I had been meaning to try two new wade fishing spots that looked pretty fishy.  One was all the way up in Lai’e and the other was just a couples miles east of a Maunalua Bay spot I fish.

The conditions were good last week to fish the Lai’e spot and I made the 1 hr trek out there.  I could only reach the reef patches near shore  because the shoreline sloped downward and I was quickly in waist deep water.  I ended up with at least twenty 5-inch omilus and a couple small white papio.  I was really hoping for something that would pull drag but I just couldn’t reach them with gear I had.

obake weke

Today, the West wind was blowing at 15 mph plus. Not great conditions but the Maunalua Bay spot isn’t too far away so I decided to field test a longer, beefier casting rod.  I wasn’t expecting too much out of this popular location but I ended up with a mixed bag of small omilus, a small moana, a thick humuhumu, a kaku that shook the hook and a mid-sized obake weke that had me hoping it was an oio.

All the fish caught at Lai’e and Maunalua Bay were released.

Wading a shallow reef shelf is much easier than reaching a scattered, patchy reef from shore.

I needed to increase the weight I was throwing to load the beefier 8 ft rod, and was getting about the same distance I was getting with my lighter weight/7.5 ft rod setup.  More field testing needed.

It’s always fun to fish new spots with new gear.  And sometimes you don’t have to travel far to catch fish.