A little late to the Waxwing party

May 15, 2015 By Scott 5 Comments

(top to bottom) Salt Pro Minno, Crystal Minnow and Megabait

(top to bottom) Salt Pro Minnow, Crystal Minnow and Megabait

I left the bait at home and went back to the spot with the baby white papios to test my lures again. Since the target fish were small and I’d be casting from the beach, the lures would have to be on the small side and shallow running. I tried a Diawa Salt Pro Minnow, Yozuri Crystal Minnow and a Megabait swimming plug (see photo).

The Salt Pro Minnow cast pretty well but dove a little too deep for the shallow water I was fishing. The Crystal Minnow tumbled in the wind and dove a little too deep also but had a good tight wobble. Both were too large for the target test fish. The Megabait had this spastic wobble that scared everything within 2 miles.

Waxwing and Kastmaster. Note the power handle on the Calcutta TE

Saving the best two for last I tried a 3/8 oz gold Kastmaster with a trailer. The small whites chased it into the murky shore break like they did the last time. I got a few bumps and hooked a couple and switched the Kastmaster out for the Waxwing. The Waxwing comes with a lot of hype and a $15 price tag for the smallest size (1/2 oz). Fishers claim they’ve caught sea birds on it, and supposedly everything with scales and fins chase it.

big hook for small white

I was using a 2.68 inch, 1/2 oz Waxwing Baby in the blue sardine pattern. Its wings did cause it to veer when I cast into a side wind but it still went further than other plugs its size. The zig zag swimming pattern followed by a more pronounced zag every so often brought the small whites in to investigate. They started bumping it and got hooked once in a while. The small schooling mullet played follow the leader with it, and a 7 inch white weke sniffed it with its whiskers as I left on the surface a few feet from me!

the hook missed the eye, fish was released healthy

I didn’t catch any birds on the Waxwing but did hook quite a bit more whites than I did on the Kastmaster. The double hook has been reviewed by others as suspect, and besides not hooking well, quite a few of the larger whites came off the hook when I was bringing them in.

With a better double hook or single siwash hook, the Waxwing will be an awesome plug to throw from my longboard. It swims a foot or two below the surface and really does have a swimming action that causes fish to take notice. The Salt Pro Minnow and Crystal Minnow are worth another try when I’m in deeper water. The Megabait will go back in storage.

Lawai’a Magazine

May 13, 2015 By Scott 2 Comments

Are you guys familiar with the relatively new Lawai’a Magazine? It’s only a few years old but has eye popping photos and great articles covering all the aspects of Hawaii fishing including fish eating. It comes out quarterly, and you can purchase it in tackle stores and poke shops like Tanioka’s for less than $4.

oldie but goodie

In the current issue, you’ll find my first article, titled “Early Days”. Lawai’a, which means fisherman in Hawaiian, gave me a bit of space to chronicle how I started surfboard fishing in the 80’s on a leaky tanker I found under the someone’s house. Check it out and try not to laugh at the picture of me wearing short Quiksilver shorts!

Tackle test in less than ideal conditions

May 7, 2015 By Scott 4 Comments

The wind and surf were up and the solunar activity was down. Not the best time to wade out and fish the reef.

baby omilu under the float

To avoid having to re-tie rigs I tried drifting cut bait on an adjustable float. I didn’t snag anything but found it hard to cast such a light float in the windy conditions. I caught a few small omilu but didn’t like the slack line required to drift the float in the current.

When the waves started hitting me at the neckline I gave up and headed for shore. I switched to a rainbow trout pattern 3/8 oz Kastmaster just to throw something that would go further than a few yards.

The power handle I added to my bait caster did its job and I could retrieve fast enough to burn the lure in. Small papio were chasing the Kastmaster a few feet from the beach so I varied my retrieve and hooked up. Finally, after two outings with no bites on lures, I caught something. The papios turned out to be 6 inch white papio, and they were following the lure in from the deeper, cleaner water and ambushing it in the muddy water near shore. It was great to get back into the rhythm of casting, retrieving in a crank-crank-crank-pause tempo and feeling the occasional hits. The single, siwash hook I had on the kastmaster is sized for larger fish so I missed a lot of the bites. But the baby white papio I caught helped bring some lure casting mojo back.

Here’s how I customize my Kastmaster hooks to reduce snags.

Low solunar activity = no fish?

April 29, 2015 By Scott Leave a Comment

Kris and Eddie experienced some decent catch and release fishing when they waded out near the break the other day, so I went with Kris yesterday despite the poor solunar activity level and wind/rain forecast. The weather forecast was accurate. We got rained on and the gusts exceeded 25 mph.

The fishing was much slower than normal. Kris was dunking and missed 3 large strikes that pulled drag. They either cut the leader line or came unbuttoned. I caught a couple small papio and a moana dragging bait and once again, nothing touched my kastmaster or swimming plug.

Maybe those solunar charts are accurate. Do you guys believe in them? I’ll run a poll to see how you guys feel.

challenging conditions

What was the silver lining in the cold, blustery day of few fish? Data to log supporting poor fishing on low solunar activity days. And my waterproof bag stayed dry except for when I had it open and a wave swamped me.

This is the tide/solunar chart site I use.

Catching `opae lolo for bait

March 5, 2015 By Scott 2 Comments

captive `opae lolo

I had grown up hearing the name ” `opae lolo ” and just assumed it was the name for the especially large brackish water `opae. I didn’t realize it was a completely different looking shrimp. Heard many a story of people catching papio, oio and goat fish on `opae lolo but since I wasn’t a live bait guy back then, I didn’t pay too much attention.

Chester and I were torching (hunting the shallows at night) for aquarium fish a few weeks ago when we came across a long, slender shrimp sitting on the sand in a foot of water. Not sure what it was, I ended up netting 4 and bringing them home. My google search for “hawaiian shrimp” didn’t bring up anything that looked like the shrimp I had, so I purchased John Hoover’s “Hawaii’s Sea Creatures” book. Lo and behold, we had stumbled upon the coveted ‘opae lolo.

The ‘opae lolo seem to lack pinchers, and are near the bottom of the food chain with sand turtles. They bury themselves during the day as their only defense. I came to these conclusions because I had put an `opae lolo in a tub with a mantis shrimp and instantly the mantis shrimp had the `opae lolo in its clutches. I had never seen that mantis shrimp move for any food very quickly, prior to that, and thought the crustacean cousins would be safe together since the mantis shrimp don’t seem to be able to catch the regular `opae. Even the regular `opae ganged up and pulled down an `opae lolo twice their size. Dang, two less `opae lolo for bait. But proof that everything wants to eat them.

I torched a couple more times, during low tides with different moon phases, and saw less `opae lolo. I’m still trying to dial in the best conditions to catch them, but was able to get a few more, sitting mostly motionless on the sand. Friends have said they’ve seen the lolos swimming erratically around near the surface, in calm water. Maybe that’s how they got the name “lolo” (crazy). They appear to be attracted to light.

My lolos are in predator free tubs waiting to be used as bait.

Windward sand turtles

February 23, 2015 By Scott 3 Comments

sand turtle bait

The last time I tried to catch sand turtles I came up empty. Today, I was fishing the Windward side and had plopped my cut bait at the water’s edge while zipping up my tackle sling bag. When I reeled up my bait there were two sand turtles attached to it. I quickly bagged the sand turtles (mole crabs) and dropped the weight and bait back on the wet sand.

2 sand turtles battling

As the water ebbed and flowed up the sloping beach, I noticed moving lumps under the sand. Sure enough more sand turtles were attached to the bait. Catching sand turtles couldn’t be easier than this.

obake weke

Too bad catching fish with the sand turtles wasn’t as easy. I got a few weak nibbles on them, but caught a mess of small omilus and this obake weke on the cut bait.

I brought a few of the sand turtles home and put them in a tub with live opae. Even though the opae are smaller than the turtles, they grabbed at the turtles’ legs and tried to pull them backwards so the turtles couldn’t burrow in the sand. I guess it’s a shrimp eat crab world.

I rescued the sand turtles and put them in their own bucket free of sand turtle hungry critters.

Click here to read an old post on catching and using sand turtles for bait.

Don’t hide your keys on your car when theives are watching!

January 24, 2015 By Scott 2 Comments

I was at the largest, east-most Diamond Head lookout during a weekday afternoon this week. There were a lot of cars and people in the parking area because the big WNW wrap had brought unseasonal surf and the conditions were glassy. A young, local surfer was waiting for the police to arrive because his car was missing.

He had placed the car keys on the top of his tire like I’ve seen a lot of surfers do. Evidently the thief was watching for this type of behavior and drove off with the victim’s car when the coast was clear. Sucks to lose your car and possessions. Hopefully the police and the guy’s surf ohana were able to locate the car before it got stripped.

Don’t hide your keys after you park. Ideally, carry your key on you. They make water proof pouches to hold electronic keys now. If you have to leave your key on your car somewhere, either use a surfer lockbox that’s locked to your car, or have a spare key already tucked away somewhere so no one can watch you hide it.

Bait vs Lures, Round 2

November 26, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

25 MPH, North – North East winds on the flats made it difficult to cast at times and the tide was rising in the overcast evening. Made for some chilly wading. The 4 inch omilus were bothering the baits again so I just stuck with

cut baitt
Makata strip lure (clear ice)

Like the last time I fished the flats, the little omilus followed the strip lure but didn’t take the hook. On the cut bait I caught about 8 omilus, and besides a lizard fish, no other reef fish. Maybe the omilus were faster than the expected hinalea and humus?

As the sun was setting, in 8 inches of water, I hooked a fish that swam in straight lines, unlike an omilu. Turned out to be a 9 inch obake weke, about the size that Pete caught two trips ago. Funny that I’ve never caught them before and now two were landed on the last 3 trips. Maybe they’re part of the big “recruitment” bloom of reef fish?

obake weke swimming against the water jet

I released all the omilus but kept the obake weke. Here he is in quarantine waiting to meet his oama cousins and the bigger weke caught a month ago.

Summary: In tough conditions with pesky baby omilu, cut bait trounced lures once again.

Bait vs Lures, Round 1

November 21, 2014 By Scott 1 Comment

gold kastmaster with trailer

I fished the flats on an evening dropping tide and decided to embark on a small test to see what would be more effective, cut bait or lures. It wasn’t a scientifically controlled test by any means, and would have to run multiple times.

I was using a bait casting rig that let me fish the lures and bait slowly, near the bottom. A spinning setup would’ve worked also.

The three bait choices were:

cut bait
Makata strip lure (clear ice)
Kastmaster (3/8 oz gold with trailer), untipped and tipped with cut bait

The trade winds were strong and the fish activity was low. Unlike the previous trip to this spot where various reef fish were caught, only the small 4 – 6 inch omilus were chasing the baits. All the omilus were caught on the cut bait and a surprise 14 inch kaku was also hooked in the shallows on that setup. That kaku made two runs right at me and I had to jump out of its way!

The Makata strip lure was chased by the omilus but they just nipped at the tail of the strip and didn’t get hooked. The Kastmaster also got bumped but perhaps the single siwash hook I was using was too big for their little mouths. The cut bait on a smaller hook fit in the mouths of the fish easier.

Summary: On this day where the bite was slow, cut bait reigned supreme. If the fish were feeding voraciously, lures may have done better.

Possible spill causes fish die-off?

November 3, 2014 By Scott 3 Comments

Perhaps something like this will be posted soon

I paddled out on my longboard this morning to troll some moose oamas. 20 yds from the beach on Oahu’s Eastside, I ran into a brownish-orange foam in the scum line. That’s never a good sign. Trying hard not to get water in my eyes or mouth, I paddled through it and reached the break, where the water was less murky. My 6 inch oama went untouched after 20 mins so I put on a smaller, more bite-sized one and that went untouched also. This spot has produced all summer so it was very unusual to have such a quiet morning. Even if the papio were absent I would’ve expected to be pestered by the aha and kaku.

After an hour and half of paddling around in the chop I gave up and headed back in through the slightly scummy water. I was resigned to the fact that the epic oama season finally ended. After all, it is November. A spear fisherman met me at the showers and before I could remark about the brownish-orange foam, he said that the inner reef was full of dead fish. He noticed the foam also and said there were a lot of 4 inch papio and other reef fish lying on the ocean bottom, but saw some life past the breakers.

I was glad to have an excuse for not getting any hits but was concerned that we had been exposed to whatever killed the fish. He soaped up at the beach shower and I headed home to do the same. I also did a nasal rinse to flush out any bugs that might’ve made their way up my nose, and emailed my NOAA and DAR friends to find out how to report this disaster. Turns out that the national Coast Guard has a Spill Response Center you can call at 1-800-424-8802. I made my report and was later contacted by the local Coast Guard for more details. DAR will probably verify the extent of the fish die-off.

I wasted 5 precious oamas today (3 released before I knew how unsafe the waters were), and have a slight pain in my left ear. Hopefully tomorrow brings resolution to the spill and health to all who were in that water today.

Update:

11/5/2014 – I went back to the beach the next day to see if the brownish-orange foam was still present. The water had cleared and there were no dead fish on shore. The Coast Guard had done their check that morning also and hadn’t noticed what we experienced the day before. I did hear that some dead, baby menpachi and aweoweo were seen about a half mile west of this spot, and small flounder and a small kaku were found dead a half a mile east of this spot.

These fish deaths were witnessed the evening I had encountered the strange foam. A number of local agencies were notified and some suspect the cause of the foam and fish deaths was a bacteria or plankton bloom, similar to a “red tide”.

Hawaii Fish and Dive Expo 2014

September 22, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

Fish & Dive Expo 2014

I checked out the Hawaii Fish and Dive Expo this past weekend, and unlike the Ocean Expo held in April, there were many more products at show prices for sale. I saw dive masks, fins, guns, knives, just about everything you needed to get started free diving. On the fishing side, there were rods, spinning and conventional reels, ulua plugs, stainless steel rod holders, etc. I didn’t need any of that but I did pick up a spool of Seaguar Blue Label fluorocarbon leader at a great price.

Kurt of the Barbless Circle Hook Project

I spent some time talking with Kurt Kawamoto of NOAA’s Barbless Circle Hook Project. Kurt teams up with DLNR’s Earl Miyamoto and goes out to shorecasting tournaments, schools and fishing expos to educate the fishing community on the use of barbless circle hooks. These hooks have been proven to be easily removed by human and even self removed by accidentally hooked Hawaiian monk seals and green sea turtles. The barbless circle hooks have been adopted by some of the most respected and prodigious shore casters and are believed to not diminish catch ratios. Their goal is to provide a way for fishermen to co-exist with the protected monk seals and green sea turtles in the least impactful way. Here’s the link to the Barbless Circle Hook Facebook page.

Kurt, a marine biologist, explained why we’re seeing so many juvenile reef fish this year. Here’s the simplified version (or at least how I understood in): Reef fish spawn on the reef and the fertilized eggs are pulled out into the deep by ocean currents. These reef fish actually develop as fry far away from the protection of the reef, and have to rely on ocean currents to help them get back home. Something, probably warmer than normal water, triggered a massive spawn of most of the reef fish this spring, and pelagic fish like bottom fish, tuna, mahis, etc are being caught with baby reef fish in their stomachs. The currents were favorable to push these fry back onto the reef, which is why we saw such an abundance of the herbivore fry as well as oama and baby papios. Nature will work things out such that most of the abundance will be consumed by larger fish.

The Expo had a nice blend of products to buy and informational booths. Another must see Expo to visit next year.

Great late season oama outing

September 13, 2014 By Scott 3 Comments

perfect oama catching conditions

Pete, part of the out-of-town duo I took fishing back in May, was back on Oahu with his family. He managed to free up for a few hours so I took him on his inaugural oama fishing trip. The oama were there in the South Shore shallows but didn’t want to bite for the first hour. I began to feel the pressure of being a lousy host, but we finally found a school of larger fish in deeper water that sniffed our baits. They eventually turned on and were fighting each other and the small papios for the bare hook.

The tide was rising enough to make them feed but not so steep that they would move to shallower water. Add calm winds that enabled us to peer down into the waist deep water, and the conditions were about as perfect as they could be.

oamas getting cozy

My oama will be used to restock the ones that died last night of ich. I’m hoping I can keep this batch free of parasites for more than a week. Click here to see how well the live oama worked.

deep fried goodness

Pete fried his oama up crispy along with one of the papio I caught on my last trolling trip. It was a hit at an island potluck. Sort of ironic that the papio ended up in a tray with the fish that were the cause of his undoing.

Thanks for contacting me!

September 11, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

In response to my request that readers contact me if they had any oama raising advice or wanted clarification on what I’ve posted, I received some really nice messages in the last few weeks.

One reader provided some general info about some North Shore oama spots which I was able to share with a female reader looking to take her sons oama fishing for the first time. The mom wrote back informing me that she went back to an Eastside spot she used to oama fish as a child and her sons caught 15 oama! Nice how that worked out.

Another reader and I have been corresponding, and it turns out he works with a close friend of mine whose hands are cradling these sand turtles.

And another contacted me after we chatted on the beach, and invited me to stop by for a cold one (ice water) next time I fish near his house!

I’d love to hear from more of you. Tell me what you like/don’t like about what I’ve been writing or just tell me how your fishing is going this summer. I know I’ve been in oama catching / oama trolling mode for the last few weeks. It’ll be over soon and I’ll be back to not catching anything of importance.

Click here to get to the contact form.

-scott

The ebb and flow of oama life

September 10, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

Reef fish boom of epic proportions

September 5, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

Fish collectors and marine biologists have confirmed what nearshore divers have been saying since July. There are an incredible amount and variety of baby fish on the reef and flats. This excerpt from Coral Magazine confirms it. No wonder, back in July, I was complaining about weak strikes that scratched up my oamas instead of producing solid hookups. Click here to read about my frustrations back on July 25th.

The oama schools have been large and replenished since late June. Sardines have been in for a few weeks. Baby fish like kala and file fish, that are not normally seen in large numbers are on the protected, shallow reefs. Tons of baby papio, kaku and aha are cruising with the oama and the oama are eying them warily.

Experts and hobbyists are theorizing the reasons for this boom. I personally think this spring was warmer than normal and that triggered some species to spawn, which then triggered predatorial species to spawn. But what do I know, I’m just a guy that blogs about fish catches.

It’ll be interesting to see if next year is another boom due to El Nino/global warming, or a bust to counter balance this year’s surplus.

If you do catch undersized fish, do the responsible thing and return them to the ocean so they can help produce the next boom cycle.

Why are my captive oamas dying?

September 2, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

the good ole days

The oamas I caught early in the season lived in plastic tubs with external filtration for as long as 4 weeks. Eventually all the tubs had bouts of mass die offs and now I’m leery about risking losing another batch.

oama apartment living

To avoid putting all my oamas in one basket, so to speak, I now have them spread across 5 gallon buckets. The oamas haven’t experienced mass die offs in the buckets, but aren’t happy either and haven’t been eating.

I suspect some disease like “marine ich” is eventually spreading and reproducing in the tubs, and also believe the dying oamas emit some kind of toxic chemical that causes the others to die within minutes. This is the dark side of oama raising I guess.

I’ve treated some of the tubs for “marine ich” with some success, and try to pull dying oamas out before they can affect the others. If you have any additional advice please contact me. It’s very sad and frustrating to try to keep the little guys long enough to use them, only to lose a bunch over night.

Update – 9/12/2014 : Per the nice folks at Coral Fish Hawaii, I treated a few tubs and sick fish with copper. If I caught the ich early enough, the fish made a complete recovery, and the tubs have hosted fish without killing them. Keeping the oxygen infusion up seems to be more important than stabilizing the water temperature and salinity.

The papio want their oama lively or not at all

August 20, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

still small but getting bigger

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

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

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

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

Best conditions to score papio

August 12, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

best day so far

After trolling oamas aimlessly for a month and a half, I noticed a pattern as to when and where I get most of my strikes. These conditions apply to dunking and whipping also.

First third of the rising tide
Cool, moving water; not still, sun warmed water
In front of the surf break (I’m not going past the surf break)
Bouldery terrain with a mix of sand and dark rocks
Edge of channel and bouldery reef

And for those trolling oama:

4 to 6 foot fluorocarbon leader
front hook through nostrils, rear hook past the ventral (anal) fin
30 to 75 feet away from you
liveliest oama (but wounded or freshly dead still work if that’s all you have)

Please keep in mind I haven’t caught anything big this season but I am getting a lot of strikes when the above conditions come together.

It’s not worth fishing during heavy storms

August 8, 2014 By Scott 2 Comments

I’m writing this as the downgraded Tropical Storm Iselle passes by Oahu. There are a lot of valid reasons to avoid fishing during bad weather. Strong winds, heavy rain, rogue waves, polluted runoff…

And in my recent experience the fish stop biting before the bad weather hits. They feel the drop in atmospheric pressure and hunker down until the system passes. Even the oamas in my tubs are doing that. During this present storm they ate a little and then settled on the bottom of the tub.

So its best to sit out the bad weather, let the brown water clear, and then resume fishing. The fish will have ended their hibernation and be eating to make up for lost time.

Eating oama? How could you?

August 6, 2014 By Scott 1 Comment

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

successful oama outing

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

Click here to see how I did with those oama.

cleaned oama

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

frying the oama

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

finished product

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

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