Oio on a Waxwing, are you serious?

If you weren’t a believer before, this may convince you.  I fished a Blue Sardine Boy Waxwing at the surf break in hopes of catching something worthy of the Waxwing Lure Review I’m writing for Lawai’a magazine.  Prior to this I was using the smaller Baby size.  The Boy is 3.5″ long and weighs 7/8 oz. With a tail wind, it casts really far; with a side wind it curves more than the Baby because of its larger profile.

It’s the perfect lure for me to throw seated on my board at water level.  I only need a few inches of line past the tip of my rod to cast, and the lure swims so well because my rod tip is so close to the water.

For reference, I’m wearing size 9 surf booties

I didn’t get a bump for 20 mins and was wondering if it was too large a lure to use.  In comparison, the Boy is 2.7″.  Then I got a hard strike and a strong run.  I fish my drag really tight to set the swinging, upward facing hook, and the fish pulled line in hard spurts.  It swung me around, toward shore, instead of into the waves and took all my fluorocarbon top shot.  Not sure how much line that is though, maybe 70 yds? I was convinced it was the biggest papio I hooked on my surfboard and when I finally had the fish at color I saw a long thick shape and thought it was a kaku on steroids. It was a 5lb plus oio and was foul hooked behind its eyes.  Oio have very tough skin, luckily, and both hooks were embedded.  I took some pics and let the fish go.

An oio on a subsurface lure right in front of the white wash.  Oio normally feed on the bottom and are rarely hooked on fast moving subsurface lures.  I’m working with some Lawai’a supporting tackle shops to put a promotional Waxwing package together.  There were a few mods to the lure system I had to make to improve my catch ratio.   Stay tuned.