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The stuff I use and why I use ’em – Kayak Fishing Equipment

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(Updated June 2021)

I finally got an offshore kayak, in Jan 2019.  Since that allowed me to go further and deeper, a few other accessories needed to be updated.  

I’ll mention the kayak fishing products that perform especially well.  Please check out my other gear recommendations.

Kayaks: Ocean Kayak Trident Ultra 4.3 , Ocean Kayak Scupper Pro, both discontinued.  Here’s the in-depth review of the Trident Ultra 4.3.  The Scupper Pro is long (14’9″) and narrow (26″), so it paddles well but is tippy and doesn’t have much room in the cockpit.  Adding a rudder to the Pro really made it an efficient paddler in the wind and current.

Rack: Thule bars, Thule Glide and Set pads and cradles. I’m able to slide the yak onto the rear hatchback without much back strain.  Please read my short post about the rack system. 

Paddle:  2-piece carbon shaft Werner Camano paddle.   Light, strong and has an adjustable ferrule to change the angle of the offset. Looks beautiful too!

Jigging reel for offshore. Shimano Trinidad 14. Silky smooth, high gear retrieve and easy to maintain. And has a clicker so the fish’s runs are audible in videos. 🙂

Trolling reel for offshore: Avet SX Raptor.  Small, light footprint for a workhorse 2-speed lever drag that’s super easy to maintain.  Moved up to this to quickly get into strike drag after hooking fish, and for boosting big sharks off the bottom in low gear. Max drag 26lbs. Amazing little reel.

Hooks: VMC Live Bait hook size 3/0 to 5/0 for front hook, VMC Inline Single hook size 2/0 to 5/0 for stinger hook. 

Leader: Seaguar Invisiline 40lb fluorocarbon. 

Wire Leader: Knot2Kinky 35lb.

Main Line: Sufix 832 braid.

Swivels: VMC Heavy Duty Ball Bearing Swivels with snap and without.

Click here to see VMC tackle in the Store.

Click here to see Sufix line in the Store.

Kayak Seat: On Scupper Pro – Surf to Summit GTS Pro with a Hot Seat pad.  The more padding the better when sitting and bracing for more than 4 hrs.

Life Vest: NRS Chinook. This vest was made for kayak fishers and has a lot of pockets and attachment points.  The high back starts at my lumbar and doesn’t get in the way when I lean back.  It’s like wearing a comfortable tackle bag that can save my life.

Stuff in the NRS vest:

  • Personal Locator Beacon (PLB): ACR ResQLink+. If I need to be rescued, I can push a button and the Coast Guard will be sent my GPS location.  My emergency contact will be notified also. The unit is waterproof and floats.  Wearing it gives me and my loved ones peace of mind.
  • Whistle.
  • Motorola MS350R floating walkie talkie.
  • Standard Horizon HX300 vhf radio.
  • Gerber Neat Freak scissors.
  • Gerber Crucial Multi-Tool.
  • Pre-tied leaders.
  • Hooks, swivels and lead.
  • Cell Phone.
  • Aquapac waterproof phone bag.

Waterproof, Floating Walkie Talkie: Motorola MS350R.  I can keep in touch with my fishing partners for safety and fish reports.  Often we’re within eye sight but not ear shot of each other.  I’ve lost 1 walkie talkie so far, so I’m now buying refurbished units to minimize the loss.

Gerber Neat Freak scissors.  Designed to very cleanly cut braided line so the raw edge can be threaded into small eyelets.  I have this attached to my life vest and have cut fluoro leaders and braided main line free in dangerous situations.  I’ve also cut defrosted bait into chunks with it.  Very easy to handle in a pinch.

Fishing pliers: Rapala aluminum pliers.  All my previous “carbon steel” needle nose pliers have eventually rusted out and left corrosion stains in their sheaths.  These aluminum pliers shouldn’t rust but they are shorter than the ones they are replacing.  Hope they’re long enough to keep my fingers away from sharp teeth.

Bilge Pump: Seattle Sports.

Rod Holders: I have two Tite-Loc Rocket Launcher on the Scupper Pro and an Angler’s Pal Stainless Steel holder on the Swing. The Angler’s Pal is adjustable to 360 degrees but is hard to remove so I leave it mounted, parallel to the deck.  The Tite-Loc isn’t as adjustable but is easily removable with one allen screw so I take it off the Scupper Pro.  Both have performed well and haven’t shown signs of corrosion.

Fish Finder (inshore):  Huminbird Fishin Buddy 120.  Discontinued. This simple unit has both a side finder that scans the top portion of the water in front of my kayak and a traditional bottom finder.  Runs on 6 AA batteries.  I cut off the fixed plastic tube that held the transducer cord and mounted it on the kayak with Ram Mounts.  The transducer creates a small bit of drag but having a fish finder on the boat is worth the extra resistance. If I need to paddle far I’ll lift the transducer out of the water.  Fishing without it is like fishing blind.

Fish Finder (offshore): Garmin Echomap 44cv. My first “real” fish finder ever, and this has GPS maps so we can mark spots and find known hot spots.  It has amazing resolution in its “traditional sonar” and the CHIRP sonar view has picture quality bottom returns.  We couldn’t fish the deep without it.

(I cracked my Echomap 44CV when it was out of warranty and now have a Echomap 44CV Plus. Has better maps and better sonar detail.)

Net:  Promar ProFloat Landing Net.  Besides the fact that it will float if I drop it, it also has snag free mesh.  Fish I’m about to tag are much more controllable sitting in the net in front of my lap.

Gaff:  After our small boat friend Erik hooked a 35lb shibi in the area that we fish and eventually landed it with a kage gaff, I’m trying to remember to take a small traditional gaff again and a bat.  For years I got by without even a net since the fish I caught were small.  We’re in the process of making a shorter kage for our purposes.

Kayak Cooler (inshore):  Seattle Sports Kayak Catch Cooler.  This 20 inch cooler fits the bow of the kayak really well and has a removable waterproof  inner sleeve that keeps the fish separated from the block of Arctic Ice – Alaskan Series that I use.  Easy to reach forward and store fish, and when I pull the fish out at home, it’s like they were stored in the fridge.  The inner and outer bag clean up quickly.  No more fish spoiling in the hot Hawaiian sun.  Click here to read about the amazing Arctic Ice product.

Kayak Cooler (offshore): Hobie Catch Bag made by Reliable Products.  This is their larger bag, 36 inches long and holds 70 qts.  Frank’s first ono caused us to have to use both both our Seattle Sports Kayak Catch Cooler and we quickly realized we needed a larger bag if we were going offshore.  It doesn’t come with an inner bag so I use a large dry bag to hold the ice and fish, keeping the catch bag relatively clean.

Live Bait Bucket: Plano Flow Troll. The same yellow bait bucket we all put our oama in.  I submerge it in the water every so often to refresh the water for the oama, and keep it in the cockpit when I paddle.

Dry bag: Sealine see-thru bag of miscellaneous stuff. Used to be water proof but has been poked too many times by fish spines and tag applicators.

Rogue Fishing Company Protector 3.0 Phone Tether.  I couldn’t unlock my waterproof phone through a waterproof pouch and switched to this in June 2021. Can now send and receive texts and take photos.

Rogue Fishing Company Defender Rod and Paddle Leash. Much lighter and quieter than the coiled hard plastic leashes I had been using.

The bait -> oama -> papio process

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Live oama are indisputably the best inshore bait.  But there’s definitely a process to be able to troll live oama off our watercraft.

Late season oama are spooky and picky about what they eat.  They often shun the baits that have worked early in the season.  One of our fishing hui, Thad, goes out and gathers the natural food they feed on.  We try to  use those baits at the time when the oama feel like eating.  Then I rush the live oama home before they “make” (die) in the aerated bait bucket.  There’s a low mortality rate over the next few days but if one oama dies in the tub due to the catching process, it could kill the rest of its inhabitants.  The oama near the end of the above  video had some loose scales and couldn’t swim completely upright. He looked worse the next day so I had to remove him before he died.  A friend used him “fresh dead” in a boat fishing tournament.

I feed the oama frozen Mysis shrimp from the pet store.  The small sized shrimps are easily consumed.  There’s a very fine line between feeding the oama enough so they survive, and over feeding to the point the tub fouls and they all get sick (and “make”). Over the course of many months, the oama will slowly malnourish and eventually die.  If I fed them more so that they didn’t lose any weight, I’d have a much higher food bill and would have to clean their tub more often. Instead I try to use them within a few weeks.

When the weather conditions allow, we make plans to troll the live oama.  They need to be transported in freshly mixed salt water (I got tired of going to the beach to get sea water) that’s aerated enough to support them on their journey to the fishing spot.

Trolled live oama usually get slammed right away if the fish are around.  That’s the easiest part of the whole process but also the part that makes everything else totally worth it.

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”?

How come there’s no halalu how-to info online?

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I was trying to come up to speed on how to whip for halalu but couldn’t really find much info online.  Why do you think that is?  Too humbug to provide that, or do the halalu fishers want to keep the crowds thin?

To improve my woeful catch, I’ve asked halalu pros and the guys at the tackle shops for pointers.  We’ll see if that helps next time.

How many of you guys are interested in reading those tips?  Reply to this post or send me a comment and if there’s enough interest I’ll try to write up a rough Halalu Basics. Better yet, give me your halalu advice please!

 

thanks,

scott

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.

 

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?

Reader’s Tip: Keep your oamas alive and healthy until you can use them

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Mark on Kauai sent this tip with photos to show how he keeps his oama alive and healthy until he has time to use them for live bait.  He puts the oama in a bucket of sea water lined with a black trash bag that has sand on the bottom.  He says the black liner keeps the water cool, and the sand calms the oama down.  Mark uses a simple air pump to oxygenate the bucket and a water pump and bell siphon to recirculate water between another bucket of seawater, but you could just do intermittent water changes when the water gets too warm or soiled with fish waste.  Ammo Lock or Prime, purchased from a pet store, will neutralize the toxic ammonia the fish produce.

Here’s a nice Hanalei white papio caught on one of his frisky live oama.

Thanks for the tip Mark, and I hope you get more papio before the season is over!

 

 

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.

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.

 

What is this?!!

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Thanh had sent me this picture of a mystery fish he had caught on the Big Island.  Many of you may recognize it as the fish we call “broomfish” because of its wide broom-like tail but did you know its formal name is “scrawled filefish”?  I guess the iridescent blue markings look like scrawls or random drawings.

Filefish are related to triggerfish, and this scrawled filefish is said to be very delicious. They call it “poor man’s mahimahi” because of the flaky white meat you’d see after you removed its tough skin.  I actually blogged about this fish back in March, 2014, which may have been the last time I caught one of these strange looking fish.

Thanks for sending it in Thanh!

My favorite nearshore and semi-nearshore lures – 2016

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Please keep in mind that my recent experience has been limited to fishing

  • knee high water from the sand
  • the tops of shallow reefs from my surfboard or kayak
  • jigging from a boat in 50 to 300 ft

and I use a 7’6″ to 8′ bait casting rod so I like lures I can hang a few inches off the rod tip. I don’t cast the bubble and grub even though that method works very well for folks with long rods.

In my limited experience I stumbled upon some relatively new lures that out performed the old standbys.

Shallow shoreline, light winds, clear water, low light:

lure-lineupI’ve recently tried a number of finesse top water lures from Japan and have been amazed at how they draw strikes from papio and kaku when other mid-column lures have failed to produce.  The slender Japanese lures mimic the small inshore baitfish well and don’t have thick bodies to get in the way of their hooks.  On days when the fish are being finicky, the gurgles and dips of these works of art draw strikes.  The fact that these lures float make them safe to use in even the skinniest of water.

Shallow shoreline, off color water, choppy conditions:

waxwing-baby-boy-and-jrWhen the fish can’t see the top water lures well, the sub-surface Shimano Waxwing shines.  In really murky conditions, the fish are still able to see the bone color Waxwing and feel its tight zig zag swimming pattern.  Slow down a bit to give the fish a chance to zero in on the lure.

 

 

 

Covering a lot of relatively shallow areas:

white-on-waxwing

The Waxwing can be fished pretty fast and stays safely out of the rocks at that speed, so it’s a good lure to use in search mode.

Around bait schools when predators are crashing the pile:

second-whiteSmall to medium sized poppers like the Yozuri Hydro Popper work well in imitating a predator boiling on bait.  The most aggressive predators will explode on the popper as it noisily makes its way back to you.

 

 

 

Fishing vertically in 50 to 75 feet of water on a slow drift day:

micro-jigsBreak out the shallow water micro jigs and “slow pitch” them.  Keep them in the strike zone by smoothly lifting and lowering your rod tip a few inches at a time.  Most strikes come as the jig flutters down.  If the current isn’t running too fast, a 1 oz jig or lighter should work.  Go with as light a jig as you can get down to the bottom.

 

Fishing vertically in 75 to 300 feet of water on a slow drift day:

aa-80-100-gm-flat-fall-collageThe Shimano Flat Fall and similar center keeled lures designed to fall slowly by zig zagging their way down the water column provide an enticing action and still make it to the bottom.  Start with the 80 gm size and if the currents prevent it from reaching the bottom, go up to the 100 gm size.  Slow pitch these larger lures like you would a micro jig and speed jig them after you’ve covered the bottom fourth of the water column.

uluaDon’t forget to drop a 2 to 4 oz Live Deception jig also.  I still don’t understand why the lure works so well but it just does.  If you want it to fall slower, bend the jig in a wide “U”.

 

There you have it.  To fish the shoreline out to 300 ft deep, you just need an inshore top water lure, sub-surface Waxwing, small popper, micro jig and a couple heavier slow pitch jigs.  You probably could get away with just 2 rod setups: a medium action whipping / jigging setup, and a heavy action jig setup for the deep water but if you want to splurge, add a light jig rod to make the small to medium sized catches more enjoyable.

 

More misses than hookups on the Top Water lures

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Top water plug fishing has become my favorite fishing technique of late.  There are a lot of shoreline spots that host papio and kaku ready to jump a bobbing, slurping lure.  Even if the water is only a foot or so deep, the lures float and don’t get hung up. With a 25lb fluoro leader, I haven’t been cut off by kaku yet.

Sounds like an ideal fishing method huh?  Well, the top water hookup ratio is notoriously low.  The fish either hit the lure body but miss the hooks or get suspicious and veer off at the last millisecond.

There are recommended times to fish top water, and some lures are designed to have better hookup ratios than others.

Fish seem to hit top water lures better when the sun angle is low. Dawn or dusk.  The fish may be more easily fooled in the low light, or they don’t like looking up into the bright sky to feed.  When the sun is overhead I often get weak attempts to pull the lure down.

blue-silver-top-waterThis lure shape has always attracted fish but often the fish splash next to it a few times and become disinterested.  Maybe it’s because the body is so fat that the fish are blocked from the hooks?  Look at the scratches on its back, opposite side of where the hooks are.  To be fair, most of the attackers are kaku trying to slice off the back end of the lure. If they were decent sized papios they probably would’ve wolfed the whole lure down.

raccoon-side-viewWhen I miss fish with the chubby lure above I switch to this narrower, bobbing lure.  It misses fish too, but eventually hooks one.

 

Maybe the fish’s jaws are wrapping around the slender body better and eventually finding a hook?  Both lures are sold out of Japan and this narrow faced lure is especially hard to find.  The model I’m fishing is really a freshwater bass lure that I’ve been putting saltwater hooks on.  Look at what it attracted in the past.

kaku-on-racoonThis kaku hit an hr before dark. I pinch down the barbs of the hooks so I can tag and release the fish with minimal harm.

 

 

17-inch-kakuAnd this kaku kept missing my hooks but was hooked by Clay’s lure.  Clay employs a much faster retrieve that gets the kaku to commit. I’ve been trying to learn that retrieve. The last time out I walked my lure back quickly and when I was about to lift the lure out of the water a white papio took a swipe and missed the hooks.

Mores misses than hookups but a very exciting way to fish.

Are you ready for Oama Season?

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Big Island and Maui had oama for awhile. I haven’t heard about the other islands.  But it sounds like the oama are finally coming into Oahu.  The piles are small and the oama are still the tiny ones that swam in from the deep water, but hopefully these early oama will be followed by waves of more oama like what happened last fall.

Oama BasicsIf you’re not ready for oama season you might want to pick up the latest Lawai’a magazine available on new stands now.  There’s a pretty comprehensive article that covers the gear you need, where to find oama, how to catch them, how to keep ’em alive and how to use ’em for bait.  Ok, sorry for the self-promotion but the article might help you make the most of the oama catching opportunities in what may be a short season.

Latest Lawai’a magazine is on the new stands now!

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Lawaia issue 21 Cover

This issue is jam packed with new products, how-tos and some unusual fish stories.  Here’s just a few of the great features.

 

Live Zip Bait Rig Nitta live bait rig that keeps slide bait alive for hours. Has already worked on a 100lb ulua.

 

 

 

 

Erik's articleErik’s (my boat fishing buddy) inaugural article describing his generational tie to fishing the Windward side of Oahu.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monster KahalaA monster, electric reel breaking Kahala.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Besides tackle shops, Lawai’a is also sold in Big Save, CVS, Foodland, KTA, Sack n Save, Safeway, Walgreens and other retail outlets.

Sharp hooks make a difference!

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After missing fish the last few times out, I sharpened the replacement double hook I run on the Waxwing Baby.  One of the two hooks had been sliding off my thumb nail. Now it can pierce my nail, ouch.

Jason, the recent fly fishing convert,  joined me on this outing as I continued the JDM lure testing.  He waded out onto the shallow flat targeting the papio and kaku I was hoping to hook from shore.  Normally he targets oio but wanted to add those species to his fly caught list.

Almost immediately he had a kaku on that battled for a while before cutting his fluoro leader.  Ugh! It took his streamer fly (I dunno what it’s called) but that gave us hope.

small white on WW babyI started with the black/chrome WW, and had a small white follow the lure onto the sand. A little while later I caught this undersized white with the hook that I had just sharpened.  Hmm… could it have been the dull hook that was causing all those misses?  Too small to tag, it was released.

 

 

16.5 inch kaku on WW BabyA few yards down the beach a kaku stopped the WW and hooked up.  My first fish I tagged solo.  Hmm, I didn’t miss this fish either…

With a fish tagged, I put away my go-to WW and put on a JDM top water lure I’m still getting used to. I tried to “walk the dog” but there was no interest. Dang, and the lure finish looked so realistic.

15 inch kaku on secret JDM lureNext lure up was the top-secret JDM top-water lure that hasn’t failed yet, either inshore or offshore. On the first retrieve something boiled on it but missed.  Then I went through a bit of inactivity until I decided to sweep the rod hard to make it gurgle. Slurp… POP!  A slightly smaller kaku jumped on and I tagged it.  Man, that lure is really magical.

I walked over to small channel and walked-the-dog. Nothing. I was expecting something to rocket out of the water with the secret lure in its mouth.  Thinking the predators couldn’t see well in the waning light I made the lure gurgle and pop.  A white papio lunged twice but missed the secret lure’s hooks.  Hmm… good test for the previous top-water lure now that I know there’s a hungry fish around.  I put on the previous lure, gurgled hard and sure enough a white boiled but missed the lure.  Maybe it was just too dark to see? It was raining so was a good time to head back.

Jason's malformed mouth white papioI caught up with Jason and he said he had hits and misses but hadn’t stuck anything solid after the first kaku. We started heading back but saw some bait near the shore so we gave it a parting shot.  Jason hooked something on his popper fly and this one stayed on. Turned out to be a legal white papio, his first on a fly rod!  It had a smushed jaw as if it had run into a wall when it was young.  Other than that it looked healthy so I tagged it and Jason set it free.

Not a bad first attempt for Jason to target papio and kaku near the shoreline.  And the Waxwing’s catch ratio is back up now that it has sticky sharp hooks.  I gotta work on that other JDM lure that has yet to catch a fish.

 

 

JDM lure out fishes Waxwing again!

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My Pacfic Islands Fisheries Group (PIFG) boss, Clay, took me for some nearshore tagging training at a heavily fished town spot.  The bait fish weren’t around in large numbers but we still managed to get strikes on lures and Clay caught an 11″ FL omilu and a 17″ FL kaku.

I was using the Waxwing Baby in black/chrome and again I missed all of my 3 kaku strikes.  Later I noticed one of the hooks wasn’t sticky sharp, gonna have to make that laser sharp!  Clay had more strikes on the JDM (Japan Domestic Market) top water lure and was able to land most of his.  He even had the kaku repeatedly come back and hit the JDM lure after it slipped off the hook.  There’s something about that lure that makes the fish want swallow it.

Clay’s omilu was the first I ever tagged.  Hopefully I start landing fish so I can tag my own.

omilu with secret JDM lure 7-29-16tagged omilu 7-29-16

 

 

 

 

 

kaku on secret JDM lure

tagging kaku 7-29-16

 

 

 

kaku w tag in it 7-29-16

 

Big Island Boat Trip wrap up

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Wes and Scott with Akemi K

Capt Wes and me after the trip of a lifetime

What an amazing bottom fishing trip we experienced this weekend.  The conditions were calm and Captain Wes put us on some really productive grounds.  Not only did the shallow water jigs catch the uku I had been chasing for awhile, but out fished bait while landing omilu papio/ulua, kagami ulua, white ulua, nabeta, moana and random reef fish.  The 3-piece Cabela’s travel rod held up against a 30lb ulua and the Shimano Curado 300EJ bait caster proved once again, that bait casters have an advantage when heavy jigging.

Thankfully the blood stains on the brand new Patagonia Sunshade Crew I was “testing” came off in the wash that night.  It can now be my lucky fishing shirt without looking like I just slaughtered something.

 

 

fish ready to be printedNaoki printing fishNaoki touching upgyotaku completed

 

 

 

The Tokunaga Challenge weigh-in was the day after our fishing trip, and Naoki was there fish printing ulua on t-shirts.  He warmed up with my Kagami before the weigh-in started and now I have a memento of the trip of a lifetime.

While it sounds impressive that my reel had only 15lb fluoro as its main line and landed a fish twice as heavy, it was a serious mistake on my part to be so under gunned. I didn’t expect to hook such a large fish on a small jig, but down in those Big Island dropoffs, big fish lurk.  I’m gonna take off the fluoro and just run 50lb braid, which is thinner than the 15lb fluoro I had on.  Top it off with a 40lb fluoro leader and I can be boost-happy again!

Monsta Kagami ulua on Waxwing in latest Lawai’a magazine

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Check issue #20 on newstands this week.  Todd Allen was whipping a bone colored Waxwing Senior (2.1 oz) and hooked an unexpected brute on light gear.  He was knocked down by a wave as he attempted to land it,  got up, and eventually secured this giant Kagami ulua.  You’ll be surprised to hear what he did with it after this picture was taken.