I’m sorry, I don’t have any photographs to back up the story I’m about to tell you. Gonna try to be as objective as I can be, and you can tell me what you think I hooked.
I was fishing the deep lagoon on the Windward side, about 40 yds past the reef drop off. I dropped a live oama, hooked through its nostrils, to the bottom in about 40 ft of water, and began to slowly paddle the kayak away from land. The bait was probably in the mid-water column when something hit and pulled drag at a medium-fast pace. The creature ran for the bottom and then out away from me. It easily pulled line in smooth spurts, but slowed after 50 yds or so. I was able to gain some line, and then it would pull line again, but never ripped line too fast or went too far. It felt like a huge awa awa at first but an awa awas would’ve taken more line.
There were large turtles around so I began to worry that I had hooked one of those. I tightened the drag to bring the “turtle” up, or pop off the hook, and the creature just powered for the bottom again. It was so strong I had to straddle the kayak to prevent getting tipped. It swam out away again, and I thought I thought I felt tail pumps and head shakes. For awhile it circled deep below me and I had extend the rod to clear the stern (back) and bow (front) of the kayak. An accidentally hooked turtle would’ve surfaced eventually but this thing wanted to stay as deep as possible.
I began to suspect it was a large sting ray, although I had never hooked one before to know how one would feel. It stayed down deep and swam back to the reef’s edge but stopped about 10 ft away from it. I was worried it would cut me off on the reef so I tried to muscle it up. About 2/3 of the way up the 15 lb fluoro leader cut. It was frayed just a bit, a few inches from where it cut above the hook. I never got to see color.
The creature didn’t head shake much, like a papio/ulua would, but it also didn’t just rest on the bottom like large sting rays like to do.
After retying, I paddled over a bait school suspended off the bottom, let my bait sink and sure enough I got a strike. The rod bounced like a papio hit the bait, but all that came back was the oama head on the single hook. I changed to a double hook setup and hooked a 10.5″ (FL) white papio and that was the end of the action.
What do you think the sea creature was? I would like to think it was an ulua, hunkering down on the bottom.
Another (scary) possibility is that it was a small shark. I can’t picture a ray taking a bait in mid-water, but I guess it’s not impossible.. A turtle cannot be definitively ruled out either, as the green sea turtle can hold its breath for many hours if it needs to. Since we will never for sure, let’s just call it an ulua :).
Hi Scott, I agree with Jason. It probably was a shark. Great story! Keep um coming, Hanapaa!!!
I’ve hooked small hammerheads in the area and they’re heavy, dead weight. This creature was really strong and when it wanted to take like I couldn’t slow it down. If we had giant seabass in HI I would’ve suspected that!
http://www.hawaiifishingnews.com/records_d.cfm?ID=22
Whoa… you think?!! Giant seabass caught on a live oama off a kayak… cool!
I know how old this post is and how irrelevant it is to the present, but I happened to come across this. To me this sounds like this may be a shallow water Kawakawa or Shibi. You know it’s possible, Uncle Elias got a Shibi in probably 20 feet of water and people catch Kawakawa in shallower water as well. Just my theory but that seabass thing could be true, but incredibly rare. Ulua is plausible as well.
Hi Matthew,
In hindsight, after hooking many sharks and a couple ulua, the most likely sea monster was a large ray. The fish didn’t travel very far and was very hard to lift off the bottom. I think an ulua or shark would have eventually headed for the deep.
-scott