Eastside: We finally made it out deep; there was a lot of life out there!

I hadn’t caught the target fish (anything big enough and great eating) for 4 trips in a row but had a feeling I was getting closer on the last trip as 8 inch weke nono / weke ula and 11 inch opakapaka pups grabbed the damashi hooks intended for opelu. The one opelu I did manage to land went untouched past 200ft and eventually taken by a line-cutting kaku at 70ft. With so much life crowding the shallower opelu grounds I had a feeling the opelu were being pushed deeper.

Finally a very light wind day aligned with our schedules so Frank I made plans to go all the way out to the 500ft ledge per Big Island kayak guru Shea. That’s 3.7 miles of paddling with Bixpy motor assist so definitely we needed really calm conditions.

Past 100ft, the first damashi drop yielded 2 weke nono on the top 2 hooks and something broke off the bottom hook and lead. Ugh, I had to dig out another pre-tied damashi from my tackle bag and re-rig.

Next drop, bigger opakapaka teamed up and broke my 12lb damashi rig, again taking the bottom hook and lead. Ugh, ugh. Then something even heavier broke the 3rd rig at 170ft. Ugh, ugh, ugh. There were so many fish busting my damashi that I couldn’t even find any opelu.

So we decided to troll frozen (mine was thawed at least twice) opelu out to 500ft and then drop bait to the bottom. I put on a sliding bullet weight to get my bait down a bit and make the frozen bait swim better, and got a jerky hit at 250ft. I could see a small mahi porpoising in the distance and it didn’t seem like my line was connected to it but it was. Finally, I got to fight something on the new St Croix Mojo Saltwater boat rod, which felt light and powerful.

After a much stronger fight than I would have expected, I kage’d the 6lb female mahi and secured it. Mahi have short lifespans, growing quickly, spawning multiple times a year, and dying by year 4, so there’s no shame in taking a small one, since they are super dangerous to try to unhook alive.

(Sorry for the less than ideal on-the-water photos. It was so hot I kept dunking my cap with the GoPro in the water and the cap was angled upward when I shot videos, cutting off a lot of the view.)

Frank had made it out to the 500ft ledge and attached a 4oz sinker to his leader and dropped his opelu down. I added an 8oz sinker to my rig and put cut aku belly on my 2 hooks. There was very little current on this calm day so the rig eventually reached the bottom but never got touched. Cranking it back up with the Avet SX Raptor in either low or high gear was a breeze though.

Just as I was thinking we should return to where the mahi was, Frank hooked something as he dropped and retrieved his opelu like a jig. With so much line already out, the fish took even more line and a tense battle with a strong running fish ensured. Frank was chanting “hope it’s not a shark, hope it’s not a shark” and was rewarded with a really nice kawakawa, his first. He gave thanks to God, carefully bled it out, then iced it. We didn’t get any more action out deep so we headed back in.

Frank’s bait got raggedly cut in half at the 250ft zone, and when I reached that area I marked what looked like a nice opelu ball. I slowed and my weighted bait got hit and the line was cut above the first hook. We had been out for a long time in the hot, windless day and still had more than 3 miles to go, so it was time to use our Bixpy motors to help us get in.

Frank’s kawakawa was a 13lb female with eggs so he fried the belly, bones and eggs and poke’d the fillet, sharing with family. My sister baked the mahi with lemon, butter and garlic, and also teri panko fried it for my dad. He said “it wasn’t bad but wasn’t good”. He seems to only like salmon and butterfish, two fish I can’t catch in Hawaii.

Seems like the best season of Hawaii kayak fishing has arrived. Light winds in the Fall and pelagics still within reach. With so much life around, I want to go back and see what fish we missed, and fight something bigger on the St Croix rod.