I drove to the Windward spot as early as I hoped to, but a rain squall delayed my launch, and the onshore chop slowed me from getting to the grounds nearly 3 miles out. But the brown boobies greeted me as they always do and made a tight circle. When they do that, I find usually bait in the circle and sure enough an opelu bit on the first drop even though it was close to 9am. Scattered, feeding opelu appeared on the fish finder.

For the next hour opelu bit along with lai, small opakapaka and lizard fish if I dropped too deep. I stuffed 8 opelu in my bait tube, a record for me I think. I weighed one down with a sliding tungsten weight and took it deeper and then onto the shallow ledge but it only got pulled off by a small aha, I’m guessing. I put another opelu on and the same thing happened. Nothing was big enough to swallow the opelu and get properly hooked by one of the 2 hooks.

So I went back out to the bait spot and the bait marks were gone. The only thing that came up were lizardfish. The afternoon solunar bite was supposed to be starting but the fish weren’t cooperating. Since the fish finder wasn’t helping, I attached a 20lb leader 2-hook damashi rig to the CanFish CamX underwater camera, attached that to my heavy jig rod, and dropped it over what looked like small patches of structure. Occasionally I’d hook a small opakakpaka or lizardfish, but the action was really slow.

After dropping a bunch of times on what I hoped were areas of small structure, I went to the sandy area where nabeta have bit in the past and dropped the camera down with some opelu meat. I felt tugs through the stiff rod but the fish were just pulling off the bait. I was really hoping the culprits were caught on camera.

When I got home and looked at what was recorded, I was astounded at how many species were on that small structure I initially dropped on. There were small patches of rubble holding some type of short seaweed. And those spots were packed with fish.

The sandy area I had my bait yanked off did indeed have nabeta. This video captures one coming out from under the sand to grab at the bait. And I didn’t bring up any nabeta so maybe they are always there but I often can’t hook them?

The CanFish CamX may prove invaluable for aiding us in determining if fish are around, even when we aren’t getting bites. My friend Shea on the Big Island has used the discontinued GoFish cam attached to his live bait trolling rig to see how many ono have sniffed his bait and turned away.

If you’re interested in purchasing a CanFish CamX, lemme know. I’ll be putting together an order for friends. Please contact me through the Contact page.