Hawaii Nearshore Fishing

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Holoholo: Aha (needlefish) catch and cook

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Kelly is one of our core fishing buddies and a terrific SUP fishing minimalist.  He joined Frank and me out in the deep on a calm day and sent a message to the marauding aha by keeping two to eat!

Kelly:
Since the water was malia (calm), I decided to join the ‘yak trip and see how far out I could go on my SUP while hopefully still fishing effectively. My backup plan was to troll the shallow inshore reefs for papio and awa awa. I arrived well before the latebird  ( Scott 🙂 ) so I decided to troll the inshore reef before he/Frank launched and test the inshore action. After an hour with no strikes, I saw them launching from the beach so paddled over to intercept them on the way out. The glassiness of the water and slow start inshore swayed me to tag along with the yakkers. I figured that I wouldn’t catch anything on my surface trolled oama, but it was a nice day for a paddle.

 

 

 

 

 

Well long story short, I ended up with several large `aha so decided to keep a couple for pupus (snacks). Turns out those fish are rather tasty and here are some photos of the end result. Our guests in town from Japan really enjoyed the panko `aha!

Bad solar/lunar day vs good solar/lunar day

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Lately I’ve been comparing my fishing results to the predictions on Tides4fishing.com and I seem to do better on the days with more solar (sun) and lunar (moon) activity.  In simple terms, the position of the sun and moon affect tides and, it’s believed, fish activity.

Opelu victim #1

Opelu victim #2

This past week I fished 4 days after the full moon and Tides4fishing had a dismal prediction. To compound matters I fished the mid-morning last half of the falling tide and the wind was blowing 10 – 14 mph.  The bite was really slow and I just had three 8 inch frozen opelu stripped at the gills.  This happened at 70ft and twice at 30 ft, and I suspected a big kaku.  Note that both fish just missed the second hook. I suspect the didn’t hit the baits hard, and just pulled the back half away.

The wind was much lighter 3 days later, 7 days after the full moon, and the solar/lunar activity was predicted to be much higher.  I was able to fish the first half of the falling tide, and the current was almost too slack. To get a better shot at landing the bait stealer, I lengthened the line between the two hooks and buried the second hook in the tail.

 

 

 

 

 

My left hand was getting ready to pull its teeth out of my shin!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sure enough, there was much more bait activity spotted on the fish finder, and 3 fish were solidly hooked. Unfortunately, the culprits were big aha or needlefish. All were hooked on the back hook and the first one eventually bit through the 40lb fluoro leader, which was fine with me.  The second unhooked itself, even better.  I couldn’t shake the 3rd and smallest of the 3 so I had to unhook it.  I kept my feet out of the water and still, the aha rammed into the side of the kayak and then hit my shin with the underneath of its jaw.  Glad it didn’t jump into the yak with its mouth open.

I also missed a couple more drag pullers while trolling, and had my baits pulled off with hard jerks when I bottom fished but couldn’t hook what I hope were small uku. The two days varied in wind speed and tidal movement phase so it wasn’t an apples to apples comparison, but I believe that the fish bit much better on the second outing because the moon was smaller and I was able to fish right at the high tide drop.

How does the size of the moon affect your catches?