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Tested the new gear out West, should have kept the wild caught Kampachi!

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With no break in the trade winds, and gear to test, I grudgingly headed to the Westside. Not my favorite destination since it gets fished a lot and the traffic going home can be brutal in the afternoon. But with school out for the summer, the early morning drive was smooth sailing. I was meeting Lawrence on the water and he already had an 19lb ono in his fish bag before I had even left home!

He had gotten some akule before the sun came up, and the opelu didn’t bite for him so I knew I would have a hard time catching bait. My game plan was just to learn the shallow bottom fish grounds and hopefully catch some keeper sized good eating fish on the damashi and small jig.

I started with new red VMC offset Octopus hooks and 13 Fishing soft plastics infused with amino acids/protein, along with my standby CHL Minnows. I liked the way the Octopus hook hung straight down on the branch line because of the bend near the eye of the hook but was leery about the offset hook deep hooking the fish.

Found some fish marks near the bottom but nothing bit the baits for a long time. Began to wonder if the 13 Fishing plastic was scaring the fish!

Then I felt small fish hitting the lures and coming off, and eventually deep hooked a small nabeta that was hard to unhook. I was not loving the new hooks and the 13 Fishing soft plastic wasn’t getting bit any better than the CHL Minnows. The bite continued to be slow and I landed a kawalea (Heller’s barracuda) whose buddies broke off the other hooks so I changed to a 15lb damashi rig with the normal gold Maruto MZ hooks.

Lawrence was far away, out of radio range, so he called me on my cell to tell me he was hooked up to something BIG and was getting towed out to sea. 25 minutes into the fight, he was about to get spooled so he tightened his drag and the fish broke off. He ended up in 700ft of water and cranked up the Newport 300 motor on his Hobie Outback to get back in. He believes it was a legit ahi (yellowfin over 100lb) that he couldn’t stop on his Avet LX Raptor.

I stumbled upon a keeper nabeta and tried to get more to make a meal but failed. Then my damashi rig got mauled and I brought up an odd looking small kahala. I had a feeling it was an almaco jack, the fish they farm in Kona and call Kampachi, and thought about keeping it but let the 1lb fish go.

At home I looked up how to tell the difference between an almaco and greater amberjack. The almaco’s eyes are further back than the end of the jaw, whereas the greater amberjack’s eye are right above the end of its jaw. This was an almaco.

I figured I’d hook a bunch on the tungsten jig but as I swung the jig back to cast, it hit my paddle and the reel backlashed badly. Somehow I sliced my thumb in the process and by the time I got a band aid on to stop the bleeding I lost the school. 🙁

Lawrence met me and we headed in. The paddle back in was short and uneventful but dealing with the sloped sandy beach was brutal. The asphalt pavement was so hot I got burnt through my surf booties. You gotta be rugged to survive on this side of the island!

This was my 3rd time on the Westside and I still haven’t figured it out. There definitely are big fish if you have live bait, and shallow bottom fish if you get them when they are feeding, or have better bait than I did. I’ll give the VMC Octopus hooks and 13 Fishing lures another chance over hungrier fish before giving up on them. Traffic going home was much better than when I had done that during school season.

With only 1 nabeta I didn’t want to deal with deep frying the fish on a propane stove so I ended up scaling, gutting and removing the center bone so my sister could steam it for my dad. Her cats made quick work of the meat left on that bone. I wasn’t used to how flexible the Rapala Fish Pro fillet knife was so I had to learn to trust that it could actually cut through the bone. It was nice that the thin blade allowed me to cut so close to the bone and not waste meat. Finally, one of the new products worked as hoped!

Holoholo: Flying Fish TV double ono, shibi and kawakawa on kayak!

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My name is Dan, but a lot of people know me by my YouTube channel Flying Fish TV. I am pilot by profession, former military and now as a civilian I am pursuing my greatest passion, kayak fishing. Before moving to Hawaii I told myself that if I managed to figure it out that I would start a channel to teach others. I started kayak fishing back in 2010, but never really went anywhere with it until my family was stationed in Hawaii. After fishing mostly solo for 6 months in Hawaii I started to get it down and started a YouTube channel in May of 2018. 

Dan: It was a Saturday morning and despite having to work in the afternoon I hit the water. My friend and I had been eyeing the forecast and it looked like the last day before the wind was going to pick up. It was supposed to be 14-18 knots and 4ft swell. On the way out in the dark we could tell that it was going to be a little rougher than expected. As the sun came up and we could see the conditions and we decided to make it as short of a trip as possible. We easily caught bait and I filled my bait tubes with 5 opelu each. I set out my first long bait and then my short bait, both on wire. The current was ripping pretty hard and after about 40 minutes I was thinking we would be going home with a big donut.

I had drifted a couple hundred feet in that time and started moving back. I opened the bail on my long bait and the line seemed to peel off a little faster than my bait could move. I closed the bail and I was on. It was fighting a little weird and I wasn’t sure if I had a needlefish (aha) at first or later on a yellow fin tuna (shibi) or a wahoo (ono). I had the fish at my 50ft leader and I strained to see it in the water. With waves and the ripples I wasn’t able to tell it was a wahoo until it popped up right by my kayak. Knowing there wasn’t enough light to get a good picture I kage’d him and brought him in the kayak. It had a big scar near the tail and a broken dorsal fin as well.

At some point after catching bait I managed to lose one of my bait tubes despite it being in a carabiner. It must have slipped out, but the paracord may have broken as well. Either way the bait tube sailed off with 4 live baits inside. During the fight I managed to drown my other bait and after switching it I set it out at my 200ft mark. Shortly after I put the wahoo in my fish bag I heard a buzz as something hit my long bait. I picked up the rod thinking that I missed the fish. I left my bait out there hoping the wahoo would come back for the other half. After a few seconds I started reeling in the slack and the fish was still on. I moved my other live bait rod around so I could chase the fish without getting majorly tangled. I got to my leader quickly but the fish fought hard digging in circling below the kayak. I must have gotten the yellowfin in range to kage several times, but it kept taking line. I finally kage’d the fish and I was surprised how lit up it was. It might have been that I pulled the fish in about half as much time as usual.

During the fight a big swell of around 8ft knocked something loose on my battery or so I thought. The fish finder kept powering on and off every second and it turned out that the power cable was broken at the fuse. I disconnected the fish finder after the fight. I now had my first ever wahoo and yellow fin combo and I started to dream about a grand slam. I have had several yellow fin and mahi mahi combos in the past. Another swell snapped me back into reality as I put the yellow fin tuna in the fish bag. I had drifted about a half mile since the first hook up and decided it wasn’t worth moving back. I set out another short bait on wire and it wasn’t long before the bait was freaking out. The rod tip was bouncing so much I wasn’t sure if a shark was about to eat it or it was running for its life from a pelagic. I opened my bail to let it run as life like as possible. It was maybe 3 seconds later it stopped taking line and I closed the bail. I could feel that something was chomping on it so I put the reel into live liner mode. Once the fish started to run again I clicked off the live liner mode and I was on. It felt tiny like I had hooked a bonita (kawa kawa) or a small yellow fin as I brought the fish to my leader. I pulled it right to within 20 feet of the kayak and then it must have realized it was hooked. It was another yellow fin screaming off line in desperation. Once I got the fish close again I saw that it was only hooked by the stinger and I stood a good chance of losing the fish. I chilled out a little bit and waited for it to wear itself out. I pulled it into the kayak and it was a copycat of the first all lit up. I told my friend that if I caught another fish that it was going to be too heavy for the kayak as it was getting pretty tippy with the big swells. He offered to let me throw fish in his fish bag if needed. 

The night before I had texted my friend that I was going to bring the Dock Demon, my toy rod. If I was successful in catching one wahoo I was going to try to get one on the Dock Demon. I was still in the area where I caught the last yellow fin and set out my second to last bait on wire with the dock demon. Initially the bait ran around my bait tube lanyard, but after I got it loose I free lined the bait. It swam down and away from the kayak with the line jerking off the spool. The last fish I had caught on the dock demon was the 20lb yellow fin and a lot of the braid was tightly compacted. With the jerking motions I barely noticed that something had picked up my bait and was swallowing it. That was until I stopped free lining with about 70 feet of line out. The small dock demon bent over and I felt the weight of something. I instinctively moved the steering handle in an attempt to get the line around the bow to the right side of the kayak. If at all possible I fight fish from the right side of the kayak that is free from my camera, fish finder or transducer. The line got caught on the front handle and my luck held as it popped free.

By now the fish was running and the Shimano Senora was singing. It was way up on the surface and I knew it had to be a wahoo. I initially thought I was in for a pretty long fight but after a few minutes the fish had stopped running on the surface and was around 30 feet below the kayak. I could see something long and skinny, but a little smaller than I imagined. Below the kayak it started circling and having forgot about my other line and I slowly drifted over it. I grabbed the small wahoo and after putting the dock demon in the rod holder I started to realize that I actually made it happen. It was at this point I noticed my other line going under the kayak and grabbed my rod to avoid a tangle, but it was too late. My line was flapping in the wind as it had been clean cut 200ft above my bait. I’m pretty sure that the wahoo swam through my line and cut me off. Since the fish was pretty small I decided that it would just barely fit in the fish bag with all of the other fish. It wasn’t easy maneuvering the fish bag with nearly 100lbs in it, but in the process the unthinkable happened. While struggling to get the zipper closed my hand slipped and I knocked the Dock Demon out of the rod holder and it was gone sinking below the kayak.

A little heart broken I had almost met my goal of catching a wahoo, yellow fin tuna, and a mahi mahi on the dock demon. I was totally loaded down at this point and started heading in slowly. I still had one bait left and I tossed it in not knowing the depth. My friend was also near us on his boat and I asked him if he wanted one of the yellow fin tuna. He said yes and was maneuvering to take the fish when my bait got hit. It was a kawakawa and I ended up giving him both fish. I gave the smaller wahoo to my friend on the trip.

I finally purchased a scale and the wahoo were 24 and 16lbs, and the yellow fin tuna was 18lbs. With my 20lb bag of ice my fish bag had 96lbs in it, the second most weight I have ever put in it. If it was flat this much weight would have been fine but not in 5ft waves. My friend was still trying to catch some more fish but after the bite died off we made our way in at 9am. Tons of action for such a short trip and my best fishing trip in Hawaii far. Double wahoo and a yellow fin, now I just need to tack a mahi on and I’ll have a grand slam.