out of season papio
The waves on the South Shore were down and the winds were very light this morning. I decided to check my deeper water spot that’s normally exposed to surf and wind. I hadn’t trolled oamas there in 2 months and I wasn’t expecting much after blanking at my other trolling spots. I still had a few oamas left in my tubs at home and it was really hard to take my pets out to use as bait.
The first live oama went untouched for an hour until a lizard fish somehow hooked itself on the back hook while the oama still dangled on the front hook. You would think an oama followed by a lizard fish would make an excellent presentation but nothing wanted them.
I replaced the two with a lively 5 inch oama and continued paddling around on my longboard. 30 minutes passed. The last two times I had trolled here, all the baits were hit within 10 minutes. I guess the epic oama season of 2014 finally came to an end.
I headed in, staying on the reef edge of the channel and my ratchet went off. The strike was completely unexpected and the fish felt very strong. I felt the line rubbing on the reef off and on and tried to paddle over to free it. Once it came free I buttoned down the drag and the fish came in fairly quickly, having spent most of its energy on the early runs. For some reason the 14 inch papio fought so much harder then the others caught during the oama season. Maybe it was upset that it fell for the out of season oama.
My take on all this is that the predators aren’t looking for oama anymore but if they happen to stumble upon one they’ll still eat it.
Aloha Scott,
What sized Papio are the ones that reproduce?
Hi Jon,
According to the DAR Measurement Guide for Nearshore Fishes of Hawaii pamphlet (I couldn’t find the online version), 50% of papio (there are many species of papio) reach sexual maturity at 14.7″ to 24″. So a 16″ papio may not have spawned yet but its much worse to kill an 80lb ulua that has the potential to spawn many more babies with the genetics to survive and grow large.
-scott
Thanks Scott!
What happen to all the Oamas this year? Here in Kailua/lanikai super small school for couple days and not feeding. Yesterday and today…zero! Last year season was early and schools were massive. Me…to lazy to drive else where.
Hi Jon,
Yeah, it’s definitely not as good as last year. The oamas are slowly trickling in to my south shore spots but the schools have been small and the oama have been skittish. On the positive side, with less oama, the predators are hitting oama baits better than last year.
-scott