The water cleared after last week’s murky conditions so I waded out to the same area that had been slow.  I was really hoping the papio bite would continue full bore, but alas, I started with mystery fish pulling my dead oamas off the hooks.  Then some oama came back with their back half sliced clean off.  Next, hooks were bitten off.  I’m guessing small reef fish and small papio were the bait pullers and kaku were slicing the baits and biting off the hooks.

After an hour of bait mangling and no fish to show for it, I cast from the reef edge of a deep sand channel leading to the open ocean.   The sun was getting lower and large and medium kaku were competing for my dead oama in the light blue water.  Miraculously I had some on without getting cut off, but they spit the hook.  Then I hooked a medium sized kaku at the tip of his upper jaw such that he couldn’t bite the line.  It was pretty tricky to grab the hook with long pliers and shake him off without getting nipped in the process.  Tired of the kaku frenzy I positioned myself to cast to the right side of the channel.

I put on a beautifully preserved, large oama that still looked alive.  It cast well because of its weight, and was hit solidly. The back half of the oama was raggedly torn off by something that didn’t have precision cutting teeth.  Left with first 3 inches of the oama, and the sun setting, I threw the severed bait out again wondering what would want a fish head.  Something slammed it, pulled against the stiff drag and jumped in the distance.  I figured it was a kaku angry it didn’t get away cleanly with the tailless oama.

But the fish continued to pull drag and after it turned and swam up the reef shelf into waist deep water, it jumped again. Awa awa! I had never hooked one in this location and had no idea they came in here.  It shot away after seeing me, but instead of going out into the deep channel it ran parallel to the beach and took at least 100 yds of line, taking me well into my braid backing.  I felt confident it would tire out eventually but then I felt the rubbing of the line against a reef papa and sure enough the line got stuck.  When I pulled, the line came back with no fish.  At least 20 yds were shredded and stretched.  Shucks, my dad would’ve really enjoyed the awa awa fish cake.

I had gone through 12 fresh dead oama and only landed a kaku.  Sheesh. I put on a frozen oama and it got pulled off.  By then the sun had set behind the mountains and I headed back in while there was still ambient light.

I guess this means the papio season is officially over.  The reef fish, small papio and kaku will still be around to pester the baits but it sure looks like the big omilus won’t be hunting inside until next season.  I would settle for a hard fighting awa awa until the papio return, though.