The winds were forecast to be blowing 15 – 20 mph and the moon was just shy of full.  Not the most promising of fishing conditions but I had some early season oama that were beginning to get skinny in captivity.  Kelly invited me to his partially wind shielded SUP fishing spot.  The winds were still gusty at times but we managed to slow troll the oama.  Kelly let his oama swim unencumbered while I kept mine off the rocks with a floater.

Kelly inched close to the waves and was rewarded with the first fish, a scrappy omilu between a pound and 2 pounds.  I was leery of being dumped in my Scupper Pro and played it safe for  a while, finally finding a stretch of reef that yielded a bunch of 1.25 lb omilu without pummeling me with waves. I hadn’t brought my tags so all were released.

Fishing closer to harms way, Kelly had a much more diverse hit list: omilu, kaku, trumpet fish and an aha that screamed his drag. The bite was much slower than normal for Kelly, but the live oama overcame the adverse conditions. He even got bit on frozen oama when the livies ran out.

This was my first outing with live oama this season.  I was hoping for a screamah but settled for a pretty consistent bite in the protected waters.  Still dreaming of the screamahs…