Shea has provided us with some great posts this year and we requested he summarize his first year of offshore kayak fishing. The sheer poundage of fish he caught is astounding. He provides tackle tips, a monthly almanac of how the weather changed and what types of fish bit. Check out his YouTube channel, Affordable Wahoo, for action packed, superbly narrated videos.
Shea: After buying a secondhand kayak and watching YouTube videos of guys and gals kayak fishing offshore in Hawaii for pelagic predators like ahi, mahimahi, and ono, I was intrigued but not quite ready to take the leap straight into the blue. I spent all of 2020 fishing within the confines of the Hilo Breakwater for papio, lai, opelu, and akule. In January 2021, I was reunited with a childhood friend who also had a kayak and wanted to get it into action fishing. After a shakedown trip in Hilo Bay catching papio, he suggested we go for it and make the leap into offshore fishing. Eleven months later, I’m still learning something new every trip. However, over the past few months, the catches have been much more consistent. Here’s a monthly summary of the journey thus far:
February:
Got a secondhand Hobie Revolution 13 from a friend on Craigslist. Did a shakedown maiden voyage in Hilo Bay light jigging for papio, then a short offshore trip on the west side catching reef fish.
March:
First dedicated pelagic trip on the NW side. Landed first decent fish offshore, a 15 lb Uku (Green Jobfish), then lost the biggest shibi ahi I’ve hooked to date right at the side of the kayak. Upgraded my gear the next day to a Penn Spinfisher VI 8500 with 65 lb braid and 40lb fluorocarbon topshot. Very next trip out of South Kona, landed first pelagic, a 21 lb shibi ahi at Keahou Bay. Lost a ton of fish to cutoffs (probably ono), so I rigged up 40 lb braided wire stinger rigs for next time. Lucky thing too, because the next trip out of South Kona, I hooked was a 65 lb Sailfish that would certainly have cut fluorocarbon leader with its bill.
April:
The weather and surf finally started looking good on the east side of the island, so we started exploring the grounds. We discovered some reliable opelu grounds and managed to hook into some decent sized Kawakawa (Mackerel Tuna) and smaller shibi (Yellowfin Tuna). At this point, I was still having trouble getting solid hookups on fish once they ate the live opelu. I must have lost twice as many fish as I landed just because I was letting fish swim around with the bait way too long before tightening the drag during the strike.
May:
The big kawakawa continued to bite, along with some nice sized uku. Later in the month, I got my first decent sized shibi, a 30 pounder. I made the change from braided 40 lb wire to single strand stainless brown 44 lb and it seemed to increase strikes on wire, at the cost of having to change the rigs out when they got kinked. At this point, I getting a better idea of when to tighten down on the drag, though I still lost a few strikes from what I think were ono…
June:
Got a mixed bag of large kawakawa and decent sized shibis. Rainbow runners started showing up in large schools and stealing baits as well as sabiki rigs. Finding opelu was difficult at times, with schools being far and few between. Often when we did find them, they wouldn’t bite. We did, however, have some of the calmest waves and wind that I’ve ever seen.
July:
The opelu became very scarce on the east side, so I resorted to vertical jigging for rainbow runner, kahala, and ulua most of the time. I must have lost over $100 worth of jigs to unstoppable reef donkeys. When we could find live bait, sharks and kaku (Great Barracuda) would often take them before a pelagic could. The kawakawa seemed to disappear as well. We did make it out to the leeward side once and I landed my best shibi to date, a 41 pounder.
August:
Shibis continued to bite on the west side, while the onos finally seemed to come out in force on the east. I landed my first ono, my PB uku, and a decent shibi all in a couple hours on one trip. At this point, I began running wire rigs pretty much all the time. With so many ono around, the fluorocarbon leader would get snipped almost immediately. The smaller shibis didn’t seem to care, but the larger ones seemed to shy away from the wire rigs.
One key change to my strategy was to set my drag to ~4 lbs when running a wire stinger. Up to this point, I was setting my drag as light as it could go to let the fish run and hopefully swallow the bait. I ended up losing every ono strike because they’d either swallow the entire wire rig and cut my line, or the hook wouldn’t set in the fish’s bony mouth. The tension on the strike with even just ~4 lbs drag seems to be enough to get a decent hookup. It also helps keep the ono from swallowing and chopping the entire wire rig above the swivel.
September:
Large schools of mahimahi in the 10-15 lb range showed up in force on the west side. Opelu were very plentiful and it wasn’t uncommon to have more than 10 baits within an hour of fishing at dawn. I landed my first mahimahi (three of them) on the same trip. When the weather permitted, we headed out on the east side and akule were easy to find in the dark. These made excellent bait for both ono and shibis. At the end of the month I managed to land my PB 41 lb ono and a few mahimahi on the same trip. The bite was truly on fire no matter where we went it seemed. Bird piles and surface boils were a frequent sight, usually around midday.
October:
The mahimahi continued to bite really well, with large schools offering chances at hooking two or even three in a row at times. The mahis were also getting larger, ranging in size from 15 – 25 lbs. We often saw large schools of flying fish getting struck on the surface, as well as the occasional school of small aku jumping out of the water. Trolling live or dead baits near these schools often yielded mahimahi or ono.
I made the switch to Knot2Kinky titanium wire leader and didn’t regret it. It has the stealthier presentation of single-strand wire, with the benefit of being somewhat kink-resistant. This means you can potentially reuse the same rig after multiple strikes.
November:
The mahimahi bite suddenly slowed down dramatically. Large schools of flying fish and small aku were no longer an everyday occurrence. Instead, large schools of rainbow runner seemed to infest the waters. While the mahi strikes were rare, when they did bite they would either be very small or very large. Shibi and ono continued to bite, though less frequently. Near the end of the month, high winds and rainstorms started becoming more prevalent, and unpredictable thunderstorms started rolling in. The opelu on the NW side also became much more difficult to find and catch at times, making for tough fishing some days.
December:
Heavy rains, big surf, high winds, thunderstorms shut down the windward side of the island most of the month. Even the leeward side had its share of bad weather. We fished in good weather windows on the SW side of the island and managed to have some of the best fishing of the year. I pulled off my first shibi + mahi + ono combo in one trip, and the 37 lb bull mahi was my new PB.
Tremendous story! A ton of info, makes me want to get a boat, I’m too old for kayaking, plus my wife would freak out if I even suggested it.
Mahalo! They are out there ?
Hi Paul,
It’s truly amazing how well Shea did in his first year kayaking offshore in often treacherous conditions. He often out fished boaters in his stealthy pedal powered boat, I think.
-scott