Sharp hooks make a difference!

After missing fish the last few times out, I sharpened the replacement double hook I run on the Waxwing Baby.  One of the two hooks had been sliding off my thumb nail. Now it can pierce my nail, ouch.

Jason, the recent fly fishing convert,  joined me on this outing as I continued the JDM lure testing.  He waded out onto the shallow flat targeting the papio and kaku I was hoping to hook from shore.  Normally he targets oio but wanted to add those species to his fly caught list.

Almost immediately he had a kaku on that battled for a while before cutting his fluoro leader.  Ugh! It took his streamer fly (I dunno what it’s called) but that gave us hope.

I started with the black/chrome WW, and had a small white follow the lure onto the sand. A little while later I caught this undersized white with the hook that I had just sharpened.  Hmm… could it have been the dull hook that was causing all those misses?  Too small to tag, it was released.

 

 

A few yards down the beach a kaku stopped the WW and hooked up.  My first fish I tagged solo.  Hmm, I didn’t miss this fish either…

With a fish tagged, I put away my go-to WW and put on a JDM top water lure I’m still getting used to. I tried to “walk the dog” but there was no interest. Dang, and the lure finish looked so realistic.

Next lure up was the top-secret JDM top-water lure that hasn’t failed yet, either inshore or offshore. On the first retrieve something boiled on it but missed.  Then I went through a bit of inactivity until I decided to sweep the rod hard to make it gurgle. Slurp… POP!  A slightly smaller kaku jumped on and I tagged it.  Man, that lure is really magical.

I walked over to small channel and walked-the-dog. Nothing. I was expecting something to rocket out of the water with the secret lure in its mouth.  Thinking the predators couldn’t see well in the waning light I made the lure gurgle and pop.  A white papio lunged twice but missed the secret lure’s hooks.  Hmm… good test for the previous top-water lure now that I know there’s a hungry fish around.  I put on the previous lure, gurgled hard and sure enough a white boiled but missed the lure.  Maybe it was just too dark to see? It was raining so was a good time to head back.

I caught up with Jason and he said he had hits and misses but hadn’t stuck anything solid after the first kaku. We started heading back but saw some bait near the shore so we gave it a parting shot.  Jason hooked something on his popper fly and this one stayed on. Turned out to be a legal white papio, his first on a fly rod!  It had a smushed jaw as if it had run into a wall when it was young.  Other than that it looked healthy so I tagged it and Jason set it free.

Not a bad first attempt for Jason to target papio and kaku near the shoreline.  And the Waxwing’s catch ratio is back up now that it has sticky sharp hooks.  I gotta work on that other JDM lure that has yet to catch a fish.