelly missed another fish while retrieving his line and suggested I whip instead of trolling high up in the water column on such a clear visibility day.  The guys went out through a large deep channel to fish outside the break but I opted to fish the edge of the channel itself, carefully eyeing the small surf wash over the reef shelf.

Frank reported via walkie talkie that he landed his second papio so I knew they were hooking up.  I left the floating oama out and rigged the second rod with a sliding weight to drag an oama near the bottom.  Something pulled it off and on the next cast I hooked a poopa’a.  Well at least that was more action than I got with the floated oama.  Frank called in his 3rd papio and I asked what he was using. Halalu!  I dug around and pulled out a 6 inch halalu.  It was big for the size of Gamakatsu Live Bait hook I was using but I was too lazy to re-rig.  I cast it out and as it was settling to the bottom the line moved.  Finally, a real fish. Started cranking it in and remembered to turn on the GoPro cap cam.  Drifted into my trolling line so I kept the fish on a short leash as I reached for the net.  You can see the trolling line in the video.  Cardinal mistake, keeping its head out of the water so it could shake the poorly placed hook.  Well, at least I had video proof I *caught* a decent fish.  I figured I solved the bait secret and looked for another halalu.  The last two were pretty beat up with their stomachs oozing stuff but I tried ’em anyway.

Next cast, still in the channel, I hooked something… arrggh, turned out to be a roi.  But the halalu bait was on the outside of the fish so I tried to net it before the halalu fell off.  Kept it too high in the water again and you can see the halalu sink to the bottom.  I stabbed the roi deeply with a knife and sent it back to join the halalu.

I only had one more beat up halalu left so I changed to a larger Gamakatsu Live Bait hook. I like them when just using one hook behind a bullet sinker because their shank is short so the bait fish is butted close to the sinker.  I put on a nice looking oama and some kind of shiny papio followed it back to the boat. It kind of looked like a small kagami, but it didn’t commit.  Some other fish hit the oama and jumped out of the water but didn’t hook up either.  Tired of missing fish, I rigged the last halalu and something, roi I’m sure, pulled it into the rocks.  Just then Kelly was making his way in.  He said he and Frank found a hot spot past the waves and the bite was really good on the trolled halalu.

I could see Frank paddling in towards me, then start fighting a fish just outside the break.  He called me via walkie talkie to report his largest SUP caught fish.  The 19 inch omilu was still alive with really dark coloration like it had swum out of a cave.  Frank had used his last halalu, a pretty large one that was missing its tail.  Man, the fish really wanted halalu at this spot.

Frank was trolling a small lai and I followed behind casting a 1 oz sinking swimming lure. With all the action the boys had I braced to have the rod wrenched from my hands.  The lure cast well, swam pretty well, but nothing hit it.  Hmm…  I swapped it out with a sinking lipped lure that worked on big white papio in the past.  Nada.  Frank’s lai got pulled off and he put on an oama. I switched to a small tungsten jig.  Maybe the dawn witching hour was over, it was past 10am at this point and nothing was interested in our baits. As we paddled in, Frank got bit on his trolled oama near the side of the channel I had fished in the morning.  He landed an omilu and missed another 2 before we called it a day.

Maybe it was due to the extremely clear visibility and proximity to a halalu school nearby that caused the predators to strongly prefer halalu baits over oama and show no interest in my lures.  Frank had his best day SUP fishing, ending with 6 omilu from 13 to 19 inches, and one lai.  I took a mercy papio from him, and he dropped fish off with his daughter on the way home.  After proving to be a halalu prodigy, he’s now dominating the SUP trolling scene.  Kelly did very well also in the short time he was there and was an excellent host.

 

Product testing in 180 to 500 ft of water

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We definitely were past the “nearshore” boundaries on this outing.  I wanted to test some heavy jigs with the Shimano Tranx 400, and Capt. Darren and Rey were kind enough to let me join them. I was wearing a GoPro Session on my cap for the first time, hoping to get decent footage of how the Tranx performed, and of our catches since it would be easier to point the GoPro than to take my phone for a still photo.

Darren fished the traditional methods of damashi with lures, and deploying a bonus line with cut bait.  He caught more fish than we did jigging but Rey was a close second with an amazing variety of species caught with his customized vertical jig spinning outfit.  I just landed a few fish on my slow pitch jigs, jigged slow and also fast, but the catches were memorable.  Out of respect for their privacy I’ll just be talking about my meager catches.

I started with an “inchiku” type jig that had an octopus hanging off a chunk of lead.  A small yellow spot papio hit that but the action slowed so I moved on to the new Live Deception jig with UV paint and a stout assist  hook off the front eye. The original Live Deception had always caught fish so I was surprised with nothing hit the new one. I switched to the original and didn’t get bit either.  I tried other jigs that had worked in the past and still came up empty.  An oddball looking white jig with pink stripes got hit as I lifted off the bottom and a hage made it to the surface.  That gave me some hope.  On the next drop a yellow spot papio hit it on the first lift.

We drifted past 220ft so I went with an 80 gm tungsten jig that was very dense and fell quickly.  That got slammed by something bigger as I lifted it off the bottom also.  Still, it didn’t feel too big because the Tranx’s smooth drag and big gears.  We didn’t measure the white papio but it looked bigger than 7lbs.

Rey was doing really well fast pumping through the water column so I tried a medium – fast pumping retrieve.   The slow pitch jigs wouldn’t swim well at this pace so I had switched to a swimming/casting jig from Japan.  It was easy to to tell if the jig got bumped as it fell to the bottom, and a turn of the handle engaged the Tranx’s gears. In the video below I’m clumsily lifting and cranking to make the jig shoot up and then slide a bit before shooting up again.  A smoother retrieve would have been to life and crank in an exaggerated circular motion.

About 2/3 of the way up I got hit by something with head shakes and frenetic tail kicks.  It felt like a small kawakawa but then headed for the bottom with authority. I thought a shark or ulua got it as you can hear on the video.  Turns out this same jig had caught a smaller kawakawa on a previous trip.

The 14lb kawakawa was a fun fight but the Tranx 400 had things under control the whole time.  The Game Type J rod and Tranx reel were so light and comfortable to fish the whole day.  I also had the Tranx 500 on a Shimano Trevala TFC medium action jig rod, but that felt a little bulky for the size fish I was catching. If something big showed up, I was ready to grab it though.

Rey’s unique vertical jigs and refined technique outfished me 3 to 1.  My gear and lures were really meant for slow pitching but the fish didn’t want to eat slow pitched jigs that day.  The Tranx 400 was plenty fast with 41 inches per crank but the Game Type J rod didn’t spring back fast enough for a heavy, fast jigged lure. In hindsight, maybe I should have used the heavier Trevala jig rod, but the fights wouldn’t have been as fun.

The GoPro head cam wasn’t always pointed where I wanted, and I found out it takes a long time to go through and process the worthwhile clips, but all in all it was a successful equipment testing trip. Much Mahalo to Capt Darren for being so tolerant as I bumbled around the boat, and for Rey to fill in for me when I should have been helping more.  I started the day off getting seasick (first time ever) and my back tightened up fighting the kawakawa.  That made me even more impressed with how the guys could power through with little sleep on a constantly rocking boat.

3rd time’s the charm for halalu fishing?

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Thad, Frank and Erik wanted another go at the halalu; Kelly couldn’t make it.  This would be Erik’s 2nd attempt and Frank’s and my third attempt.  Thad had done a lot of halalu fishing in the past but only once recently, when he took Frank and me for our 1st lesson.

Since Frank’s CHL Minnow with a red bead worked so well the last time, I purchased those and some other halalu necessities from Charley’s.  This time Ed gave me more halalu pointers and I was beginning to think I could do better with the proper technique and equipment.

The starting tide was a little lower than the last time but would be rising very quickly since we’ve been having so called King Tides for more than a week.  The bite was a lot slower than our previous trips and Thad, our Halalu Hammah, had to work to catch the first fish on his home made flies.  Frank joined him and began hooking up with the purple obake CHL minnows, and actually overtook the Hammah!  I entered the fray and eventually caught one with the purple obake minnow.  Hmmm, maybe this isn’t so hard after all?

Erik started with a combo fly and grub offering and hooked something that pulled drag off his small Shimano budget reel he had just picked up from Nankos this week.  The fish took him through the line up twice but Erik managed to steer it away from us and after a 6 minute scrap with a 2lb leader, skillfully landed a 13 inch white papio!  He tagged and released it to distance himself from second place on the Tag It leader board.

I went back to whipping for halalu as Thad and Frank were hooking up every few minutes.  The tide rose, the bite slowed, and Thad tried different fly patterns and soft plastics.  Frank stuck with what worked for him and kept jigging the CHL minnow with the right-hand-on-the-blank-fast-cranking-with-the-left-hand technique.  I tried to copy his style and was failing badly.  I hadn’t had a nibble in an hr, with only 3 halalu in the bucket. I gave up, walked around, took pictures, drank water and watched the guys jig.  Erik was struggling too so we tried to cheer each other on.  I even had Frank try my rod, and I tried his. His soft, telescopic 6 ft rod had a nice, soft whippy action when jigged high up on the blank. My old, graphite whipping rod didn’t flex at the top of the rod. Aha! That’s my excuse! I stopped fishing again but resumed to try different retrieves that I’ve seen other regulars succeed at. None worked. In the last few hours Erik and I didn’t catch a single halalu.

True Halalu Hammahs can stand on water! Halalu pile circled in red.

The tide got really high where only the two Hammahs continued to fish, with water rushing past their tabis.  The other regulars had given up and gone home, and it was time for even the Hammahs to quit.  Final count for this challenging bite: Frank had 32 (only his 3rd attempt at halalu fishing, what a natural!), Thad had 27, I had 3 and Erik caught the largest fish but no halalu.  Technique definitely matters when the bite gets tough!

This may be my last attempt at Halalu Fishing!  Hope you enjoyed the posts.

 

1st Halalu attempt ever!

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The halalu have been in for a while and Thad invited Frank and me to join him.  Thad hadn’t halalu fished in years, but went a few days prior and the bite was pretty good. Frank and I hadn’t even witnessed halalu fishing, let alone attempted to whip for them. I had been avoiding halalu fishing like the plague after hearing how crowded and tense it could be but we had hoped Thad’s spot wasn’t heavily fished during the week.

Frank and I didn’t have the requisite light gear but he acquired a small old school Shimano rear-drag spinning reel and soft telescopic 6 ft pole.  I didn’t have any light spinning gear so I tried to make do with my smallest bait caster that I only used a couple of times before. I was leery about using a bait caster since they aren’t designed to throw light baits and light line, but this was all I had. I mated it with a lighter bait casting rod that I wade fish.  All my bait casting rods have fast tapers made to whip heavier lures so lobbing a light weight would be challenging.  Put 4lb test on it and loosened the mechanic brakes and tried casting a 3/8 weight in the back yard.  With a lob cast I could get 20 to 30 ft at times so I hoped it would be good enough since the halalu were supposed to be close in.  The one halalu-friendly feature of this small Calcutta 50 was the small retrieval rate of 12 inches per crank.

Layton at Charley’s Fishing Supply set me up with the hooks and soft plastic strips we needed, and gave me some basic halalu fishing pointers.  He explained that I could buy a block of the strips and cut them to the size I wanted, but cutting them cleanly wasn’t an easy process.  I opted for the pre-cut strips and planned to shorten them by cutting them in half with a knife.  The 3 colors he picked out were the popular ones for this phase of the halalu season.

Frank and I got to the spot and Thad was already landing his second, third and fourth halalu for the day.  The small school was positioned in a way where Frank and I couldn’t easily reach it without getting in the way of the small group of fishers so we spent the next hour or so just practicing our casts with our small gear.  Frank was able to dial in his distance and accuracy but I was having trouble casting into the head wind.  In order to get the distance I needed, I had to cast hard but the weight got hung up in the air and my reel overran.  Every 4th cast or so I was having to repack my line on the spool. Not good.  The school eventually swam within range and Frank and I cautiously cast our lures out.

The school was often beyond my reach but once in a while we’d be jigging in an enticing way and feel a weight at the end of our line, and then a pull.  Thad warned us of the fish’s soft lips so we tried to gingerly reel the fish in.  Frank landed the first one and we had a quiet celebration as the other fishers kept their game faces on and cast, jigged and retrieved.  I got my first also, and noticed the other guys were using 1/2 egg weights so I went up to that size.  I could cast a little better but it was still really hard to cast with distance into the wind and not bird nest.

In the meantime the other fishers were catching halalu every few minutes and Thad switched to one of his homemade flies after he landed enough for on the plastic strips to be used as live bait. With his frenetic fast jigging/slow retrieving style, he quickly became the high liner of the day. He even scrapped with a couple papio that took his halalu before his light line parted. I hooked a stronger fish, probably a slightly larger halalu, and my 2lb leader popped at the swivel.

poor little reel will go back into storage scratched up

Tying another leader with the tiny #14 hook in the wind was painfully difficult with my aging eyes!  I tested my knots and broke the leader twice.  And the wind blew the piece of leader out of my hands a few times.  Meanwhile the strong side winds knocked my rod down and my little bait caster slammed hard.   I was on the sidelines for at least half an hr and was seriously considering quitting.  Frank was beginning to add halalu to the bucket and I thought of filming the action but halalu locations are so secretive I decided against that.  I put on a 3/4 oz weight and got back into the action.  With that weight I could reach the school but the half a strip I was using was just catching small halalu that were dumb enough to fall for my faulty presentation.    Frank’s line unspooled in a tangle and he had to start all over again, in the wind.  All told, he and I probably spent half the time tying lines and waiting for the school to come in front of us.

But while I was hating my inability to deal with the fine line, small hooks and inappropriate fishing gear, Frank, true to his ever-positive persona, was embracing this new fishing experience.  Thad had caught enough and let us try his light spinner setup with homemade fly.  I couldn’t get bit but Frank landed a fish on it.

 

 

 

 

 

We ended the day as the bite slowed, with Frank catching about 8, I struggled with 4, and Thad had enough where he was able to add to Frank’s catch and keep enough to feed his family and freeze some for bait.  These are the halalu Frank cleaned, deep fried and sauteed.  He and his wife enjoyed their dinner and they had halalu sashimi the next day.

Thad seasoned his fillets with grated ginger, green onions, lemon and shoyu.  He and his wife ate some and he took a portion over to his parents as a special treat.  He’ll also salt the rest of the halalu and freeze for bait to be used later.  Nothing was wasted, all was enjoyed.

 

 

 

I’m trying to heal my bruised ego and attempt to catch halalu again.  It turned out that the small reel I used was a very poor caster, even with 3/4 oz weight. I’m gonna use a larger, smoother bait caster and a top shot of 4lb test. That reel casts 1/2 oz weights on 15lb test line with ease so I should get the distance I need. It does pull in 25 inches per crank so I may have to slow my retrieve down a bit.   Not sure if the drag and gearing can be forgiving enough for weak line though.  Since 2lb leader got bit but was too fragile for my rough style, and 4lb leader stifled the bite,  I got some 3lb leader, gold hooks and blocks of strips.  The other fishers using strips had custom cut their strips so that they were thinner than the pre-cut ones and about 1.25 inches long.   I’m learning that these little details matter to a fish with excellent eye sight that feeds on small micro organisms at night.

Frank and I have a lot to learn about halalu fishing etiquette and technique, and IF I continue to fish for halalu, I’ll eventually share some how-tos with you all.

 

Tide, moon phase, time of day, bait, water clarity, location, season – what’s most important?!!

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There were some calm wind days this week so I decided to yak fish a spot I hadn’t since last season.   I had missed the early start on the first day because my oama had a major die off in one of the tubs and I had to scramble to try to save the remaining live ones.  Took some of them out to troll mid-morning at the top third of the tide.  The moon was already more than half full and water clarity was ok at the deep drop off.

Floating debris signaled the slack peak tide.  The fish finder detected a lot of bait fish near the surface.  The head-hooked live oama were pulled off or the barely hooked predators shook off quickly.  Two bigger fish cut me off on the edge of the sharp reef.  Very slow bite with live oama, figured the mid-morning start was to blame.  The only thing I hooked, at the end of the session, was this table boss.

Figuring the evening bite would be much better, Frank and I hit the same spot two days later at about 3pm.  This time the tide was dropping from the high tide and water clarity was poor.  Bait fish were detected all around, near the drop off and well into the deep channels but nothing hit the dead oama that had died in my tubs.  We paddled away from the shoreline drop off to find cleaner water, and clarity improved but there weren’t a lot of bait holding near the papa edges.  Frank did have a strike that pulled on his dead oama a few times, eventually pulling it off without getting hooked.  Looked like a small omilu that hits from the tail-side and yanks.  I didn’t get a single strike.

Was the oama too stink from partially decomposing in the tubs?  Did the fish only want live oama?  Was the moon too big, just 4 days before the full moon?  Was the falling tide bad even though it coincided with darkening sky?  Maybe there’s too much bait so close by that the fish don’t need to check out a hooked bait?  What conditions do you guys like to fish?

It sure seems like Screamer Season is over for us.  The big strikes that surprised us at the start of the “season” are a distant memory.

 

Find the bait, then find the elusive white papio school?

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Frank and I have been chasing reports of schools of white papio marauding bait in the deep channels but we’ve always been a paddle or two behind.  Bolo-ing on the last mid-morning search, we decided to try the evening bite.  Conditions were challenging, with gusts over 20 mph and rain threatening.

Not much was showing on my portable fish finder’s screen so we pushed through the wind to get to the spot we were told held the whites.  Fish appeared to be a few feet above the bottom on the protected side of the papa but nothing wanted to take our live oama offering.  As we waited for the 5pm witching hour to wake the fish, the steady wind blew me closer to shore. There were pockets of fish hovering  near the bottom that I assumed were white papio waiting for the evening frenzy.

Suddenly fish began to show up on the “sidefinder” view of the fish finder, indicating fish near the surface directly in front of my kayak. My Huminbird Fishin Buddy’s display is almost toy-like but I’ve come to learn that when fish are spotted near the surface like that, they are bait fish spread out on the surface over a sandy bottom.  I paddled my kayak’s bow like a hammerhead shark surveying side to side until I could also mark fish below me.  Suspended fish are either bait schools thick in the water colum or white papio stacked up under the bait fish.

When I took this photo, the surface bait fish weren’t showing up in the sidefinder view on the left of the screen, but the composite view of what I had passed over indicated bait fish thick under me.  Despite all this bait, nothing took the live oama I was deep trolling behind me.

 

 

 

 

Remembering I had brought a jigging rod in hopes that we’d be sitting over a school of whites, I clipped on a 3/4 oz, 2 inch compact tungsten jig and dropped it down but wasn’t surprised when nothing took it.  Out of boredom, I cast it out and jigged it back as I watched the fish finder’s screen.  Something was pulling back!  It felt like a fish but the Shimano Type J rod and Tranx 400 easily controlled it.

 

 

 

When I brought it in view I thought it was a 4 foot gray shark but it turned out to be a 12 inch white with 3 other whites following it.  Guess I had been watching too much Shark Week.

Stoked that the compact little jig had worked on the school of whites, I tried to whistle Frank to get his attention but the wind blew the sound inland, not out to him.

Paddling into the headwind as efficiently as possible, the trolling rig went off!  I was stunned to land a 12.75 inch omilu on the oama a few feet from where the white had bit.  I left the bait out of the water this time and finally made it out to Frank.  By the time we made it back in, the whites and the bait fish were gone!  Nothing showed on the fish finder and nothing hit our bait.  Ugh… I really had hoped Frank and I would finally experience a white papio frenzy.

We headed back to our launch spot and stopped at the spot Frank lost a screamer.  The fish finder’s screen was blank so we spread out and slowly paddled in.  I took a blind strike near the reef edge and had to put the rod in the holder 3 times and paddle back into the channel before landing a 14 inch white.

What was interesting about these 3 fish were their stomach contents. The 12 inch white was stuffed with small opae despite being around the bait school.  The 12.75 inch omilu was full of  inch and a half nehu, which looked very similar in length and profile to the tungsten jig.  The 14 inch white had a small mantis shrimp and a flat, whitish piece of cartilage stretching its stomach.  All were well fed and none appeared to have any oama in their bellies. No wonder our oama baits have been ignored.

Ever the team player, Frank was happy for the catches and new understanding gained but agreed we need to improve communication on the water.  He suggested looking into 2-way radios like the offshore kayak guys use.  Do you guys have any recommendations?

The yak fishing conditions finally came together, or did they?

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deep trolling oama

The trades finally died down, blocked by the remnants of Tropical Storm Fernanda.  The moon was small the night before, and Frank and I launched at the bottom of a big tidal swing.  It was overcast, with thunderstorms threatening nearby. I was concerned the water might be too flat, but there was enough chop to make the predators feel comfortable.  A very reliable source had found the school of white papio hitting bait that morning, and gave us the location.

All that raised our expectations even though we tried hard not to count our screamers before they hatched.

We paddled straight for the area where the whites had bitten that morning, and the fish finder didn’t mark much bait or larger fish along the way.  After about 30 mins of circling the spot, something pulled drag but by the time I cleared the line it jumped off.  I saw the splash in the corner of my eye, and so did Frank, maybe a poorly hooked, small awa awa?  That was the last good strike we registered.

For the next 3.5 hrs we checked all the likely and unlikely spots and got some weak strikes that pulled at our baits but didn’t stick.  On the way in, the area that was reported to have the white papio school had a lot of bait fish near the surface.  That bait wasn’t there when we first came through.

So what caused this bolo on a day that seemed to have everything lined up for epic fishing?  The whites may have attacked the bait fish early in the morning and dispersed them, or chased them inside where we didn’t check. That I can understand.  But what happened to the omilu, awa awa and aha that are normally around the reef channels during the daytime hours? Did the big King tide cause too much tidal current so they hunkered down in a calmer area?  We’re beginning to realize the big tidal swings don’t bode well for our deep channel fishing.  Or did the fish feel the low pressure of the thunderstorms nearby?

Is the first wave of the Summer papio season over?

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these picky oama took 2 of us hours to catch!

It’s now mid-July and from what I’ve been hearing from you guys, and what I’ve been seeing on the water, the “first wave” of the season is over.  Friends and I have this theory that the oama came in early, in June, and some spots are now barren because the oama have gotten big and left for the reef.  The oama remaining in other spots are akamai to the normal baits we’ve been using, and have gotten lock jaw.  The big papio that came in a few weeks after the oama did have either been caught or are eating oama out in the deeper water.  So is it time to hang up the fishing gear and wait ’til next year?

Well, if you want to catch oama now you have to find “new, dumb ones” or figure out when they’re the most hungry.  Be creative with the baits, they “old” oama have seen everything by now.

If you have oama to use, you’ll have to take them further out since the papio aren’t coming close to shore anymore.

And if you like to throw lures like I do, be prepared to get bolo’d.  The papio and other preds are hunting further out, as mentioned, and are keyed on the abundance of natural baits still around.

There’s still fish to be caught during this next stage, but it will take akamai fishers to catch them.

If you have any fish stories or reports to share, please comment on my posts or contact me through the Contact page.  I’m always stoked to hear that this blog has gotten you fired up to fish more often.

Always get chance when you have live oama…

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peaceful paddle out

Screamah addiction lured Frank and me back to a deep water channel that came up empty the last two times we fished it.  Erik had been consistently hooking big papio and ulua with poppers off his small boat, and I stubbornly felt we could get something big to bite our live oama offering.

We launched in absolutely beautiful, glassy conditions and glided to the general area.  Hope began to fade as I scanned the fish finder’s blank screen. No bait fish near the surface and no white papio below.  Our live oama went on a tour of the likely looking reef drop offs and channels for the next 4 hrs.  Maybe the water was too calm and clear?  The wind began to pick up, and the tide surged, yet the only things grabbing my oama were reef outcrops and a fat puffer fish.  I got stuck 4 times, trolling over shallow water out of desperation, and the puffer was hooked so solidly in its lower lip that I cut off the hook. I was out of trolling rigs, and even bummed one off Frank, so I had to use my 20 lb fluoro main line to make a 2-hook trolling leader.

water has begun to bump up a bit

Frank got stuck a couple times also, but had devised an anchor system for his SUP and could retie his rigs while staying in place on the papa.  Brilliant!  I drifted a lot while retying rigs because I didn’t want to create an anchor trolley system for my kayak.  Frank continues to improve his fishing processes and had built a “rack-a-yak” washing station for me to clean my yak off when we land.  Maybe he can help me build the anchor trolley!

We were sun burnt, tired and really disappointed. Besides an omilu that Frank lost right at the net, we didn’t have anything to show for our efforts.  We positioned ourselves to let the current push us in, and as we entered shallow, murky water, I took  the fish finder’s transducer out of the water that was marking bait near the surface and Frank pulled up his live oama.  Even though I had never caught anything this close to shore, in such silty water, I left my oama in the water out of complete desperation.  Then the ratchet went off. The sound was faster than I would hear from a snag so it was actually a fish!  I got the rod out of the holder, felt a few surges and the fish came off. Ugh… Frank was too far away to hear the ratchet but did hear me yell “HOOKUP!!”.  He paddled over as I put the transducer back in the water.  5 feet deep and so silty we couldn’t see more than 2 feet down.  He quickly deployed his live oama and I put a new one on and retraced my route.

“HOOKUP!!”  Couldn’t believe I hooked something else and was overly excited.  I’m so used to saying “hookup” instead of “hanapa’a” after fishing so many years in SoCal, I guess.

Expected a white papio hunting in the very silty water yet it was a fat 1.5 lb omilu that took the back hook down in it’s gullet.  The fish bled during the hook extraction process so I kept it.  After Frank took this photo, he trolled the inside and when I tracked him down he was landing a similar sized omilu.  The fish finder said 3 feet!

We trolled the shallows some more but the bait fish were gone and so were the omilu. I guess God wanted us to each catch a fish and spare us the bolo head.

everything is strapped to Frank or his board for easy transport to and from the launch point

Erik fished shallow water on his bigger boat, and Kelly fished inside the break on his SUP. Both said the bite was very slow.  We’re thinking it was because the moon was still so big and the clear night skies let the fish feed at night.

And Frank and I learned that as long as you have live oama in the water, you always have a chance.

Live oama vs big moon and gusty trades

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The winds were forecast to be blowing 15 – 20 mph and the moon was just shy of full.  Not the most promising of fishing conditions but I had some early season oama that were beginning to get skinny in captivity.  Kelly invited me to his partially wind shielded SUP fishing spot.  The winds were still gusty at times but we managed to slow troll the oama.  Kelly let his oama swim unencumbered while I kept mine off the rocks with a floater.

Kelly inched close to the waves and was rewarded with the first fish, a scrappy omilu between a pound and 2 pounds.  I was leery of being dumped in my Scupper Pro and played it safe for  a while, finally finding a stretch of reef that yielded a bunch of 1.25 lb omilu without pummeling me with waves. I hadn’t brought my tags so all were released.

 

 

 

 

Fishing closer to harms way, Kelly had a much more diverse hit list: omilu, kaku, trumpet fish and an aha that screamed his drag. The bite was much slower than normal for Kelly, but the live oama overcame the adverse conditions. He even got bit on frozen oama when the livies ran out.

 

This was my first outing with live oama this season.  I was hoping for a screamah but settled for a pretty consistent bite in the protected waters.  Still dreaming of the screamahs…

The “season” has started!!!

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In “normal” years, the oama begin to trickle in around June and the papio start hitting them with abandon a month later.  2015 and 2016 were warm El Nino years and the oama stayed around into the early winter of those years, and the “real” oama season started in late summer.  Seems like 2017 is reverting back to a cooler, normal, earlier season.

The reef fish recruits that normally come in before the oama have been in, and oama reinforcements have been showing up on the south side of Oahu.  In normal years with normal current, oama start on the south shore and move north west, lastly filling in on the east side.

Good numbers of pesky small papio are mixed in with the oama, and bigger papio are hitting those schools.  Halaluu have been in for weeks.  Hopefully the season continues to build and isn’t halted by tropical storms like the last two years.

I’m already experiencing slower fishing on lures as the preds are keyed on specific bait fish (iao, oama, halalu, sardines).  Time for me to resume raising oama at home, I guess.

 

Converting “finding” to “catching”

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Frank and I checked a protected, deeper water spot I hadn’t fished all season.  In previous years, the white papio and awa awa would be hitting non-oama bait schools before oama arrive on shore.  The plan was for me to locate the bait and predators with the portable fish finder mounted on my yak, and for Frank to bring ’em up for viewing with frozen oama.  Once Frank identified the predators I’d try hooking them with a sinking lure.

A few minutes into our launch a large fish symbol appeared on the fish finder, 5 ft off the bottom.  Anything suspended above the bottom is a potential predator and sure enough Frank hooked up on his 1 yr old frozen oama he slow trolled in mid-water.  The fish battled hard, up and down, and Frank was able to land the first white of the day.  I cast out a heavy sinking swimmer that worked well the first time I tried it, but hadn’t worked since.  Nothing.  Frank baited up with another frozen oama, retraced his route and was on again.  This one shook off before he could see it.

The bite stopped so we ventured out into the 12 – 15 mph head wind for a mile and a half or so but there were no bait balls and no bites.  I put on a 2 yr old frozen oama and we let the wind blow us back towards our launch point.  As we got neared our destination my line felt like it snagged the reef edge.  I yanked and pulled and a scuffed up 11 inch omilu came up!  It might’ve been pulling a little line off my whipping reel (no ratchet) and I might’ve been dragging it for a while.  It was tired but managed to swim back down.

We neared the channel where Frank had his earlier strikes. I checked the opposite edge that had held awa awa in the past after seeing small bait marks on the fish finder but nothing took my oama.  When I paddled over to Frank, he smiled and exclaimed “I had a screammmmmmaahhhhhh”.  Something hit his oama and made 2 or 3 very strong runs straight down, against his tight drag.  Unfortunately the hooks pulled and I wasn’t able to witness the biggest fish he’s battled so far.  He asked if he should have run a looser drag but that’s risky too since a big fish could find the reef edge, or take a lot of line in a few seconds.  I think I’ve read that 1/3 of the breaking capacity of the line is a good amount of drag to run.  ‘Course we go by feel, and don’t pull line off with a scale, but it’s good to remember not to run too tight a drag unless the grounds are really snaggy.

Frank baited up with another frozen oama and circled the area that had been so productive for him.  I paddled through a channel closer to shore and my light whipping rod bent over like I had snagged the reef. Line peeled out smoothly so I realized I was actually on a fish.  This fish fought up and down like Frank’s and felt bigger than it actually was because of my lighter action rod and small reel.  It later measured 14 inches (FL) and was headed for my family’s dinner.  I baited up again, paddled over to Frank and we trolled the stretch side by side.

the top fish is only 1/2 inch shorter than the bottom fish but looks a lot smaller due to camera angle

Fish showed up in the same area on the fish finder just as they did when we started the day, suspended off the bottom.  Frank had to tell me I hooked up again because my rod was bending from the tip but I couldn’t tell without the sound of a ratchet.  The fish felt pretty big but ended up 13.5 inches (FL).  While it was fun to battle the whites on small gear it was a big disadvantage not to have a reel with a ratchet to tell me when something was tasting the oama.  I liked to imagine I was on Wicked Tuna when a strong fish would scream the small trolling reel.

All in all, it was a successful day.  Frank paddled his custom Fishing SUP further than he had in the past, against a stiff head wind.  My cheap fish finder found the suspended whites and the frozen oama brought them up for identification.  I was a little disappointed that the sinking lure didn’t get bit.  Next time I’ll try to drop a jig on the whites’ head and call them up with a popper on the surface.

Big Island Bottomfishing Trip 2017

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Continuing the tradition started last year, the Pacific Islands Fisheries Group (PIFG) guys, Neil and Erik, traveled to the Big Island to boat fish the day before the Tokunaga Challenge weigh-in.  We stayed with Neil’s childhood friend Jeremy, who chauffeured us around like celebrities. The moon was a lot bigger than last year’s half moon conditions, and there was a 5.3 earthquake the day before.  We were eager to see how that would affect our jigging prospects.

Capt Wes was fishing a tournament in Kona that day so Capt Braiden, last year’s first mate, took us out on the 19 ft Glasspar he recently purchased.  The wide beamed boat easily handled the five us and provided a stable platform to bottomfish.  We started at the jigging spots that were productive last year, and came up empty.  Capt Braiden, who doesn’t normally shallow bottom fish, worked the sounder and GPS to find other likely spots.  Jeremy fished cut shrimp, Neil and I jigged, and Erik switched between jigs and damashi with flies.  Jeremy hooked something solid and carefully brought a big, thick yellow spot papio to the net.  That gave us hope, but the lure bite didn’t materialize.

Slowly the guys switched over to shrimp on damashi and went through the initiation of hage and lizardfish.  Erik hooked something big on the bottom hook of his light damashi setup and gingerly worked it up but it eventually bent the hook and swam free.  Capt Braiden tirelessly worked the various reefs and drop offs. The tide was halfway through its rise and Neil got a small nibble that felt different from a hage, and heavier than a lizardfish. Nabeta!  It was on the small size but very welcome since nabeta were the best eating of the first we had caught last year.  Soon the guys were bringing up singles and doubles of  larger nabeta as Capt Braiden carefully plotted his drifts.

Neil continued his nabeta pioneering by landing a black fish that we later realized was a nabeta, followed up with a second black nabeta.  Turns out black colored nabeta are of the same species we were catching, but a very uncommon catch.  The two black nabeta were smaller than their lighter colored siblings, but pulled harder.

Live Deception green mackerel, left most. Flat Fall 80 gm, 4th from left.

I stubbornly kept jigging, using slow falling, fast falling, larger bodied and very small bodied jigs, eventually trying 9 different lures.  Earlier something small was on, shook its head pretty actively and came off. Then a larger fish took drag repeatedly but slipped off the debarbed hooks when I paused to try to find the “on” button of Erik’s Go Pro camera strapped to my chest.

My jigging muscles were tired after hours of non-productive lifting and cranking.  I felt bad that I wasn’t contributing to the nabeta pile so I bummed a homemade 2-hook dropper rig from Neil and baited up with shrimp.  Once I hit bottom I felt a strong tug and cranked what I thought was a whopper of a nabeta to the surface. Turned out to be hage and so was the next fish I brought up.  The guys said I had to go through the hage initiation and thankfully the third fish I brought up was a nabeta.  At this point we had run out of shrimp and were chunking lizardfish for bait, and I added a couple more nabeta. The others were much more effectively adding to the community catch.

Out of cut bait and an hr left to fish, we worked our way back towards our launch spot. Capt Braiden stopped in the general area where we caught the ulua last year.  He must’ve dialed it in perfectly because the first drop of the 2 oz  Ahi USA Live Deception in Green Mackeral (last year’s magic lure) got walloped a few lifts off the bottom.  It felt awesome to have something bend the rod and pull drag.  I babied it a bit since it would be my first jig fish of the day if landed, and it took me around the stern.  It came up very shiny and Neil expertly netted it. Kagami papio/ulua, the first jig fish I caught last year too!  This one was smaller than last year’s and the guys decided it was too beautiful to kill.  We tagged the 20.5 inch (FL) kagami and set it free.  Erik blended my chest cam’s footage and his stick cam to create this beautiful video.

The guys were pumped and Jeremy dropped down a frozen oama Braiden’s wife had caught the year before.  It got inhaled and he calmly battled a stronger fish than the kagami I had just released.  After a series of powerful runs a larger, slightly less shiny fish surfaced.  21.5 inch (FL) white papio/ulua.  That one was headed to Capt Wes’ smoker.

We drifted out to deeper water and my 2 oz Live Deception took longer to hit bottom.  The “scope” of the line was greater than I preferred because my lifts couldn’t make the lure fall as intended but the jig got picked up and the fish made an initial run.  Thinking it was another papio, I was waiting for a strong dive as I tried to smoothly bring it to the surface, but the fish was whipped. It turned out to be a weke ula, maybe a couple of pounds.  Erik had been telling me to eat the weke ula raw instead of steaming it, since it’s a little firm and crunchy when cooked, so I kept it.

Nothing hit my Live Deception on the next drop and since we were in deeper water  I put on an 80 gram (2.8 oz) Shimano Flat Fall.  It got picked up and I felt tugs as I reeled it in. Hage on both assist hooks!  How’d it fit such large hooks in its small mouth?  That was a sign that it was time to head for the barn.

We suspect the slow jig bite was due to the full moon the night before.  The predators may have fed at night and were resting up for the next night bite. Big ups to Capt Braiden for putting us on the most productive nabeta harvest we’ve ever experienced and over some big papios.  Much Mahalo to Jeremy for the Big Island Hospitality.

Jeremy, Neil, Scott and Capt Braiden

Here’s the crew. We couldn’t all be in the same photo because someone had to take the picture!  Neil plans to donate one of the black nabeta to the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, and eat the other to compare to the normal colored nabeta.

 

Jeremy, Neil, Erik and Scott

 

 

SUP with oama = 3; Yak with lures = 0

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Kelly, Frank and I hit the deeper water grounds that have been productive recently.  Kelly would be trolling frozen oama, Frank would whip lures first, and then troll oama. I was loaded for bear, with 40lb fluoro leader and abrasion resistant fluoro main line so I could bring in a big fish before Sharkey took his cut. I would stick to the lures that had been working the last two times I fished here solo.  The wild card was the “King Tide” that would flood the shoreline later in the day.

We started while the tide was below zero.  The wind was calm at the launch and we easily paddled to the area that was working last week. Something wasn’t right. The water was a copper-yellow tinge, not the way it would look if it were caused by runoff. Visibility was reduced and we suspected that the turbulence from the big tide stirred up sediment.  I marked much less fish on the fish finder, and nothing hit Kelly’s oama he SUP’d around.  I even tried fishing the suspended marks that produced big strikes the last time but I couldn’t even get a bump.

We spread out and a couple hrs of no bites went by. Then Kelly found a productive reef and landed a 2lb omilu followed by a kaku that cut the leader, and a roi that took his meal down a hole.  He ended his outing with a larger omilu that shook off before it could be landed.  Kelly passed some frozen oama on to Frank before having to leave, and Frank began trolling the reef closer to shore while I explored a deeper water papa further out.

The wind was over 12mph with gusts to 15 mph and the papa’s protected side was still bumpy.  The drift was fast but I was able to mark larger fish near the bottom.  The big boys were there but didn’t take any sub-surface, sinking lures or jigs.  Big contrast to the earlier trip when they came up in packs to hit lures.  I let the wind blow me back to where Frank was SUP trolling.

Frank had some roi action, then pulled in an oama head that was left by a papio or kaku.  After putting out a new bait he instantly hanapa’ad a 12″ FL omilu.  Repeating his path again he landed a 12.5″ FL white that was thicker and stronger.  After I had covered so much ground for nary a bite I was very surprised that an omilu and a white would be caught in the same area.  I put on a Waxwing Boy and whipped the flats and papa edge nearby. Still no love for me.  Frank’s last oama bait was pulled down into the rocks so we whipped lures on the way back to the launch site.

I put the trusty sub-surface lure back on and sure enough a roi jumped on.  Luckily it didn’t rock me and I dispatched it with a knife.  I’ve been catching roi with full bellies lately. Are they pregnant or just stuffed with reef fish?  This particular colored lure has caught more roi than any other lure for me.  Good for roi roundups but bad when the roi make it into the holes.

We checked the usual spots on the way back in but they were all barren.  So was it the King Tide and off color water that scattered the fish and made them unresponsive to lures?  The bait schools I had seen earlier were gone. Perhaps the bait didn’t feel safe in water they couldn’t see their predators coming, and without bait, there was no reason for the predators to hang around?

It was awesome to fish with Kelly and Frank.  We tried to work together to find fish. Kelly was the “control” with trolled oama, proving that some areas were indeed barren, and some areas held fish that wanted a room service delivered oama. Frank hooked a roi on the same sub-surface lure I did, but no papio.  That told me that the heavier leader and thicker main line I was using wasn’t the reason I got blanked.  And, it’s always good to fish with great guys who happen to be skilled watermen.

 

 

Predators gone amuck!

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The whites I stumbled upon the other day kept calling my name.  I went a little earlier this time, and the tide was still falling in the morning.  It was a little windier, maybe 8 to 10 mph trade winds, but lighter than normal.  Headed straight for Erik’s spot where I struck out the other day.  My go-to sub-surface lure got bumped repeatedly on the papa edge but nothing stuck. That was odd cuz it normally produces. I put on a sub-surface lure that I modified to run two inline single hooks instead of 3 small trebles. I wanted to see if having 1 less hook would affect the hookup ratio.

Evidently not. On the first cast a fish chased it down, jumping out of the water twice to eat it. I thought I was fighting an awa awa but brought a white papio to color.  I guess that fish preferred the swimming action of this slightly longer lure that was missing its belly hook.  Disappointed it wasn’t an awa awa, I shook it off. My tag kit got soaked while tagging fish the other day and I decided to skip tagging today.

Since the water was higher on the papa I drifted on it and cast to productive looking areas.  A smaller white hit about 10 ft from the papa edge but shook off before I could shake him off myself.  Hmm,  didn’t know white papio feed on top of the papas like omilu do.  Trying another drift over the papa I hooked something that took my lure into a long rocky tunnel. When the line finally broke, I was missing the lure and 3 ft leader.  I hope that roi chokes on my lure and dies, though I bet it was able to shed the single hook quickly.

Not wanted to lose any more sub-surface lures, I put on a heavy lipped swimmer.  It cast well but didn’t get bumped at all.  I had thrown it before and didn’t get a bite then either. Maybe that’s why it was half off on eBay.

Continuing with my lure tests, I paddled away from the papa and marked what looked like medium-sized fish suspended a little above squiggly lines that I assumed were bait fish.  I put on a smaller-bodied heavy lipped swimmer that was supposedly the hottest thing in Asia.  Cast out, let it settle to the bottom and retrieved steadily. It got bumped and I hooked fish but the hook kept pulling.  The fish felt like smaller white papio or maybe taape or some other reef fish?  I threw it closer to the pointed edge of the papa and an awa awa grey-hounded out of the water. Finally, the target fish!  The line went slack for about a second, and then took off again.  I fought the stubborn fish to the yak, and when I brought it to color it was a 13.5 inch (FL) white!  The awa awa had dropped the lure and the white picked it up thinking it was his lucky day.  Wrong, I bagged him for getting my hopes up.

So far that heavy lipped lure got bumped or hit on just about every cast.  I paddled back out to the concentration of fish settled near the bottom and dragged the lure over them.  I could feel the bumps again and imagined the fish were annoyed that this lure was interrupting their nap. Then I got a solid hookup and the fish felt like a 3lb white papio, just 3 times stronger. It fought up and down, and didn’t take a lot of line but I couldn’t bring it to the surface.  Fish started showing up on the fish finder all over the water column so I imagined the white papio school was trying to find out why their big bruddah was swimming so erratically.  I tried to get him to the yak as soon as I could before another fish ran into the line with its scutes and maybe 5 mins in the line cut.  I was disappointed that I didn’t see what I had hooked but kind of expected this ending.

The 17 lb mono main line was frayed; not the clean kind of cut like papio scutes normally cut line. I sent the picture to Erik and he said I got sharked.  The next day he went out and sharks were chasing down his fish and spinning in the air!  And to think, I had my legs in the water, straddling the Scupper Pro to stabilize it.

I put on another sinking swimmer and it got bumped but didn’t hook up on the first couple of casts. It was time to go anyway, and I was pleased again with the equipment mods. My cheap, portable fish finder put me on fish resting in the channel.  The 4X treble and single inline hook combination seemed to still allow the lures to swim and yet have the holding power to bring fish in.  I am gonna have to replace the 17lb mono with the castable fluorocarbon I used to use, to get more abrasion protection.  And keep my limbs in the boat, and a tourniquet nearby.

“Fish finder fish” landed on the stronger hooks

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Erik had been nudging me to get out on the water with his detailed catch reports. He actually drew maps of where he caught fish, and met me on the water to tell me where they were sitting earlier for his epic tag and release session. I braced for a hit as I threw out the sub-surface lure with stronger hooks.  Something jumped on that pulled a little and had a lot of resistance in the water but came off on the papa. Big roi or foul hooked papio? I metered fish near the papa drop off, a few feet off the bottom but couldn’t get them to come up to identify themselves.  My guide, Erik, had to leave for work so I was left to find my own fish.

The kayak with reduced transducer drag glided easily in the sheet glass conditions so I ventured further out than I had ever fished in that area.  My lure got hung up deep in a hole at the papa edge and the main line broke off. Dang roi hit the lure on the surface and pulled it down deep.  That was an expensive loss.  I put on another modified lure and trolled a little off the papa edges but nothing hit so I daringly trolled on the top of the papa in a few feet of water.  Finally, I landed a 10.5 inch (FL) omilu that was hooked in the mouth and lightly foul hooked with the front belly hook.  The fight felt a lot like the first fish, so I suspect that was a foul hooked papio also that got off.  The omilu was tagged and released back to his two waiting buddies.

The current pushed me to the edge of the papa and the fish finder marked 3 larger fish suspended a few feet off the bottom that looked like a bunch of whites resting in the deep shade.  Sure enough one came up and took the sub-surface lure deep in its throat.  A larger white came up with it, eyeing me warily.  I had to use my long nose pliers to remove the rear single inline hook. Note that the front treble hook didn’t foul the fish like the stock trebles had been doing. I’m sure it would have survived after being released since the  rear single hook did much less damage than a treble would have, but I kept the fish since I had already tagged a fish. It went 14.25 inches (FL).

The wind had blown me far off the spot I had caught the whitey so I had to try and recognize where I had gotten the strike.  I used the fish finder to locate larger fish hunkered down in groups near the bottom and sure enough, on my next cast, a 15 inch (FL) white got caught on the front treble hook.  The free swinging rear single hook didn’t snag the fish at all.  Maybe that white was the fish that was eyeing me earlier.  The fish was tagged and set free.

Today’s whites were fat and strong for their size. They seemed to be eating well and the stronger replacement hooks didn’t stretch at all.  The reduced drag of the transducer mount let me expand my range and locate fish with the fish finder.  It was great to verify that the equipment modifications were actual improvements.

 

 

SUP and Kayak whipping action

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Frank had been customizing his surf SUP for fishing and came up with design where he could sit kayak-style with legs supported by foot rests, and paddle as if it were a surf ski.  It was much easier to transport than my kayak, and he could climb back on easily if he huli’d (flipped). If I huli on my old Scupper Pro, it’s a struggle to climb back in with all the accessories attached, and the hatch would have let in water.

We went out on a light wind, low surf day to see how Frank’s Fishing SUP fished.  I had misjudged the waterline of my kayak when I made an adjustment to the fish finder’s transducer mount so the transducer was high and dry and unusable. I rely heavily on the fish finder when scouting new grounds so it felt severely handicapping but turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  Without the drag of the transducer mount, the Scupper Pro felt lively and glided like it had never before.

Frank ventured into the white wash, and I stayed just out of range, trying to gauge the tippy-ness of the kayak.  Straddling the kayak as if it were a longboard helped greatly with stability.  Frank found a small break in the surf and hooked something on his JDM sub-surface lure. It tugged pretty hard for about 10 seconds and then unbuttoned.  That gave us hope.  An hr later I had yet to feel a tug.  I followed Frank into a protected break in the surf and watched as he fished up in the white wash.

In the serenity of the calm 5 ft water I hooked something! It pulled drag a bit and was hard to bring in. Turned out to be an omilu that was hooked on both treble hooks. I was stoked to catch something decent in the safety of the protected water and eventually worked my way further into the waves as they got smaller with the rising tide.  The grounds looked great but we didn’t get another strike for the next 2 hours.

At 6pm, when we were considering paddling in, we made one more attempt. It was the witching hour, after all.  We looked for the largest boulders and turbulence and bam! Something ran against my tight drag, making two strong, brief runs, then the hook pulled. UGH!  The two treble hooks were bent open! The fish probably was hooked like the first fish was, and was able to pry itself loose by straightening out the hooks. Since I had pinched down the barbs, it easily slid off after that. That had never happened to me before, mainly because I had never hooked a big fish with treble hooks.  I’m still amazed that the Owner 2X #3 treble hooks opened so easily but friends have since explained why single hooks are a much more secure connection to the fish.  I’ll be replacing the hooks on these very productive lures soon, hopefully keeping their swimming action intact.

Frank’s Fishing SUP performed very well. He was able to paddle comfortably and access rougher water than I could risk. Frank is very skilled at fabricating customized solutions and has created a fishing / surfing SUP transformer. He gets compliments on his gear wherever we fish. We both have some equipment and technique tweaks to make to fish safely in the wash, and we’ll be back, ready for the next SCREAMAH!

Smaller is better, sometimes

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Capt Darren called to let me know that he and his daughter Keely were taking the 17 ft  Boston Whaler for a quick reef trolling trip. Last minute impromptu trip but they had room for me if I wanted to throw lures while the boat trolled.

It had been raining the last two days, but I jumped (literally) at the chance to join them.  We trolled one of the 5 inch JDM sub-surface swimming lures and a small popper from the rod holders, and Keely jigged a small white soft plastic minnow back and forth.  I was at the bow of the boat casting ahead of us, but it was hard not to backlash the Tranx 400 bait caster throwing into the wind.  Eventually I tuned the reel correctly and could cast ahead and retrieve a 1 oz sinking swimmer just as we were about to pass the lure.

Hookup on the sinking swimmer, I think? I felt some head shakes and then it just felt like the lure was snagged on itself.  No wonder, an 7 inch omilu had bravely attacked the slender 4 inch lure.  This was the second time I’ve used this lure. The first time it had caught a nice 20″ omilu in the past, whipping from a boat, mainly because it could be cast into the wind.

Keely hooked up on the small white soft plastic and skillfully brought in the fish. A legal omilu, larger than the one I had caught on the sinking swimmer! We released it, and Capt Darren trolled the shallow reef some more.  Keely hooked up again! This time it was a smallish lai (leatherback fish).  I landed the lai, unhooked it carefully to avoid the venomous spines and shook it free from the net. All this action got me pumped up so I launched my sinking swimmer in a high arc only to snap it off when the reel hit a deep backlash. Arrgh! That was the only heavy swimmer I had brought.

Keely hooked and landed another lai, followed by another legal omilu.  She needed a rest from all her fish catching so Capt Darren jigged the soft plastic minnow as he drove the boat with his left hand.  Hook up on the 2.5 inch soft minnow again!  Keely brought in yet another omilu. The 5 inch sub-surface swimmer and the popper weren’t getting any attention from the papio and lai.  I trolled and jigged a 4 inch sub-surface swimmer and didn’t get any hits either.  Capt Darren gave me an old school white feather jig to try, and I jigged that on my light bait caster.

He hooked yet another omilu on the soft plastic minnow while driving the boat and Keely skillfully landed it.  Capt Darren could read my frustration and asked if I wanted to jig the soft plastic minnow instead. We switched and he hooked up with the white feather jig on my bait caster, one handed! Man, the guy is good.  But the soft plastic minnow’s tail wiggled enough while I was jigging and I did hook a pint sized omilu and later, an omilu big enough for Keely’s dinner.  Funny thing was I was going to put the rod in the rod holder and the fish hooked itself.  Sorry, I didn’t get a photo of that but it might’ve been 2lbs.  That was the only fish we kept.

The skies darkened and the rain pelted us.  It was time to head in.  I lost count of how many omilu and lai Keely landed on the white, soft plastic minnow lure.  I didn’t lose track of how many fish hit the larger hard plastic lures we trolled. Zero.  The sinking swimmer that caught the first omilu was a slender 4 inches.  The soft plastic minnow was 2.5 inches and the white feather was around that length also.  Maybe the storm system put the larger fish down, and the smaller fish didn’t want to chase something too big?  Capt Darren told me “9 out of 10 times, smaller fish will hit a smaller lure instead of going after a larger lure”.  That got me thinking, maybe on the days I have slow action, my lures may have been too large. Hmm…

Nearshore shallow water scouting expedition

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Captain Ron asked if I wanted to try the slow pitch jigging technique in relatively shallow water.  We had talked about trying over the past couple of years but something had always come up, usually the wind.   I jumped at the opportunity but warily watched the wind forecast.  2 days before our outing, the winds ended up being stronger than predicted, but the day before our trip was pretty calm.  Capt Ron said the main purpose was to shake out his 18 ft Boston Whaler that he hadn’t run in a while, and we’d try to find suitable jigging grounds not too far off the beach.

One of the two Honda outboards was having some ignition and throttle issues but didn’t make it unsafe to run, so off we went.  The winds were about 10 -12 mph with gusts to 15 mph, and was making us drift faster than I preferred.  We started off with jigs lighter than an ounce but they took too long to make it down before we had drifted away so we went up to the 1 oz Live Deception.  In 65 ft of water, I finally got a hit. Hage… but hopefully we found were the target fish were hiding.  The drift was still a little fast and my line extended a ways from the boat so I pumped the jig back in. Hanapa’a! The fish was shaking its head but bending the soft tip of the Shimano Game Type F light weight rod, but didn’t feel like a papio.

At color we saw something orange. Weke nono, the deeper water weke ula.  This was one of our target species and the fish was a couple pounds so I kept it for my parents to steam. Unfortunately the Live Deception’s treble hook got stuck in the net even though I had crimped the barbs down. Guess I didn’t do a good enough job. By they time we freed the lure we had drifted off the spot and had to start our drift again.  A while later a lizard fish came up so we decided to go deeper.  Small pockets of fish showed up on the sounder but we couldn’t drop the heavier jigs down quick enough before drifting past them.  We ended the day fishing in 17 ft of water off the reef and saw predators attacking bait fish on the surface but couldn’t reach them with the 6 ft jig rods.

It was a slow day jigging but a good shake down for the boat. Capt Ron patiently put me on the likeliest of spots but the fish didn’t want to cooperate.  It was a good safe, comfortable first outing with him.  We’ll have to try some rockier areas on a very light wind day.