Caught the target kayak species, but…

The offshore kayak guys who consistently catch pelagics (ono, small ahi, mahi mahi, kawakawa, etc) do so by catching live opelu and then trolling ’em. Frank and I have specifically gone out to try to bring up opelu on our damashi rigs, and failed. The few times the opelu school was under us, they kept moving and we didn’t drop our damashi rig in time.

We always start our day by trying to catch bait, and eventually give up and put on frozen bait. Our latest trip to the Windward side started that way, and Frank brought up some taape on the damashi for the frying pan. I was just getting my CHL Purple Obake colored Minnow bitten off, so I put on a light green, translucent Minnow. A small brown hage took that Minnow so I put on a jade colored CHL Blue Dust Minnow with blue flakes.. Frank then hooked something strong that broke his damashi branch line, but the bite in that area stopped shortly after.

Remembering that Capt Erik and I stumbled upon deep water gold (nabeta) on his tin boat months ago, I paddled out to that mark on my GPS but didn’t see anything on the fish finder. Here’s that epic nabeta trip post from last fall.

I dropped my 2 hook damashi rig with 4oz weight down, and because the rain squalls offshore were generating gusts, I started drifting before my weight hit the bottom. Immediately it felt like I snagged a small bag and could feel the slightest twitches on the line. I cranked the rig up and brought up a deep water lizardfish. Next drop yielded another instant lizardfish. By now I had drifted about 50 yds off my mark, and into shallower water.

Dropped one more time before paddling back upwind and felt more twitches but less resistance. Yeehah!! Deep water gold was mined! I called Frank on the VHF and he paddled out but the rain and wind really made things cold and choppy. I tried paddling back to my original mark but it took so long I dropped down in slightly shallower water. Frank had headed to the less windy inshore grounds and I told him I’d give it a couple more tries before meeting him. Lizardfish, trumpetfish, lizardfish, lizardfish… Every drop, even though my line was sharply angled by the time it got to the bottom, yielded some bottom dweller but not the delicious nabeta.

A larger rain squall came through, and I made my final drop. This time I lowered the rig after feeling a fish hook up, then felt it get extra heavy. A lizardfish was on the top hook but an opelu was on the bottom hook! I could not believe my eyes. After specifically trying for opelu in much better conditions, I catch one in torrential rain while bottom fishing for nabeta. I wanted to troll that opelu around but my trolling rig was wrapped around my rudder because I neglected it as I was pushed around in the wind. I couldn’t free it while seated and decided not to get in the water with the wind pushing me at 15 mph plus. I paddled in so Frank could free my rudder, and the opelu stayed alive with splashes of water wetting its gills but died after 10 mins. Just as well, more rain was about to drench us.

Despite the rain and wind, I’d consider this a successful exploratory trip. There were huge barren spots in the deep, but the “nabeta spot” had so much life for some reason. Just no predators who wanted to eat my frozen halaluu. Definitely worth exploring again under calmer conditions.

The nabeta and opelu were both on the smaller size, about 6 or 7 inches. Smaller, thinner nabeta fry up easier, and because the sun never really came out, the nabeta was so fresh it didn’t taste like fish at all! My wife and I don’t like “fishy’ fish, so fried nabeta is our favorite fish to eat. The junior opelu will hopefully prove to be lucky when I troll it next time. And I’ll start with the CHL Blue Dust to see if its success was due to the overcast conditions, or if it’s an even better color than the Purple Obake.