There were some calm wind days this week so I decided to yak fish a spot I hadn’t since last season.   I had missed the early start on the first day because my oama had a major die off in one of the tubs and I had to scramble to try to save the remaining live ones.  Took some of them out to troll mid-morning at the top third of the tide.  The moon was already more than half full and water clarity was ok at the deep drop off.

Floating debris signaled the slack peak tide.  The fish finder detected a lot of bait fish near the surface.  The head-hooked live oama were pulled off or the barely hooked predators shook off quickly.  Two bigger fish cut me off on the edge of the sharp reef.  Very slow bite with live oama, figured the mid-morning start was to blame.  The only thing I hooked, at the end of the session, was this table boss.

Figuring the evening bite would be much better, Frank and I hit the same spot two days later at about 3pm.  This time the tide was dropping from the high tide and water clarity was poor.  Bait fish were detected all around, near the drop off and well into the deep channels but nothing hit the dead oama that had died in my tubs.  We paddled away from the shoreline drop off to find cleaner water, and clarity improved but there weren’t a lot of bait holding near the papa edges.  Frank did have a strike that pulled on his dead oama a few times, eventually pulling it off without getting hooked.  Looked like a small omilu that hits from the tail-side and yanks.  I didn’t get a single strike.

Was the oama too stink from partially decomposing in the tubs?  Did the fish only want live oama?  Was the moon too big, just 4 days before the full moon?  Was the falling tide bad even though it coincided with darkening sky?  Maybe there’s too much bait so close by that the fish don’t need to check out a hooked bait?  What conditions do you guys like to fish?

It sure seems like Screamer Season is over for us.  The big strikes that surprised us at the start of the “season” are a distant memory.