A lot of spots reported new, large schools of oama biting well last week. Papio were seen chasing the piles and more predators will switch off from targeting halalu and focus on the oama. Maybe these new oama snuck in on the New Moon at the end of second week of August? Better late than never.
Expect the large surf and local flooding from TS Lane to disturb the oama schools for a while, but they’ll return hungrier than ever.
That’s good news. I feel like the fishing tends to be better across the board when the bait are in. Late makes sense. i feel like air and water temperatures didn’t really start to warm up until early August this year. Some believe this matters, and I am one of them.
Tropical Storm? Don’t jinx it! I’m old enough to remember when Iniki made landfall as a Category 4 storm. Stay safe everyone!
Hi Jason,
You fly fishers have an up close view of how the limu, bait fish and predator counts change. Maybe the baby fish need the warmest water to eat and grow? Regardless, seems like all the bait species are in but they’re gonna be tossed around soon.
Stay out of the water when the swells get huge and the water turns brown!
-scott
For cold-blooded animals like fish, an increase in temperature results in an increase in metabolic rate. Increased metabolism means more feeding, at least theoretically…
Yep, looks like I’ll be taking be a break from fishing for awhile 🙁
Can the temps get too warm for the bait fish, papio and oio? I wonder if we’ll eventually hit that maximum in our lifetimes.
Yeah, I’m hoping we have mild effects from Lane and next week the trades are blocked and we have a window to kayak fish!
For oio, the upper limit of their comfort zone is said to be around 85 degrees. In terms of the metabolism thing, I’m no biologist, but this obviously is only true up to a point. I remember reading that the enzymes that keep things alive need to be kept within a very specific temperature range to function, which is why hyper and hypothermia is a thing.
I like your positive attitude about the storm! I am preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.
The last time I kayak’d my fish finder said the water temps were almost 84 degrees and that was in 20ft plus depths. In the winter the temps were about 10 degrees less.
I think the preds can tolerate higher temps if the water is oxygenated, yeah? Anyway, thanks for all the inshore reports Jason!
Yup, warmer water is supposed to increase the fish’s oxygen requirements. This is related to the metabolism thing I mentioned. You can find studies on the web that cover this stuff. I find a lot of it confirms what we as fisherman already know through intuition and experience.
Good to have your on-the-water confirmation that when the water gets warm, the fish need to be in highly oxygenatated (moving, white washy) water!
Enough about temperature! Where da oama stay at???? ahaha
To tell you the truth, got oama everywhere now. They not biting real good cuz of the big moon but they’re there.
Have any of you guys ever tried sand turtles for oama bait?
Hi Henry,
Maybe others have. Sand turtles, for me, are harder to catch than oama! 🙂 And there isn’t too much flesh on them to use, is there?
thanks,
scott
Henry,
I have tried sand turtles! They work good and as Scott said, not much meat on ’em. I like to experiment with all kinds of oama baits and have found that shrimps and crabs seem to be at the top of the menu for the little buggas … 🙂
So far the best bait I have found are the small shrimp that are in the lagoons at Ala Moana. An old-timer told me the absolute best bait is aku eggs but I have no idea where to get those from. He also said once you use aku eggs the oama will only go for that bait.
Hi Henry,
I’ve heard the same about the small shrimp and the aku eggs. A rule I try to follow is that if I have to resort to the better baits, I fish away from others to not affect their bite.
thanks,
scott