To determine if yesterday’s slow fishing was due to the incoming storm or, ugh, the end of the summer papio season, I went back to the same spot. The winds were about 15 mph instead of 20+ mph, so it was much more manageable to troll The water level was lower than I prefer for this spot but that was the highest it would be all day. Sad to say, I just got a few aha strikes (saw one jump in the air to spit the hook); had some weird bites where the oama appeared to be stuck on a rock but when retrieved it had bite marks; and hooked another 4 inch omilu. No papio or kaku strikes.
Does this mean the epic summer bite on live oama is over? Say it isn’t so! Earlier in the season divers told me that there were schools of oama just outside the break not being harassed by predators. Maybe the oama school has moved out to deeper water, and the papio have no reason to be be cruising the inner reef anymore.
I’ll check another spot before putting a fork in this summer’s oama trolling season.
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