Not counting some good eating damashi fish (nabeta and small but keeper opakapaka), I bolo’d (skunked) the last 6 trips. January through March is just so slow. But the bolo broke and it sounds like pelagics were caught all around Oahu this past week.

Frank joined me on this super calm Eastside trip. Surf was really small and the wind didn’t pick up ’til 1pm. It was the calmest it could be, but there was a moving tide so the water was a little off colored, which was good for getting bites. The solunar activity was low so I wasn’t expecting much. Man was I wrong.

We glided over the glassy water to the opelu grounds but it took a while to find them. My damashi rig was beneath a nice pile I saw on my fish finder, and as I luckily intercepted it, I hooked 3 opelu on my 3 hooks! 1 must’ve flipped off while unhooking the other two. I gave one to Frank and put the other in my lazy man’s bait tube (a long cylindrical food container I kept refilling with water). We tried for more opelu but couldn’t find the school again. Frank put his opelu out and it got inhaled about 10 minutes later.

He carefully battled his fish, making sure he could get it boatside for identification, and I put my opelu out on fluorocarbon with no weight since BI kayak fisher Shea has been telling me to free line live opelu to present in the most natural manner. Frank boated a nice aku which surprised the heck out of me. We were 3 miles from shore and I thought aku don’t come that close to the island? We celebrated Frank’s first aku ever, and resumed trying to find the bait pile.

My opelu got picked up and dropped 3 times and eventually killed. It looked like the fish was leaving marks by the opelu’s gills. Maybe a second hook on the tail would have hooked ’em? I stuck to the single hook and no weight to appease Shea and decided to head out to deeper water that had yielded kawakawa last year. I was so relieved when my dead bait was finally taken. The fish fought really jerky and surgy but when I dropped the Avet SX Raptor in low gear it was coming up as if my line cut. I slowed down my cranking to make sure I didn’t pull the hook, and an aku surfaced with a busted tail. First aku for me too, and fishing with no weight works, even with dead bait!

Pressure was off, we both had fish, and my bolo was over. Whew. I called Frank over to where I hooked up and was putting on a new leader since the aku swallowed the hook. Frank dropped on a huge bait mark and hooked something on his 15lb damashi line that almost spooled him! He had to cup the spool of his spinning reel to regain line and was in for a long battle. I figured no way could he land a pelagic on that rig and tried to catch ’em on a jig but the school had moved off. Frank masterfully played out the fish and a slightly smaller, very tired aku came up!

We drifted back in to where the opelu school had been earlier but couldn’t find biters and damashi’d around to check the status of the smaller fish. The lizardfish, trumpetfish, small opakapaka and moana were back. Looks like even the inshore fishing is on!

I’m still stunned we caught aku from the kayak. I had thought they didn’t venture in too shallow, and if they do, they’re gone before you can reach them. When Capt Erik saw this photo he said my aku (top most) was male and was probably tail wrapped, hence the jerky fight and broken tail. He said Frank’s were both female, being shorter and fuller in the belly. What a forensic fisherman, he was right! I found sperm in my aku and Frank found aku eggs in his two. The lowest one in the photo is the one caught on the damashi rig.

Mine taped out at 25 inches and weighed 11lb at home. Frank didn’t have a scale handy but said his larger of the two egg carrying females was 23 inches.

I had been carrying cube ice in my fish bag all these past bolo trips and finally got to use it. The aku was iced well on the kayak and the drive home, and packed with even more ice in a cooler overnight, so when I cleaned it, was very firm and far less bloody than the kawakawa have been.

Capt Darren said kawakawa is bloodier than aku to clean, and my friends who tried the aku said it had an “ocean umani” taste that had more flavor than kawakawa, but was less “irony”. But they liked kawakawa sashimi also. They were happy to get any fish after waiting so long during the Bolo.

Frank sashimi’d, poke’d, seared and fried his two aku and shared with his Men’s Bible Study and family.

Hope we get another shot at aku this season.