Dino first posted about targeting awa ‘aua in the early spring when the papio bite was slow. For his second post he’s sharing his ultralight obsession.
Dino: I’ve always been a fan of ultralight (UL) fishing. I bought a Penn 420ss when I was a teenager, loaded it with 4 pound test, paired it with the smallest rod I could find, and challenged myself. That’s what hooked me. The challenge.
You’ll lose a lot of screamahs over time, but sometimes you’ll land a nice one and that feeling is truly something. You’ll find yourself doing all kinds of weird things while fighting a fish. You’ll talk to yourself, bend your knees when a fish takes line (idk why I do that lol) you’ll find yourself cranking so fast to try and keep tension on the line since the reel is so small. You’ll catch yourself trying to cast so hard even though the lure is only gonna go so far lol.
If you haven’t tried it yet, give UL fishing a try. It’s super fun and you’ll test your skill (mostly luck…for me that is).
~ Dino
Was really into UL a lot last year and early this year and had some fun with it, landed couple fun ones, but after I started making flies I started sticking mainly to bigger game… I guess I gotta make some UL flies and get back into it haha…
This is kinda like grass roots fishing to me right here lol
Awesome catches you got there! I should really bust out the UL gear again. Always a good time when you hook anything since everything feels HUGE, LOL.
Yup! Everything is a challenge lol. I always have a blast with UL ??
Nice write up! Brings back fond memories of small kid time whipping the shoreline with my BG10 and 6 ft Eliminator (probably dating myself a little here lol). We used to run 6 lb main with a 4 lb leader (so we wouldn’t lose our lead when stuck) and that was a pretty sporting setup for going after 7-12” Papio, moano and the occasional lai. You’d get bit a lot for sure with the light line, the fights were always interesting.
I love UL – have since bass fishing south Florida in the 1970’s as a young teen. Would love to join Dino or anyone willing to teach an old timah how to UL Hawaiian style!
Chris
Same here! ?
Is there any of this on the Big Island ?
Sorry for the late reply, this was on Oahu.
I wanna hear more UL stories! So interesting to me. Looking forward to future posts from you, Dino.