Fish bite way better in the dark, rainy conditions than on calm, clear days

February 19, 2024 By Scott Leave a Comment

For boat, kayak and even from shore, calm days with little swell are much more comfortable to fish. But those days are often extremely slow.

As an unplanned experiment, I kayak fished the same area 3 times. The first was overcast and a little choppy; second time had cross swell and a rain storm chased me off the water. The third time was glass calm with no swell all day.

On the first outing I stumbled upon biting fish in the early afternoon that happened to coincide with the solar – lunar bite time. The bite was surprisingly good and a 25lb ulua landed on the light jig rod ended the day.

The second outing was a little slower because it wasn’t during a good solar – lunar period but when the rain storm rolled in the fishing got really good. Akule, opelu and lai were hunkered down in relatively shallow water and biting on every drop of the damashi. Unhooking the lai slowed me down and I left when it got too cold to fish. Akule normally don’t bite during the day and must’ve thought it was night time!

The third time was so pleasant to fish. Easy to paddle, no current to push me off the spots but only the less desirable fish like taape, moana and hawk fish bit well.

I slow trolled a bite size opelu out to 200ft and back to the shallows with no interest from predators. Bait stealers eventually ripped it apart at 100ft and a big kawalea took a frozen opelu later.

The water surface looks like a mirror in this photo!

I had to work really hard to catch some nabeta to salvage the trip, chumming around and baiting my damashi rig with opelu skin.

So why do fish bite better on the darker days with more chop on the water? It seems like prey fish such as opelu and akule feel safer when they’re harder to be spotted by larger fish, and the predatory fish feel they can ambush prey fish better when it’s not as easy to see them approach. So on the calm, bright days, you’ll see the smaller fish on the food chain moving around carefree, while the larger fish are taking naps some where.

What should you do to help generate a bite? Chum around to start a feeding frenzy and use the freshest bait possible.

Uku, moana kali, yellow spot, 25lb ulua on damashi and 60g tungsten jig – I’ve been doing it wrong before!

January 30, 2024 By Scott Leave a Comment

I’ve been looking for uku and great tasting goat fish (moana kali and weke nono) on the Windward side for years now and kept coming up empty. Ended up changing my jigging setup and the area I searched, and the results were astounding. There’s a video of the action at the end of this post.

There seems to be uku (green jobfish) all over the South and West sides of Oahu. I’ve dedicated hours dragging live and dead opelu all over the Windward side dropoffs and no uku have bitten. Apparently the grounds I was fishing were sloping sandy areas, not rocky rubble the uku preferred.

The patchy reef areas did hold a lot of bait and reef fish, and I’ve hooked a few ulua and kahala jigging before, so the few times I took a break from bait fishing to test the compact tungsten jig, I did so on a rod designed for heavier jigs. Hadn’t been getting much action with that approach. I decided to give the 40g and 60g tungsten jigs the best possible presentation, so I switched to a light action Shimano Trevala rod paired with a Shimano Curado 300EJ bait casting reel with 25lb fluorocarbon leader. To hedge my bets, I used BKK assist hooks with glow in the dark fibers.

I started the morning catching a couple medium sized opelu, put them down on a weighted rig and slow trolled them over the 90ft ledge for 4 hrs. No uku showed up, only bait stealers. Out of frustration, and running out of fishing time, I headed to a slightly deeper but flatter reef structure I hadn’t fished before.

A cluster of reef fish showed on the fish finder, so I dropped the damashi down and a hard pulling fish responded. It felt like a papio and I was stoked to see a yellow spot papio come up. Since they feed on bottom dwelling crustaceans, they have a much cleaner, sweeter taste than their lookalike cousin, the omilu (bluefin trevally).

The next drop hooked a fish that pulled drag also, and I was looking to load up on yellow spot papio but it was a small moana kali. If it were a pound larger I would have been tempted to keep it.

Then the elusive uku bit the damashi but it was much too small also. The moana kali and uku did give me hope that larger versions would be nearby.

On the next drop a small omilu and a taape (blueline snapper) came up, then the action slowed so I moved shallower to a 90ft spot on my maps Capt Erik had given me years ago.

Taape first came up on the damashi and then hard pulls resulted in hooks broken off. I went up from the 12lb damashi rig to a 15lb rig and felt a small fish get hooked that was eaten by a larger fish. That rig had its hooks bitten off too so it was finally a great time to drop the 40g tungsten jig. Unfortunately the drift was too fast for that jig to fall quickly to the bottom.

I switched to a blue/silver 60g tungsten jig and hooked a kawalea on the first drop. That was probably what was cutting off my damashi hooks. I didn’t want it stinking up my fish bag so it was released. The next two drops of the jig yielded large, brown hagi. I’ve never experienced such a hot damashi and jig bite like this.

The next jig fish was a thick moano (manybar goatfish) proving the 2.5 inch jig mimicked small bait. It’s known to have tasty, soft flesh but small bones but I kept it hoping the bones would be big enough to avoid.

The bite slowed at this shallower spot and it was almost 2pm so I made a pass back to the deeper spot, on the way in. Hoping to hook a bigger yellow spot papio or uku with the jig, I dropped it down and the line went limp. I reeled up and the jig was cut off with no tug at all! What the heck was happening in the middle of this calm day?!

I had one more jig, a green/gold 60g tungsten jig that had produced before, and put it on. Dropped that down, slow pitched it a couple of times and the line surged angrily. Right away I knew it was a pretty big ulua (GT) and didn’t know if the light jig rod with only 25lb leader would hold. I tried to pump the fish up when it wasn’t running, and was surprised how much backbone the parabolic jig rod had. Offshore kayak guys like heavy action jig rods to fish for pelagics and I always thought they’d have too soft a tip, but I now understand how the soft tip is forgiving for the seated kayak angler.

I was just praying I’d be able to get a photo of the fish with the jig in its mouth and after a tense 20 minute battle, using the Bixpy motor to chase it down, it was on the surface. I tried to slide it onto the kayak to unhook it but the leader broke at the jig and the fish flopped in the water. It had barotrauma and couldn’t swim down, but was swimming in circles and was hard to tail grab it. Finally I was able to loop its tail with my gaff and pull it on board. I removed the jig and pushed it deep in the water. The fish finder showed it making its way slowly back down. Crazy such a large fish ate a 2.5 inch jig.

So why was the damashi and jig bite so good? Here’s my theory:

The relatively flat reef had enough structure to hold an assortment of fish.
The hot action perfectly aligned with the solunar major bite time for that day.
The soft plastic lures on the damashi and the small tungsten jig mimicked shrimp and small fish.
The 60g jig fell and bounced more enticingly on the light rod with light line better than it did on the heavy action rod with 40lb leader.

Everything came perfectly together that day. I’ll be back soon to see if it was a one-off.

This is what I brought home. The moana did turn out to still have small bones and the yellowspot papio made really good non-fishy, slightly firm sashimi with an oily feel.

The tungsten jigs and BKK assist hooks can be found in the Sinking section of the Store.

Here’s some of the jigging action.

2023 Wrap-up – Shoreline to Boat (Oahu)

December 21, 2023 By Scott 5 Comments

2023 was better overall than 2022 but fell a bit short of expectations. A weak El Nino did warm up the water in the late Spring but faded, and it was a windier than normal year. Overall water temps didn’t get that high and there were less fishable offshore days than the previous years. Thanks to the Holoholo writers for summarizing their season.

Shoreline:

Oama:

Some spots were very good and consistent, holding oama through September. Other spots that normally hold large schools were dry. The oama came in late July and left by October, which is the typical timeframe. Overall, an 8 out of 10. Papio weren’t hitting the piles much though.

Halalu:

It was a very good halalu season on Oahu. The regular spots held fish for a long time despite getting pounded. Papio were seen and some caught near the halalu piles.

Oio Flats Jigging:

Matthew:

The O’io fishing this year has been great in general. Unlike previous years, I chose to completely forego the summer Papio run and instead focus on only flats fishing for O’io. It got a little tough this year with the presence of many new anglers on the flats, but spot rotation is something that I’ve found extremely valuable. Rotating between four or five spots has kept each one fresh for the next time I fish it. I never fish the same spot twice in a row. With the increase in pressure, I’ve hardly seen any fish in the shallows, instead being forced to go to deeper water in search of those smart fish.

This summer showed a really impressive number of O’io, but most of them were smaller fish (under 4 pounds). This winter has been very cold and while the numbers of O’io have decreased exponentially, the quality of fish has also increased exponentially. Recently I’ve been fishing for most of the trip without a nibble but depending on that one 5lb+ fish to come around. I haven’t had much numbers, but nearly all of my fish in the past month have been over 5 pounds. For example, I went through the entirety of August, September, and October without catching a single Oio over 5 pounds, although I was catching more numbers in smaller fish. I’ve also shifted my strategy from “stay in one area you’re really confident in” to “cover as much ground as you possibly can” recently. They’re still out there, you just gotta hope for the best sometimes. Good luck🤙

Fly Fishing:

Jason: The year overall was a fairly productive one, with all of our usual flats producing bonefish, along with the occasional 10-12” omilu (a trophy on our flats). By October, the action started to taper off, but this is perfectly normal for those of us hunting roundjaw o’io on the flats (versus the deeper water sharp jaw variety). Looking back at my catch logs for myself and friends (aka our group text string) I’d say our numbers were pretty much right around our averages, however we did focus a bit more on the windward side of the island this year than years past. This is partly due to the Navy’s closure of a popular flat, which remains closed as of this writing, and partly because exploring new waters is part of the fun in fishing!

Plugging/Whipping:

Thad: I dedicated more time during the summer of 2023 to throwing plugs instead of bubble/fly, so my papio catches were down. Did that mean I caught more of the bigger predators like the elusive ulua than in the past? Nope. But my fishing partner Dino had a year to remember with his back-to-back big ulua on consecutive days. I did have in increase in big strikes so the opportunities were there but I suffered from the rubbah hook/bent hook curse so I caught less fish overall. The plugging action picks up around the summer months but the timing is a little different every year. The 2023 action seemed to start a little earlier than the year before. Whipping the flats for oio was more productive for me this year as we’ve been able to dial in some new spots. People say the winter months are better for oio but to me they seem to bite equally year-round. Hopefully the oio action will continue through 2024 and I’ll be able to make the summer plugging strikes stick.

Dino:

2023 has been a really weird year as far as fishing goes. It was really up and down for me. I accomplished what I feel I will never be able to accomplish again. I hit uluas on back to back days in July. A white ulua in the 35 ish pound range and an omilu in the 22 pound range. Lost another one at landing some time after. The oio action on the flats has been hit or miss. Some days it’s good. Some days it’s dead as can be.

The Summer was good and the plugging really slowed in the Winter so I’ve been doing flats fishing for oio which has been a little bit of hit and miss for me. Picking one up here and there.

Hoping that 2024 can bring some good action for the bigger shoreline game. Gathering and prepping the plugging gear as we speak.

Nearshore:

Kayak Fishers (West and Northsides of Oahu): Largest shibi (yellowfin tuna under 100lb) of the season were caught in the Spring, along with mahi. Summer to early Fall were consistent for shibi and mahi. Aku popped up in the early Fall. Ono were caught in early late Fall. Bite has slowed in Winter but there are still pelagics to be caught if you’re in the right place with a lively opelu. Uku seems to be available year round.

Scott: (Windward side kayak) Slow ’til March when aku schools moved in shallow. Then the wind blew ’til October. When the weather finally allowed offshore kayaking, the small shibi and small mahi were in shallow but that only lasted a few weeks, water temp was 79 degrees. In December the temp dropped to 74 degrees and the pelagics were scarce. Currently, nehu bait balls are getting pounded by small kawakawa and opelu from below, and birds from above. North swell often shutting down exposed spots.

Dive:

Pono: Didn’t get a ton of diving in this year due to having a busier than normal schedule and a windier than normal summer (my usual dive season). However, the few outings that I were able to go on were very productive! I had a lot of fun down-sizing my speargun, kayak diving, and trying new recipes. Diving deeper has shown me that Oahu still get fish if you know where to look! I think there were more nearshore pelagics in the Fall compared to other times of the year, we were seeing shibi and kawakawa on reef dives.

Boat:

Erik: 2023 brought two new boats into our fishing experiences, a 21’ Force and a 17’ Boston Whaler. The year started steady and progressively got better with October being our best month. We are blessed to have landed Ahis in both boats this year and have caught enough fish to share with friends and family.

Offshore fishing is still good but the wind and high surf have been limiting factors.

We look forward to more fishing adventures in 2024 and hope to see more of our fishing family out in the ocean.

If you wanna see what it looks like catching daytime opelu on a kayak (video)

December 11, 2023 By Scott Leave a Comment

I just got over a month long bout of bronchitis and needed an easy day of fishing. The water was glassy calm, the normally picky daytime opelu were ravenous but the large predators weren’t around to eat the snack sized 7 inchers.

It was so calm I paddled a mile south and ran into 12 inch sized opelu but all my 12lb to 15lb rigs got busted off by either multiple opelu, or kawalea (Heller’s barracuda). Twice I landed a big opelu but had the rest of the rig broken off. Since I recently became aware that a lot of friends like to eat opelu, I tried to catch as many as I could before I ran out of rigs. The fish were caught mainly on Halloween (gold with black glitter) and green CHL Minnows.

Here’s the video of the relaxing day.

October: Light wind, big opelu and small pelagics eating tiny baitfish

November 3, 2023 By Scott 2 Comments

It had been windy since Mid-May but the wind finally dropped and just about every week of October was fishable. Big and medium sized opelu have been catchable during the day but the pelagics have been puny. Schools of rat mahi and baby kawakawa/aku were chasing small flying fish and nehu. Historically, September is the best kayak fishing month for us since the bigger pelagics are still around and the wind normally is light enough to get out but we missed out on that.

Last week I paddled out to my go-to Windward spot on a sheet glass morning and was shocked to see a school of mahi making circles around me where I caught a mahi on the last trip. I casted a tungsten jig ahead of them, and they checked it out but weren’t fooled so I put a year old frozen opelu on and trolled around for a while with no love.

The opelu were scarce, probably because they were spooked by the marauding mahi, and I finally caught a medium sized one. Not wanting to waste it on the rat mahi, I caught a 6 inch kawalea (Heller’s barracuda) and put that out on the new Phenix Black Diamond XHeavy rod and Avet MX Raptor rig where the rat mahi had been circling. It got picked up! The fish made some jumps but came in easy in high gear, and as I was getting ready to land it, it pulled the hook. I had accidentally set the lever drag too high and the stiff rod didn’t have much play I’m thinking. Ugh.

Then all the bait on the bottom included the juvenile kawalea disappeared. I’m thinking the mahi got a taste for kawalea and raided them. Ended the day having a rat mahi grab my medium sized live opelu and fail to swallow it and I bagged a lone nabeta.

Not wanting to waste anymore time on puny mahi, I checked another Windward spot this week with high hopes. I hadn’t fished it since April and was expecting it to be loaded with bait and pelagics. Wrong. I couldn’t find bait balls in the shallow spot that was previously loaded, and had to go out to 300ft before stumbling upon a huge mark stretching from 150ft to 200ft. Hoping to hook opelu at 150ft, I was surprised when a big opelu hit just 30ft down. I picked up two more 12 inch opelu and released a number of hard pulling 14 inch kawakawa. I put one of the opelu out on the Phenix Black Diamond XHeavy rod / Avet MX Raptor and a bird school popped up about 50yd away. I towed the opelu over to the bird school expecting some kind of tuna to slam the bait but nothing took it. All I could see of the bird school were scales sinking out that were much larger than opelu scales.

Since nothing wanted the big opelu and I had two more in the bait tube, I drifted over a deep reef and expected an ulua or kahala to slam that bait. Nada. There was nothing significant on the fish finder either. So odd to be so dead. More than an hour of dragging that live opelu over the reef didn’t yield a sniff. So I headed in to a shallow bait spot I hadn’t checked earlier and bait was balled up tightly. Caught 3 perfect 8 inch opelu and swapped out the big opelu that was still alive. Then small pelagics started busting on bait so I towed my small opelu over and it got pulled and scraped but alas, the predator couldn’t swallow it.

To salvage the trip I tried to find some nabeta but like last week, could only catch one. When I cleaned the opelu I was surprised to find them full of 2 inch silver fish. I had no idea opelu preyed on bait schools too. So the bait ball I saw 200ft down was small baitfish and the opelu and the kawakawa were above the bait, attacking them! No wonder my bigger opelu were getting ignored. I gotta try again with smaller lures and the smallest opelu I can catch.

1st new Phenix rod continues to be lucky, 2nd new rod is unlucky? Mahi catch and cook, sort of.

October 19, 2023 By Scott Leave a Comment

(l to r) Phenix Black Diamond East Coast with Avet SX Raptor, Phenix Black Diamond with Avet MX Raptor

Fishermen are superstitious. Some rods seem luckier than others. And some rods seem unlucky as well. I used the second of the Phenix rods I’m demo-ing, the Black Diamond Extra Heavy 30lb – 80lb rod, with a new Avet MX 2-speed Raptor holding 620 yd of 50lb braid. Much bigger gear than I need but I wanted to see how it felt against a fish.

To hedge my bets, I also brought the Black Diamond East Coast Heavy rod I used on the last trip that caught 2 small ulua and a kawakawa. Since it’s a lighter setup, I fished that one with no weight and put a sliding tungsten weight on the Extra Heavy rig.

3 kayak friends fished the Windward spot the day before and found bait and preds relatively shallow in the calm water, taking home a 30lb ulua, a shibi and a small mahi. I’ve never caught a shibi ever, and I fish this spot a lot so I was very impressed and had high hopes. I brought extra ice and wondered how many fish would fit in my fish bag. The water was choppier for me, with a 12mph east wind blowing into a NW swell, which made getting out a slog but all that surface commotion encourages the predators to feed.

I caught 2 medium sized opelu in the blind, then tried for another 30 mins and couldn’t find any more. I put one out, headed to where my friends had gotten action the day before and something hit the bait and raced across the top of the water. It was so skinny I though it was an aha (houndfish) but it turned out to be a very hard fighting baby mahi. It looked bigger when it got closer so I decided to keep it and missed hitting it with the kage too many times to count before I finally got it in the boat. Not wanting to waste my only other live bait, I put a frozen opelu out and it was ignored.

I went in to the shallow ledge and put a frozen opelu on the Extra Heavy rod with the sliding weight and somehow got tangled in my motor/rudder. I eventually freed it, dropped the bait down again, and that creature that keeps running my bait into the rocks did it again, but this time I couldn’t pull the hooks free. I spent a long time bending the extra heavy rod and could feel something pulling back but could never get it to swim out. Finally I busted off and had to retie that rig.

In order to avoid another snag, I put the remaining opelu on the Heavy rod with no weight and immediately hooked an aha with the single hook, which is kind of rare since aha usually hit the middle of the bait and avoid the hook. The aha was released since I was still hoping to fill the fish bag with pelagics.

Paddled back out to the bait spot and hooked something near the bottom that pulled downward pretty hard. I was super stoked to see a big opelu and thought about putting a wire stinger rig on my front hook of the heavy East Coast rod but lazily thought nothing would hit that large an opelu at 2pm. Well, a minute after it was let out, something took off with it. I waited 10 seconds for the fish to turn and swallow the opelu, then fought the fish for a few seconds more before it let go of the bait. Arrrgghhh!

Looking at the mortally wounded bait, it appears that a mahi grabbed it sideways, dog bone style, and didn’t turn it to swallow it because it was too large.

I couldn’t catch another opelu, tangled the heavy rod’s line around my rudder again, and realized I blew my shot. Headed in while I still had battery left for my original J-1 Bixpy motor. All 3 live opelu got hit on the now lucky East Coast rod, and the XH rod wrapped my motor twice and snagged once. Not a good first showing.

I had forgotten to bleed the little mahi when I landed it, so it had a bit of loose blood behind the gill area when I cleaned it, but wasn’t as bad as a “red meat” tuna.

Since I’m not much of a cook, and less of a fish eater, I marinated the mahi pieces in taco seasoning and pan fried it.

My wife warily tried the mahi fish tacos and was pleasantly surprised that they weren’t fishy and had a nice texture. The taco seasoning was a little over powering so she wants to try mahi again with a subtler presentation.

Since we have more light wind days forecasted, I’ll be out again looking for a fish to bend the XH rod.

Tested the new Phenix Black Diamond East Coast rod and caught 3 different tackle strainers

October 7, 2023 By Scott Leave a Comment

Standard Black Diamond XHeavy on the bottom, Black Diamond East Coast Heavy on top. Zoom in to see details.

Recently became a Phenix Rod dealer to pair with the Avet reels we sell and realized not many, including myself, have used a Phenix Rod. Ordered two 7ft casting rods to try off the kayak: Black Diamond 30lb – 80lb Extra Heavy and Black Diamond East Coast 30lb to 80lb Heavy. The East Coast version is thinner and a little softer in the tip, with lighter components. The original Black Diamond series was made for West Coast style stand-up fishing, and built to fight big fish and take a beating.

(top to bottom) St Croix Mojo Salt 30-50lb, Phenix Black Diamond 30-80lb, Phenix Black Diamond East Coast 30-80lb

The St Croix Mojo Salt 30lb to 50lb is actually thicker and bulkier than the two 30lb to 80lb Phenix rods due to the tighter and stronger carbon fiber build that Phenix employs.

I put the diminuative Avet SX Raptor on the lighter Black Diamond East Coast and it felt very easy to handle.

The winds lightened this past week and I was finally able to explore a Windward ledge that has always intriqued me. I stumbled upon some big opelu inside the ledge and took one out to 270ft with no bites. One the way back into the shallow ledge I dropped the GoFish cam down and later confirmed it was a barren sandy area with just a few hagi too small to eat the opelu.

At the shallow ledge I traded out the big opelu for a slightly smaller one, and it got picked up by a strong fish with a lot of head shakes. To max out the ability of the Phenix rod and 2-speed SX Raptor, I put it in low gear and grinded away, hardly lifting the rod at all. 4 minutes later I was surprised to see an omilu over 10lbs trying hard to shake the hook. It was admired for its beauty and released. There is a video at the bottom of this post showing all the action, but don’t skip ahead!

Working my way back to the grounds I normally fish, I ran into more daytime opelu schools and caught 3 of them on my 3-hook damashi. That almost never happens to me. I put them out with a sliding weight and each got taken by something that pulled for a while and then held onto the rocks, and when I pulled the hooks out, the leader came out with no nicks at all. I have been suspecting a tako does this at this spot because when roi hole up in the reef my line gets nicked up. Whatever it was, it grabbed the 3 opelu and I was out of live bait.

I had fresh opelu from the Kalihi fish market, and sent one down. It got taken as I paddled away, and since I was so shallow, I assumed I hooked another papio. I was pleasantly surprised to see a kawakawa circle. I kage’d it to bring it onboard, and subdued it with Bert’s Brainer.

Since kawakawa always travel in schools, I put another fresh opelu down and it got taken immediately by a stronger pulling fish. Assuming it was a much larger tuna, I battled the hard surging fish, wondering what would have such strong head shakes. The fish had run through the rocks when it first grabbed the bait, and had pushed the sliding weight all the way up to the FG knot joining the braid to the leader. I couldn’t slide the weight back down and was worried I’d break the FG knot by trying, so I handlined the fish in. I was surprised and disappointed to see a small ulua gasping at the surface.

After releasing the ulua I pulled on the weight and sure enough the FG knot parted so I called it a day and went in.

The Black Diamond East Coast rod and SX Raptor were a delight to fish with yet, in low gear, brought all the fish in within 5 mins each. It was very easy to pull the rod out of the rod holder even when the fish were running, because the “slick butt” didn’t get hung up at all. What a powerful, effective combination.

Here’s the video of the action:

So many new things to try, need light wind

September 21, 2023 By Scott Leave a Comment

During the 12 weeks I hadn’t fished, from mid-May to September, I had acquired a few things I’m eager to use, and a deep ledge I wanna check out before moving on to another location.

Bert Wong gave me a beautifully fabricated 10 inch stainless steel fish brainer to dispatch large fish with its arrowhead shaped blade. It worked very well on this juvenile opakapaka but I really need to use it on an adult pelagic to detemine how safe and quickly it shuts down flopping fish.

I really like the idea of sinking lipped lures for making long casts and for trolling under the surface. The Ima Gyodo Heavy Surfer and the Zetz F-Lead 90S slayed fish inshore and sold out in the Store. I was given the opportunity to become a Duo International dealer and one of the lures I wanted to start with was the Duo Roughtrail Blazin. They are very compact, heavy lipped lures in various sizes geared for papio up to pelagics.

The largest in the family is the Duo Roughtrail Blazin 110m. 4-3/8 inch, 2-1/4 ounce. I’m planning to cast for breaking aku and mahi, and sink down and troll through suspended fish. Look how nicely it wobbles and flutters. The Blazins can be found in the Store in sizes 85mm, 92mm and 110mm here.

Werner Paddle hooked me up with a “bent shaft” version of my paddle that got nicked by the shark’s teeth. The concept behind the bent shaft is that it forces the paddler’s hands in a position that aligns the wrists and shoulders during the paddle stroke to minimize pressure on the joints. I used it once so far, expecting to paddle way more efficiently. I didn’t. The paddle is actually a little heavier than my straight shaft paddle, so it didn’t feel light and effortless. But my joints did feel better than they normally do the next day, especially after such a long lay off. There’s still a learning curve to paddling in correct form but I like the correction it provides.

Lastly, there’s one more area I wanna check from one of my go-to Windward spots. I’ve been slowly expanding my fishing range and have found bait and some pelagics but still haven’t found any sizeable uku. The underwater video shot during the last trip revealed how sandy and sloping the area I had been fishing was. No rocky ledges that the bottom fish like, and no upwelling the pelagics like. I have one more area that’s still within paddling range to check before moving on to another spot to launch.

Just need the wind to drop under 10mph. It’s been a windy Fall so far.

Got back on the horse (kayak) 12 weeks after the shark attack. So much life out there now.

September 8, 2023 By Scott 3 Comments

The tiger shark encounter happened mid-May of this year. I needed a couple weeks to process what had happened, and to get in front of the media storm. After that, the winds consistently blew ’til now, 12 weeks later. The longest I had gone without kayak fishing previously was 8 weeks, so I was badly out of shape and in need of an easy day.

I decided to return to the scene of the crime, but stay about a mile away from where the attack occurred. It was after 8:30am when I launched. The wind was calm and the sun was out, reminding me of the conditions when the shark attacked.

The bait balls at the opelu spot were suspiciously close to the bottom, and sure enough juvenile opakapaka latched on the damashi hooks, and eventually the tackle busters broke off some hooks. 7 inch kawalea (Heller’s barracuda) came up too, and finally an opelu made it to the surface before shaking off the hook. I gave up catching bait, put on a year old frozen opelu with a 2oz weight and paddled out to 250ft. No opelu balls or pelagics were seen on the fish finder so I came back in to film the tackle busters with the underwater GoFish cam.

The bait balls had moved about 50yds south of where they were earlier and I dropped the camera rig with a 25lb damashi to entice the tackle busters to come into view. A 10 inch (fork length) opakapaka was the first to come up, and sure enough little kawaleas followed. Every drop got hit but nothing broke off the 25lb line.

When I looked at the underwater video at home I was shocked to see small schools of opelu halfway down, looking at the damashi rig but not commiting because of the heavy line. In this video, after pulling through the opelu school, I dropped down and a paka pup and kawalea juvenile jump on the hooks. Look at all the vegetation debris the opelu are swimming through.

In this video I dropped the camera rig on a bait ball just a few feet off the bottom and actually bonked a kawalea. This footage seems to indicate that the tackler busters are kawalea after all. Often I have landed 1 paka pup and had the rest of the damashi rig busted off so I assumed the busters were paka but it looks like the paka gets hooked and kawalea then mob the other hooks and cut the line.

My GoFish cam ran out of battery after recording nunu (trumpet fish), hagi (trigger fish) and a zillion lizardfish on the bottom, so I headed into the shallow dropoff to see if the damashi was as hot there. It was. I hooked something strong on my 12lb damashi that fought like a papio and broke me off. So I dropped a jig down and felt it get grabbed and then it felt like it was stuck in a rock. I pulled it free and this happened 2 more times, with the last time, the jig released on its own. I think that was a tako (octopus) grabbing the jig and then holding the bottom, since the jig had no scratches from the rocks. I’ll need to get underwater footage of that next time! After releasing a bunch of full grown moana (manybar goatfish), I headed in.

No big fish caught but no shark attack either. And I now I know not to drop the damashi too far down otherwise kawalea will wreck it. All in all, a very enjoyable return to offshore kayaking.

Holoholo: Finding solitude and fish on the Windward side of Oahu

July 6, 2023 By Scott 16 Comments

I met Tobias on the water once, just weeks before his 2 year high school teaching assignment ended. While we didn’t get to team up and fish together, he left this treasure trove of vivid memories for the rest of us to enjoy.

Tobias Tillemans: I grew up in New York and Minnesota and fished obsessively in both places, dunking worms off docks or, later, chasing trout. I had a spell guiding flyfishing in Alaska before I started teaching High School science in Seattle, where I started fishing from a kayak. I’ve done some paddling expeditions in Baja and Alaska, always chasing fish.

A few weeks after I moved to Hawaii, I bought a 2017 Hobie Compass Outback and an old pickup to haul it. I was psyched out of my mind to fish; there is no better way to put it but, though I’ve fished my whole life, I didn’t have a clear grasp of how the ocean or the marine ecosystem behave in Hawaii. I figured I would just have to figure it out. I joined the Oahu Kayak Fishing Club Facebook group, read everything anybody posted, asked some occasional questions, then just fished a lot.

I quickly learned that nobody kayak fishes from where I lived in Hau’ula, on the windward side. In two years of fishing, I never saw another kayak. Occasionally there was a skiff. The weather’s not good, it’s sharky, and there aren’t many shibis, but it was quick and easy for me to launch from the beach. Kayak fishing is only partly about catching fish for me anyway, with the rest being a mix of a desire for solitude, independence, and a connection with some great power that occupies the blue-water ocean and also the mountain ridges of the Hawaiian Islands. Hau’ula is an excellent place for seekers of these other parts of fishing. The dripping wet rainforest backdrop is shot through with basalt cliffs, sliced occasionally by waterfalls, and capped by an ever-changing tapestry of clouds in shades of gray, peach, white and purple. Solitude is found in great abundance. The place has mana, and using a motor to get out there would have diminished the experience for me and the reward of every fish I caught. I also worry about the impact of over-fishing and motor noise, and I can rest easy fishing a self-powered boat.

As a teacher, I had to work from 9 am-4 pm, but if I was quick, I could fish before or after work. I gradually made it further offshore until I was maybe half a mile out, guessing that, with such a productive nearshore ecosystem, I’d easily find predator fish. It didn’t work that way. This part of the ecosystem is just too heavily impacted by overfishing. I was not that excited about this kind of fishing anyway. Outside the reef, a different ecosystem exists that is part of that high mountain and deep ocean spirit, and I hoped to have a brush with it. The elegance, beauty, and power of the pelagic fish are undeniable, and I knew that catching those fish would be a way to commune with the energy I was out there seeking.

My first visit to what I considered proper pelagic fish habitat, about 200’ of water, was spooky, and I didn’t even fish. I just peddled out there and sat for about 10 minutes, wrapping my head around the deafening aloneness of the place, and trying to build a sense of safety when I felt pretty unsafe. The swells rolled under the boat, I watched clouds form and dissipate over the Ko’olauloa range, and I peddled back in. From then on, getting back out there was pretty much all I could think about.

Eventually I started catching bait. I tried for akule in the dark, but those were some of my least safe experiences and, after losing my navigation before sunup on a not-good weather day, I gave up on them. For me, opelu hold some of that deep ocean mana which, for whatever reason, the akule do not. I found that 10 mph winds and 5’ swell were the worst weather forecast I could fish in. Soon I was comfortable offshore by myself, and I found some deeper structure, maybe old buoys or wrecks, and a jigging spot in 300’ that held a lot of 10-15lb papio and kahala.

I watched the birds head offshore in the morning and back in at night. I missed and broke off lots of fish but I caught lots of kawakawa (mackeral tuna). I was getting harassed sometimes by what I later learned were ono, and always by sharks. The sharks and the whales are both part of the beauty of the offshore ecosystem though, and I tried to appreciate them equally. I learned a lot from Bill Ho, Facebook, and YouTube, and was just having an amazing time out there.

In the spring, some aku (skipjack tuna) and mahi-mahi turned up in the mix. The iridescent aku are carved by the ocean from polished aluminum and could beat their tail fast enough in the boat to create a hum, like a mosquito.

The mahi-mahi is part tropical bird: social, prone to flight, and sometimes green, yellow, silver, orange, or blue, depending on its mood.

The weather was always an issue, and sometimes I would be stuck on shore for weeks, but I got amas in the fall of 2022, which extended fishable weather for me up to my tolerance for nausea. I got better at running two lines, one deep and close and the other shallow and 200’ back, turning slow circles to keep them separated in the water. I learned to clear the second line before trying to fight a fish on the first and to give a fish time to eat before setting the hook.

I finally landed an ono one morning in December 2022 before work. It was a little over 40 lbs. It hit at dawn on some structure in 160’ of water, and there was no mistaking what it was. It took half my line in 8 seconds. I played it gently, but I always felt I was on a ticking clock with sharks in that area right up until the fish was on the boat. I got a kage shot on it after about 20 minutes, hoisted it onto the boat, got covered in ono slime, and still had time to make it to 7-11 for more ice before taking a shower and hustling to class.

This spring, I got serious about missing fewer fish. If I can get fish to eat my opelu, I wondered, why are so many of them making off with my bait, my hook, or both? I stopped fishing stingers or wire unless there were ono around and I downsized hooks, figuring this would lead to more confident strikes and less suspicious nibbling. I got picky about how the hook went through the opelu nostrils to keep the gap of the hook open, and changed how and when I set the hook: late and hard. I started to understand the changing daily and seasonal behavior of the opelu, and learned far too late that 10 lb floro catches way more bait. In a kayak, you can carefully study the behavior of bait and predators in a specific spot or piece of structure to learn how they react to bathymetry, currents, tides, and weather. I enjoyed puzzling out this ecology while feeling part of the greater Polynesian ecosystem, verdant and fragile, isolated in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean. I explored new areas and occasionally fished with guys like Bill Ho and Max Reyes.

In June, I sold my truck and boat to move back to the mainland with my wife and two girls, who harbor a deep and abiding desire to live closer to family. Once the kayak was gone the daydreams I would drift into of the sewing-machine twitch of an opelu on a damashi, or the scream of a rod going off, felt raw and painful. I sold the boat as is, right down to the damashis, rubber bands and 5oz weights, rods, 5/0 hooks and wire rigs, but I brought back with me a full toolbox of skills. Now I live on a narrow but 700-foot-deep lake with schooling bait fish that are harassed all day by salmon and a supporting cast of trout species. They seem to set up on shelves on about 100’ of water, heavily influenced by the thermocline. There are no sharks, but also no whales. I’ve seen some guys out there in decked-out Hobies, hunched over their fishfinders. The bird behavior is different, but I can read it with a whole new eye, and I am once again trolling Facebook Marketplace for a kayak and an old pickup with which to haul it.

Did my Xcel surf booties save my life?

June 27, 2023 By Scott Leave a Comment

If you watch video below, you can see that I took my left foot out of the water and appear to have pushed the shark off with my Xcel split toe surf booties. Or did I? I have no memory of taking my foot out of the water so am just relying on what I see in the video. What do you think? Did the surf bootie kick save my life? Looks like I put my foot back in the water to avoid flipping over. Good thing the shark didn’t come back for another taste!

I started wearing the Xcel split toe booties to walk into the water to surfboard fish. At 1mm, they are thin, fit the foot nicely, and provide a bit of protection from the reef.

Holoholo: Epic kayak fishing day

June 23, 2023 By Scott 1 Comment

Oahu Holoholo kayak angler Grant Taura shares his best outing to date. This one just happened to coincide with a kayak tournament.

Grant: Most of the time I have a game plan when I fish. On this particular day, our club Oahu Pelagic Pirates (OPP), which I recently joined, had a mini tournament event. Our club leader, Max Reyes, caught a Kawakawa the week before and it was the only fish that came up. That was the original tournament date. Since it was “merely” a Kawakawa and the only Pelagic that came up that weekend, he graciously gave up the win and the tournament “redo” was planned for the following weekend.

Leading up to any fishing day, there is a fair amount of planning that goes on, starting with weather conditions. Things we factor in are wind speeds, gusts, current, current direction, time current shifts, tides, swell sizes, etc., and more importantly location. Richard Yuen had been doing his research and was stuck on going to this particular location which I wasn’t to thrilled about. The whole week he was pleading his case. He sounded convincing as Richard always does. I reluctantly agreed on the location all the way up to our launch which was at 3:30am. I was still not feeling it. It was a mental struggle for sure.

Our goal is usually to pick up a few Akule (goggle eye) before sun up for live bait just in case we don’t pick any Opelu (scad mackerel), which is our favorite live bait of choice at sunrise. I’ve been finding out that Akule can be just as appealing as a live bait. Three of us, Richard Yuen, Tommy Tran and myself were able to pick up Akule. Game on! At 5am the Akule bite had come to a halt. We started to head to the Opelu “spot”, putting out live akule. Around 5am we heard “hooked up” from Tommy over our radio, which is usually our call out to let each other know that we hooked up to something. Hopefully that something is a fish and not a shark or any other species besides a fish. One thing good when fishing with buddies is that in case you need help, someone is there to help in an emergency or help land a monster fish. Tommy landed a 19lb Shibi after his battle in the dark. What was awesome with this fish was that it was his first Shibi, which is funny because he has landed the elusive Ono and the rare Sailfish from a kayak. Go figure.

Me and Richard, on the other hand made the pedal to the Opelu spot at sun up. Lately the Opelu have been biting prior to sunrise so we like to be on the spot at or before sun up. During this time of the year it can be difficult to pick up Opelu. We have been struggling over the last several weeks. When the Opelu bite time arrived I wasn’t able to grab any in our normal spot. So I headed to a couple of locations where I have seen them before. At one of those spots I was able to pick up a big fat one. Over the last couple of months I have been learning a lot about target areas I should be checking out. Not specifically the location I was fishing but what to look for in the water, under the water, tides, moon etc. Fishing as I have come to know is a lot of luck but you can increase your chances by understanding fish behavior, eating habits, environment etc. It also requires the right equipment, skill and a lot of patience and perseverance.

Taking what I have learned, it was time to test it out on this location. I got out to the area I wanted to try and sure enough at around 7:45am I took a strike. At first I thought it stole my bait, but I could still feel movement in my line like the Opelu was still alive so I set my rod back in my rod holder and then my line took off. I set the hook and the fight was on. I could see the fish on my fish finder but I noticed a mark coming up to it from the bottom, I assumed it was the tax man, I opened my bail and allowed the fish to get away from it. Getting “sharked” or “taxed” can happen from time to time. That seemed to have worked. As I was fighting the fish I could feel tail beats which I learned from watching Devan from his Where’s D-Ahi? YouTube videos. It was likely some sort of Tuna species. I was hoping that it was a Shibi. As I hit my leader and I could see color and it was the target, Shibi. I knew it was probably going to be my biggest Shibi so far by the length of the fight and the weight I could feel when fighting it. I pulled out my pedal drive as it got close. We do that because Shibi and Tuna species tend to go in circles under your kayak and the line can tangle and create havoc and you could possibly end up losing your fish. I got my Kage (spear gaff) ready and when it was in range, I speared, circle gaffed it and pulled into the yak! It ended up being my biggest to date weighing in at 39lbs.

After putting the Shibi on ice, I let out an Akule. Within 10min I took another strike. I brought up a 19lb Shibi. This one only took about 5 min compared to the 16 min for the 39 pounder. It wasn’t as dramatic but still a prize for me. With two Shibis in the bag I decided to start heading towards our launch point slowly trolling a third Akule. After a couple of hours of nothing I decided to start heading in. On the way in I wanted to pass another spot that I thought would have action. By that time I had come closer to Richard and Tommy and within a safe distance where we wouldn’t get tangled. Just as I was pulling nearer to Richard I had seen the signature jump from a Mahi Mahi. Richard was hooked up. I watched him handle that Mahi and watched it do circles around him before landing it. The Mahi Mahi ended up weighing in at 11lbs. Richard was now on the board. Soon after that Richard had landed that Mahi, I took a strike and as I was setting the hook, I heard Tommy say “hooked up” then “double” at the same time Richard “hooked up” The action was insane. I ended up landing my third Shibi weighing in at 25lbs. Unfortunately Tommy had lost both his hook ups and Richard had lost his due to a cut line. The day was over for me as I needed to get the fish on more ice. I only carry 20lbs of ice when I go out.

(L to R) Richard Yuen, Grant Taura, Tommy Tran.

As I was heading I heard Tommy say “hooked up” again. What day we were having. He landed his second Shibi of the day. It weighed in at 12lbs. Epic was the best way to describe the day. Best day on the water fishing for me hands down.

Here’s the video of the 39lb shibi.

Sticky: Tiger Shark attacks me off the Windward side of Oahu!!!

May 31, 2023 By Scott 42 Comments

You may have seen the video of the Tiger Shark attack already. Some misinformation has gone out that should be corrected.

And if you don’t mind, would you please consider subscribing to my YouTube video channel if you haven’t done so? Mahalo Nui Loa (thank you very much). Here’s the link to my channel.

Here’s what happened on May 12, 2023.

My partner Frank and I were able to catch 1 piece of live opelu (scad mackeral) each. The conditions were super, duper slow because it was sunny, calm with a flat tide. Everything was lazy. We took that bait out to 250ft with no bites so we drifted in. I didn’t know at the time but Frank saw what he believes was a tiger shark 10ft below the surface making its way into the shallows.

When we were on the shallow dropoff, in 55ft of water, I texted my buddies to update them on the slow condtions. While I was struggling to text through my waterproof bag, I had spun around and wrapped my line in the rudder where the Bixpy motor is mounted. I paddled towards Frank so he could free it for me and realized a fish was on the line. I was able to lift the rudder/motor out of the water, clear the wrap and land the 3lb roi (peacock grouper). Since a friend eats them carefully (they are known to be high in ciquatoxin), I sat on the right side of my kayak, side saddle, and put the roi in my fish bag behind the seat.

Then I spun back around, straddled the sides of the kayak with both feet in the water, and checked my leader line for scrapes. I heard what sounded like a boat sliding to a stop, with its motor off, and looked up and thought a large turtle was coming at me. The kayak got hit fairly hard by the shark, and I know I saw the tiger’s head, but in that second or two, I didn’t realize I had taken my left foot out of the water, and pushed the shark’s head off the kayak.

I was shooken up but didn’t realize how close the shark came to biting my foot or me. Frank didn’t hear the impact and didn’t know why I was screaming (and cussing) so he was pretty chill. Because of that I calmed down and carefully looked around. We actually fished for another half hour (in hindsight, not the smartest thing to do) and then I heard a gurgling sound that I thought was being made by a floating turtle. Instead I saw this 5ft or 6ft long brownish thing with white spots, struggling to submerge and swim. I believe this was a mortally wounded seal and decided we should really get out of the area.

I believe the tiger shark mortally wounded the seal and was waiting for it to die, when it came back and thought I was the dead seal since I had turned the Bixpy motor off and wasn’t paddling. Or maybe it thought I was a threat to its seal kill. I dunno.

When I got home I told my wife a shark rammed me, and showed her the light scratches but they were so insignificant she wasn’t too concerned. In fact, since she knew I was safe, she was more concerned for the seal!!

When we saw the video we were horified! I initially just wanted to share the video with the shark and marine scientists, but would have felt bad if that shark ended up killing someone, so I posted still photos from the video in the Oahu Kayak Club Facebook Group and notified Dr Kim Holland, our resident shark expert in Hawaii.

A friend got in touch with KITV and set up a virtual interview I reluctantly participated in. That set off the media storm and far too many people illegally repurposed what KITV had posted on their website, and a lot of misinformation was spread. To clarify further I did interviews with ABC, NBC and Hawaii News Now (HNN). By far, Stephanie Lum’s HNN interview was the most accurate.

Update (4/13/24): Check out this post with video showing what had happened right before and right after the shark “attack”.

Fish bit like crazy in the storm runoff and rain!

May 4, 2023 By Scott 2 Comments

It rained hard the night before and continued to shower on the Windward side but the wind was projected to remain light. Since fishing in the rain the previous time was phenomenal, I put on a light rain jacket and paddled past the runoff browning out the launch.

Because the current was too strong to pull the bait tube out deep the week before, my plan was to try to catch opelu inside, and then drift ’em around to find the elusive Windward uku that has eluded me. A 12 inch opelu bit on the first drop, followed by perfect, bite sized 7 inch opelu on subsequent drops. Normally opelu are hard to catch after sunup but it was overcast and raining and the fish thought it was dawn I guess. With such perfect, small baits I decided to try to paddle the 1 mile out to 250ft.

Using the Bixpy motor, the current was manageable and I got a hookup at 160ft. It had been months since a fish has stayed on longer than 5 seconds and I was stunned. The fish ran so hard, and so deep I thought I was fighting my first shibi (yellow fin tuna under 100lb) but after 6 mins a really round kawakawa came to color.

I was so out of practice I knocked the kage in the water and had to tail grab the fish. Good thing the kage floats!

The circle hook, which was lightly snagged on the roof of the kawakawa’s mouth, fell out when the fish was in the kayak. Man, I was lucky to land it. After so many pulled baits on J hooks and a few on circle hooks, this was the first pelagic landed in 7 months.

I did manage to get out to 275ft but nothing took the next 7 inch opelu so I paddled back in to the shallow dropoff. The rain was falling lightly but consistently. Since I was wearing the rain jacket over my long sleeve shirt, I felt fairly comfortable.

Sure enough everything wanted to eat the CHL Minnows on the damashi. Nabeta on the bottom, opelu on the top, lai in the middle and even a baby uku! An aha (needlefish) took the opelu I had been free lining, and nothing took the next opelu I dropped down with a weight. The mature uku had eluded me again!

I wanted to give the nabeta a rest, just took 3, released the rest of the damashi fish and headed in as the rain abated. Was nice to dry off while I cleaned up.

The kawakawa felt like it was close to 20lb because I was used to catching fish under a pound, but ended up weighing 14lb after being bled. It fought spiritly but the St Croix Mojo boat rod and Avet SX Raptor in low gear sealed its fate.

I do love these overcast, light wind, light rain days that really get the fish going!

It’s raining Nabeta! Check out the underwater footage of this crazy bite.

April 24, 2023 By Scott Leave a Comment

Nabeta (razor wrasse) are considered the best tasting fish to fry in Hawaii, and one of the best tasting fish to eat overall. They’re found in sandy patches, near scattered reef, in 80 to 200ft. They aren’t picky eaters but are hard to find unless you’ve saved the spots prior, and didn’t tell anyone.

I’ve gotten a few small to medium sized nabeta when trying for opelu, but never really found a consistent bite. On this day however, they bit like crazy, and I’m guessing a number of conditions came together. Light wind, small waves, major lunar bite period, and overcast rainy conditions.

I had struck out on pelagics outside, with my sole live opelu being pulled off in 270ft as I reeled it in to check on it. I tried to catch another opelu in the deep and failed so I went in to where the shallow opelu had been and instead a 7 inch nabeta ate one of my CHL Minnows on my damashi. It had started to rain steadily and the nabeta bite improved. Something bit off 1 of my 3 hooks and yet 2 large nabeta came up on the next drop.

During this mayhem my reel knob broke off and I took that as a sign that I should slow down on the fish catching. Nabeta are easy to fish out because they are a slow growing bottom fish. I had a rod rigged up with an underwater GoFish cam I hadn’t used before, and I put a piece of bait on the hook hoping the smell would draw the fish within camera range. I couldn’t feel any nibbles because of the weight of the camera, but could feel a hooked fish on the line! I reeled up and found an angry nabeta at the end. I rebaited and dropped down again and could feel a fish run with the bait and then the line went slack. All good as long as the camera was recording.

Dropped the baited rig down again and could feel another fish get hooked. Kinda crazy to have these uncommonly found fish just hook themselves. At this point I had enough nabeta in the kayak and hoped I had some meaningful video to target these tasty critters more effectively.

I was stoked that the video clips clearly showed the nabeta mugging the bait, and when I slowed the video down, I could even see opelu and lai as the camera was pulled up to the surface (not shown in the video below but I’ll try to record other species next time).

Friends who hadn’t had nabeta in decades really enjoyed deep frying them, eating the scales like panko chips. I had been frying nabeta for my dad recently so my sister steamed the biggest one for him. I almost forgot to tell her to take the scales off!

Lemme know what you folks think of the underwater footage.

Holoholo: 2 Uku, 1 Shibi without the help of sonar

March 22, 2023 By Scott 2 Comments

Grant Taura previously shared how he catches akule in the pre-dawn morning off his kayak. Check that out here if you missed it. He’s back to share his best offshore catch to date. Takeaway: Good luck doesn’t just happen on the kayak. You gotta get out early, put in the time and cover a lot of ground!

Grant:

We decided on a 4am launch. Our normal routine is to catch Akule as a backup bait just in case we aren’t able to pick up Opelu at sunrise. Shortly after launching, while powering up my navigation lights and fish finder, I soon realized that my fishing chart was working but my depth chart (sonar) had no signal. It didn’t take long for me to find that the cable connection at the fish finder had failed and could not be repaired at the moment. Being that the depth chart is a vital tool and critical in locating and catching bait, I was tempted to turn around and call it a day. Then I remembered the last time I had issues with my fish finder, I brought in a Shibi and a Kawakawa, the first time I landed two Pelagics in a day. Fishing, like any sport, is all about mindset, perseverance overcoming obstacles in order to be as successful as possible with the situation and circumstances in hand. So, I decided to utilize what I have learned up until this point and go for it. I asked my partner, Roger Tabugadir, to call out the “marks.” That’s what we call when we see potential Akule or Opelu on the fish finder. Good partners can also be huge in your success and this day proved that. Roger called out marks perfectly. I mark my line in my reel in 50ft increments with different color line, so when he called a depth, I dropped my line to that depth according to the color of my line. He was consistently on point with both the Akule and the Opelu. We were both able to pick up enough Akule for friends and family and also enough Opelu to last the day. It actually ended up being way more than what we needed.

We then headed to deeper water. My target was the Uku and any Pelagic that would take the bait. Roger on the other hand, targeted his favorite Nabeta and Pelagics. By using my fishing chart, I was able to kind of determine my depth. Although it wasn’t accurate and I wasn’t able to locate any marks because of my depth chart not working, I was able to still fish the general area and depth by following the fishing chart. Another good tool that I had as a backup was the Navionics app on my phone. I had forgotten about it. Paul Miguel Braga (You Tube Channel: Shallow Water Shibi), who had a later start than our 4 am launch, had suggested I use the app which also shows you your location and fishing charts. Soon after, I hooked up on my poor man’s downrigger. As I was fighting the fish I was trying to determine and identify what I had hooked up to. I could tell it was some kind of Jack or my targeted species Uku, by the head shakes. After reaching my leader and about 20 feet of remaining leader I was able to see that it was my first Uku of the day at 13lbs. Landing an Uku never gets old. I let out “Cheee” bled, took a pic, bagged and iced. I’ve been blessed to have met some awesome fishermen like Devan Inouye ( YouTube Channel: Where’s D-AHI? ) who shared some tips for targeting Uku. I learned that the best way is to gather information from different fishermen who are willing to share tips and find ones that work for you. There are a lot of different ways that will work.

After setting up and dropping the next bait, I cleaned off the deck using my manual bilge pump and had a protein bar.

Time went by, my guess would be another hour and a half, before I took a strike on my Penn 8500 Live Liner reel. After counting thousand one, thousand two….to thousand five, I flipped the live liner to set the hook. I was on, and I could tell it was a tuna by the tail beats and just as I was starting to fight the fish my line had tangled around the bail and at that moment my line had slacked and I could no longer feel the fish and I yelled Ah! as I thought I had lost it. I now focused on untangling my line off of my bail, taking my time to not make it worse. After untangling, I was reeling and taking up slack and my line felt a little heavy like something was still on. I took up the slack and I guess the fish finally realized that it was hooked and took off. It was about a 10min fight until I heard that I had reached my leader, that sound you hear when you go from braid to fluoro.

When it hit about the 20 ft mark, I could see it was tuna but wasn’t able to identify ‘til it got closer. It was a 21 lb Shibi. I removed my drive to prevent the line wrapping around it. Took out my Kage and missed on the first attempt and got um on the second. Did the “cheee”, bled out, bagged and iced. In the meantime, Roger had drifted North and out of my radio range. I didn’t hear all the action that he was having on his side. Paul was in between and was in radio range and heard the action. Unfortunately, Roger’s previous Nabeta spots didn’t produce any Nabeta this day. But he managed to land a nice size Aku. It was time to head in. In one last attempt, we let out one bait and slowly made our way in. I was about to bring my line in because we were in the 50ft depth when I took a strike. With the same feeling I had on my first Uku, I could feel the head shakes. This one took a little under 5 minutes to land. It was an Uku around 8-10 lbs. After putting on ice we headed in and called it the day.

Oahu Winter Inshore and Nearshore Report with forecast

March 8, 2023 By Scott 2 Comments

Weather-wise, January 2023 had light wind and not much rain, making conditions fishable but the inshore and nearshore (out to 3 miles or so) bite was the typical winter slog. The inshore guys resorted to targeting oio and the nearshore kayaks and boats did some shallow bottom fishing for uku, nabeta and goatfish.

Yup that’s our JDM expert Thad with a nice C&R oio

The nice weather continued into the first week of February but that was followed by 4 weeks of strong wind and rain storms. When the wind and rain let up a bit, the fly fishers and jig head whippers connected with oio and saw big omilu hunting the flats. March is early for the big omilu who are normally seen by the early June time frame, before the oama begin to trickle in by late July.

Not satisfied with 2 delicious uku, Grant filled his fish bag with a 21lb shibi

The offshore kayak bite has just begun to pick up in some areas. Mahi, shibi and kawakawa are showing up for the live opelu, which has still been abundant in the early morning.

The consistent rain has been making the brackish water estauraries habitable for the little critters the inshore food chain fish feed on. We can look forward to a better aholehole, moi, and mullet season than we had last year, which didn’t have much rain in the Winter/Spring. Let’s see if this prediction holds.

Windward Offshore Kayak Trip: Glassy, relaxing day; saw a lot of wildlife and caught some fish to take home! Catch & Cook.

January 26, 2023 By Scott 6 Comments

The stars aligned and an old kayak fishing partner was able to join me for a very relaxing day 2.5 to 3 miles offshore at a Windward spot I hadn’t checked in almost a year. I hadn’t fished with Guy in almost 2 years. The water was sheet glass for most of the day and the Pre-Eddie Aikau North West swell wasn’t wrapping into this area yet.

Click to see the small gold hook on the lower lip

Guy pedaled his Hobie Compass with help from a stern mounted Bixpy motor, and I paddled my Trident Ultra with help from my rudder mounted Bixpy. Over flat calm water I was averaging 3.5 mph on the 4th of 12 speeds. I pulled up at a spot where I previously caught a lone opelu that turned into my first ever kayak kawakawa the last time we fished this spot together. You can read about that trip here.

What looked like suspended opelu didn’t bite so we searched around and Guy landed a much coveted nabeta, calling me over. After we both picked up nabeta just off the bottom, my damashi was stopped on the way down by 2 opelu! We couldn’t find any more so we each put one out and headed out to deeper water. Guy’s free swimming bait got taken and I went out deeper to drift my weighted bait in. I hooked something on my 12lb damashi line with a lot of headshakes and 8 mins later a 5lb white papio finally reached the surface. The little gold hook was secured perfectly in its lower jaw. A friend has been asking for papio for years now so I decided to keep it for him and stuffed it in my fish bag filled with ice cubes and Arctic Ice blocks.

A bit later, I saw a few midsized fish flash on the surface and my weighted opelu got pulled for 8 seconds while I was frantically trying to bring in my damashi, and the opelu was pulled off. Just another pulled bait in the “off season” of Winter. I’m telling myself the fish are too small to swallow the opelu and too small to care about but what if they are legit sized pelagics?

Put a twice thawed-and-refrozen opelu out on the weighted rig and resumed damashi fishing while I drifted. Up came what I thought was an orange kumu but a friend Kelly later identified it as a “yellow threaded goatfish“, which is uncommon in Hawaii. It was returned to its home with a hole in its lip.

Then I ran across a big mark attached to the bottom and pulled up an 8 inch weke nono / weke ula. Too small to keep so I moved away from the area.

Stumbled upon another opelu while damashi fishing but nothing substantial hit that when it was put out. Guy was enjoying the damashi fishing with the flies he tied and was weeding through a variety of reef fish in water shallower than I was fishing, keeping the invasive but good to fry taape. I headed to a sandy area to get away from the hoards of hagi (trigger fish) and wasn’t getting any bites on my CHL Minnows until I put a piece of opelu on the damashi hook. Instant nabeta, though small. I got another one that way but then it was time to head in.

We did have to keep alert though. There was a juvenile whale slapping the water with its tail and Guy heard what sounded like a shark attacking something on the surface. So much life in this area. What an enjoyable day experiencing all this just a few miles offshore and bringing home enough fish for our family to eat.

I scaled, gilled & gutted and clipped the fins, scutes and tail off the papio to make it easier for my friend to process. Within 2 hrs of giving it to him, he and his wife ate most as sashimi and made soup out of the head and bones. At 5lbs the risk of having a significant amount of ciguatera in its body was very low.

I decided to cook the nabeta for my wife and dad which I hadn’t done in a couple of years. Following Haru’s recipe, I salt and peppered the gutted and gilled nabeta (left the scales on), then rolled them in corn starch. I fried them outdoors over a propane stove ’til they were golden brown, pulled them out to cool, then fried them til they were a crispy, dark brown. We could crunch through most of the bones and fins, albeit carefully. So ono with a drizzle of ponzu sauce but it’s also so messy to deep fry in a frying pan!

Guy deep fried his nabeta and taape outdoors without any batter, in a wok over a gas stove, using a splash screen to keep the mess down. His family ate all but the center bones and loved it. Hopefully he can free up to fish with me again!

Holoholo: Akule fishing from the Yak

January 23, 2023 By Scott 8 Comments

Grant Taura has has enjoyed fishing throughout his entire life. He’s tried free diving, shoreline whipping, plugging and bait casting and has never really been passionate about any type of fishing until he found his passion in kayak fishing. It’s the hunting and not waiting; it’s also the consistency and versatility of fishing on a kayak that he has found fulfilling. And finally being able to provide fresh fish for his family and friends completes kayak fishing for him.

Grant: What started as Akule fishing in the early morning on the kayak for bait just in case I couldn’t catch Opelu at sunrise for Pelagics, has turned into targeting Akule intentionally. Growing up, we would go Waimea Bay and whip for halalu in the huge schools, and use telescopic poles to catch Akule in Haleiwa Boat Harbor. Halalu fishing back in the early 80’s, as I remember was an intense, fun and adrenaline-rush all in one experience. Memories: Had my line cut by an older, experienced halalu fisherman because I had not casted straight and had not timed my cast properly. Hooking up to a halalu using Aqua strips that came in a block. Watching the the strikes on bait casting rods using halalu -Kawakawa and big Omilus were landed.

Fast forward to 2018. I learned that Akule was not only a summer time fish but available all year round. My good friend, Davis Nakashima, from the Big Island, would take me fishing for Akule for bait off the cliff in Kona. This is when I also realized that they were all not just in one school in the harbor. Over the past year, I’ve learned that Akule is a good choice of live bait for Pelagics as a back up to opelu. Although I haven’t taken any major strikes or landed anything with the Akule it has become one of my favorite target fish to eat simply for the consumption. Akule has been for many years, my all time favorite fried fish to eat. Fortunately with some help, I’ve learned to catch Opelu as my primary live bait and have been blessed with an abundance of Akule to eat and to share with family and friends who also love fried Akule.

Over the years, listening to people and friends who fish on boats, shoreline and now kayaks, I realize the best time to go out and catch Akule is anytime the wind, swell, waves etc allow you to. Any given night or early morning when the conditions are safe is a good time to Akule fish. As long as you can find them, the possibility of you bringing up an Akule for bait or consumption is pretty high. I’ve heard so many stories of the best times to go. When there is a new moon, 3-4 days before or after the new moon, when the moon sets, etc. Although some of it or all of it is true, I found the best time for me to go is when I’m available and the weather conditions are right. As much as I love the hunt, fight and landing of Pelagics, I also find equal and a lot of times more gratification catching Akule. Not only for the sport but for the nostalgia of it. Let’s not forget how good it tastes. Over the past year, I have found myself once again in the hunt for Akule.

Fishing off a kayak is another way I have come to enjoy targeting Akule. This time around it’s even more gratifying because the result of whether you catch or not is dependent on the preparation that goes into fishing off a kayak. Prior to even getting out on the water, the preparation of your equipment is key. Prior to launching, the rigs that I set up consists of two different types of Damashi, namely flies and grubs. I currently take 3 set ups.. Two set ups I bring consists of two different Kakele (fly) that some really good hammah fisherman were gracious enough to share, and one set up is the basic gold hook, red bead and grub. I have five hooks per rig. I keep them in ziplock bags, ready to be changed out quickly. I like to make things simple, because I don’t like to waste time on the water and the main reason why is I’m 51 and everything is blurry so it’s almost impossible to tie things while the kayak is rocking and bobbing. What makes it even harder is being in the dark with only your headlamp for lighting. The use of electronics is essential for safety, navigation and finding your target species. It’s important to have some sort of navigation light on your kayak so boaters can see you, VHF radio, PFD and whistle would be the minimum safety equipment to have on your kayak. With that being said, it’s a good idea to charge batteries and double checking your equipment function. After a few mishaps I almost always test all my electronics at home and prior to launching.

Once on the water the hunt begins. Starting in the shallower depths around 50ft my eyes are focused on looking for colors on my fish finder screen. I tend to stay away from dropping my Damashi to the very bottom as Akule tend to be in the mid to upper column of water. I have caught on the bottom and I’m always excited to catching one off the bottom because it’s not expected. Sometimes I’ll test the very bottom if I can’t find them, the bite is extremely slow or I think it’s Menpachi, which is another favorite. Never disappointed to land reds as we like to call them. Being aware of any changing conditions surrounding you is also really important. Things we look out for is if the wind is picking up, swell sizes, if the current changes direction , the current strengthens etc., When fishing in the dark you barely can see 5-10 feet in front of you especially if you’re fishing a new moon or if the moon sets.

Recently we encountered whale sightings, well I shouldn’t say sightings because we couldn’t see them. Based on past experience you can kind of tell if they are far or near. I base this upon seeing them during the day and hearing them spout and listening to how loud it is when they do this behavior. On one of those outings we were in about 100ft of water and we heard the whale spout. We had three of us out that night. I was more inland and one of my partners was about 50 yards away. As I looked out to where he was, it was pitch black because it was a new moon. I could only see his head lamp. We heard the spout again and determined that the whale was really close based on my partner and my location. He heard the spout come from inland and I heard it come outside of where I was at. At that point we decided to move. We had to move quite a ways before the spout came more distant. I failed to mention that we could also hear clearly the whale slapping its fin or tail. That was way too close for comfort. The bite had come to a halt at that point. We are not sure, but concluded that the whale had something to do with it. We went more inshore, caught Akule here and there but nothing compared to the bite before the whale or whales showed up. I always remind myself that we are the visitors to the ocean and to always, always respect their home as we would want them to respect ours, to give back, take only what we consume and be grateful for the opportunity to share.

Here is a short video of what akulu fishing at night on a kayak looks like.

It’s that time of year. Opelu is catchable because there’s less predators around.

January 17, 2023 By Scott 2 Comments

Winter is the season of light wind days, large north swells and the scarcity of pelagic predators. It’s the time when opelu and other prey fish are abundant and actively feeding because they aren’t being harrassed. Makes for a great time to brush up on opelu catching.

I fished the Southside the day before New Year’s eve and I guess a lot of guys had the day off because I counted 5 boats, 5 kayaks and 2 jet skis within a mile of us. Needless to say, the fishing was lousy and all I took home was a toau. That turned out to not be as forgiving as uku. The person I gave it to overcooked it and said it had rubbery skin, small bones and just an “ok” taste. But at least that invasive was taken off the reef.

The bottom opelu was actually used as bait and scratched up but not taken so it’ll be used again!

One crowded day on the Southside was enough to sour me from fishing there, so I went back to the Windward side the following week and found the opelu biting, even though I starting looking for them at 9 am. Ended up with 5 opelu, my PB so far, but the 12 inch opelu were too big to be swallowed by the small predators and the 7 inch opelu were pulled off the hooks. At least I had bait leftover to vacuum seal and freeze.

Followed that up with another Windward trip. This time the opelu bit late again but the small predators didn’t want to take on the 12 inch opelu and a 7 inch opelu got pulled off in the shallows. I caught one nabeta early and when I went back later to round out the catch I couldn’t find ’em. Since nothing big seems to be around in that area I’m gonna try another Windward spot I haven’t checked since last March.

The better kayak guys have been loading up on opelu and some have even found the elusive pelagics. So always got chance for something good when you have live opelu.