Last fished in January. February to mid-March was too windy, late March into mid-April was plagued with 3 Kona Lows and brown water. Finally got out last week after almost 11 weeks of dry dock. Kayak fished with a friend, Bill, I had been trying to sync up with for a few years. We started at the bottom of the tide with the tide peaking in the late afternoon. It was really calm, so I didn’t expect a good bottomfish bite.

Bill, ever the optimist, said “you never know until you go”, and that he often gets his pelagic bites at the bottom of the tide. He met a new friend on the way out who gave him some left over live akule, so Bill took them out deep to entice the big fish. I wanted to check the shallow bottom spots on the way out with the trusty damashi / sabiki rig. I couldn’t find opelu but a surprise nabeta came up adjacent to the reef. That was followed up by a beautiful moana kali.

Bill radio’d in that he caught a yellow spot papio and a keeper uku so I left the shallows and went to my 120ft spot. I hooked a 4lb omilu on the 2.25″ CHL Sprat soft plastic, which was unusual. I wanted to catch fish for some good friends visiting from the Big Island, and had promised another friend fish, so I kept the omilu. Normally I release them so they can give the shore guys a go.

I moved deeper, hitting spots I had caught yellow spots and uku, and a hard fighting white papio came up on the damashi. A friend from church really likes the crunch of white papio sashimi so I kept this one also.

Since papios were coming up on spots I normally don’t catch them, I dropped a jig down on a known ulua/kahala deep spot, thinking something else might be home. The 120g Chubby jig got hit on the 2nd drop. It was a 10lb plus kahala and was released.

Since it was so calm and I wasn’t finding the target fish, I decided to check a spot a friend did well at, and traveled half a mile further south than I had ever fished. I didn’t have the mark saved on my fish finder but I did save it on my Navionics phone app, so I used that to get to the area. I marked what looked like a bait ball down deep but when I dropped the damashi, I hooked another white papio, that was getting close to ulua size.

I kept this one for a friend who lives in the area and finds creative ways to eat papio and ulua. I was so over catching these brutish jacks. Or so I thought. Next drop was an even bigger fish I couldn’t land. I went back to the shallows to find some tasty goat fish but couldn’t even pull that off. I got bit off by toothy fish and my Bixpy battery was getting low.

Meanwhile Bill was about a half mile further out and he found a nabeta, and then another good sized yellow spot. I thought of heading back out but could see my battery draining so I headed in. The battery died about 3/4 mile from the launch and I had to paddle unassisted. Good thing I wasn’t further out.

So after not fishing for so long, it turned out to be a very nice day with steady action. Bill got all the good bottom fish and I got my line stretched by jacks, but it was just so enjoyable to be on the water with such a nice guy.

Here’s the video of the action if you haven’t seen it in the previous post.

My friend Jon from the Big Island, who worked as a Tamashiro Market fish cutter in high school, and enjoyed making great tasting seafood dishes for us, deep fried the nabeta and topped it with garlic crunchy oil.

He let the omilu rest and on Day 3, fried the omilu skin, then he fried the papio fillet with salt, pepper and flour, garnished with tartar sauce, saving some for sashimi. I didn’t know the sashimi would have that nice pink coloration. He said it was mild and a little crisp since it was only 3 days out of the water.

The moana kali was steamed with ginger, garlic, chinese parsley, shiitake mushrooms, sesame oil, mirin and sprinkled with red alae salt. After it was done steaming, he drizzled hot peanut oil and garlic over it. To top it off, he spooned a mixture of oyster sauce and shoyu over the fish. The fish was on the small side, so it flaked off into small pieces and loose bones had to be carefully removed.

I suspected those papio were staging to spawn but none had mature gonads. What was also odd was their stomachs were empty. I wonder why there were so many around, hitting such small lures? Maybe all the runoff caused shrimps and crustaceans to fill the deep reef?