Accomplished whipper Jeremy recently picked up the fly fishing game. He landed his first fish on fly gear this Saturday, and followed that up with a solid catch on the spinning gear Sunday. He’s making it look easy during the “off season”.

Jeremy: Had a good weekend of fishing. 

Saturday morning:  Winds were projected to be light, so I decided to bring out the fly gear.  I’m still a beginner and I need the lighter winds so I can practice casting.  Fly fishing, especially the casting, is the hardest type of fishing I’ve ever done.  I still suck at it, but can’t get better unless you practice, so my buddy and I headed out just as the sun was coming up.  We split up and started looking for tails.  My primary goal was to get in casting time, so I blind casted as I made my way onto the flats.  I still haven’t caught anything on the fly gear, so catching any fish would be an added bonus. 

I slowly walked and looked for tails and every so often made some casts into “fishy” areas.  At around 7:15am, I made a blind cast, slowly stripped in my fly, and about halfway into my retrieve, I felt a small tap.  I set the hook and there wasn’t much movement, so I figured it was a really small papio.  But after about 5 seconds, I think the o’io finally figured out he was hooked and took off on a blistering run.  I stop the initial surge, got him turned, and then he decides to swam almost directly back to me!  I tried to crank my reel as fast as I could to keep tension on the line, but it felt like he spit the hook.  Just as I’m about to give up hope, I feel tension again on the line.  Yes, fish still on!  He made a couple more small runs before I finally landed him.  Chee!!!  My first fish on the fly setup!   Took a few pictures and released him back.  

No other action for the rest of the session, but I was stoked.  Landed my first fish and got to get in some much needed casting practice time.

Sunday morning:  Winds were slightly stronger, so brought out the spinning gear.  No action in the first hour, but around 8am, I felt a small tap on the line.  I set the hook and it felt like I was stuck.  I maintained tension and then it took off.  Scrapped the fish for around 5 minutes and landed another nice o’io.  

No action again for the next hour, then I get another slight tap.  Set the hook…Hanapa’a!  Small one, but it’s a beautiful 13” omilu.

Awesome weekend for me.  Landed some nice fish in this “slow” period.  But, one thing I’ve noticed recently is the strikes are really different.  I’m not getting any of those hard hitting ones.  Almost all my bites in the past couple months were really small taps or felt like dead weight, like I was dragging in seaweed.  It’s like the fish don’t really know they’re hooked for the first few seconds.  So my tip for the week:  set the hook if you think you felt a bite and keep constant pressure for a few seconds, even if it feels like seaweed.  It might actually be a good sized fish ?