Damashi/sabiki out fished live opelu and jigs but big fish kept breaking off, even with 40lb line! Early Winter shallow bottom report.

December 5, 2024 By Scott Leave a Comment

I have been focusing on shallow bottom fishing since I don’t start early enough for productive pelagic fishing. Bottom fishing has less variables since the fish are usually somewhere in the general vicinity but the trick is getting the right ones to bite.

Almost all species of predatorial fish seem to be attracted to small bait imitations moving up and down in unison. Often the morning starts with opelu biting mid-water column, and when that slows, fish near the bottom eagerly hit the damashi rig. Some spots are loaded with taape and small moana. The former I kill and release back to the reef, the latter I release unharmed.

While it’s always fun to feel the bites and bring up fish, unhooking unwanted fish is just time away from catching the desirable fish like uku, yellow spot papio and kagami papio.

This report comprises of the last 2 trips. 1 trip back, a 1.5 lb uku got tail wrapped and hooked multiple times and by the time I unraveled it, it was in bad shape so I had to keep it. While I’ve been trying to get uku here for years, normally I wouldn’t keep one under 2lb.

Then some toau (invasive black tail snapper) started biting, and since their bones are easier to deal with than the small boned taape, I brought them home.

I went out to the 200ft area but could only get a kahala checking out the underwater camera.

On the way in, I checked the nabeta spot with a small piece of aku belly on the bottom damashi hook and something hit harder than a nabeta could and took some drag. I was stunned to see a 2.5lb uku come up, which is still on the small side but the biggest for this greater area that lacks large rocks and caves.

A fat 11 inch moana hit next and joined the catch. All in all, a productive day learning the bottom fish grounds. My neighbor fried the moana and toau fillets tempura-style and said they were amazing. The smaller uku was steamed, and the bigger one was given to a friend who said the sashimi was firm enough and very good despite only being 2.5lb.

CHL Minnows added to store-bought damashi set

The winds dropped again this week and I set out to bottom fish the damashi armed with the 1.5 inch CHL Minnows (the ones with the split fish tail) and some leftover Japanese wormy lures. Since even my 20lb rigs were broken off on the previous trip, I had rigs tied all the way up to 40lb test.

Look at the bait school on the fish finder!

The opelu showed up on the fish finder and bit in the shallows. I filled the bait tube, requiring me to drag the tube around. Although the wind was down there was a strong current running South to North that kept pushing me away from my spots.

I put out a live opelu and landed and released a big kawalea (Heller’s Barracuda). Good eating but like all barracuda, its slime is really stink.

The next opelu was neatly sliced in half but there were small teeth marks also, meaning it probably wasn’t an ono. The following opelu just had small bites taken out so I gave up live baiting and focused on the damashi fishing.

The afternoon bite really turned on, and omilus and bigger jacks kept jumping on the hooks. I released 3 omilu and each of my rigs from 15lb to 40lb eventually get their branch lines cut or light gold hooks broken off by heavy, strong fish. Those brutes didn’t fall for a jig, interestingly enough.

I was feeling a little desperate with nothing but opelu in my fish bag and then I stumbled upon a very small area where a 1.5lb yellow spot came up, followed by a 2lb uku and then a light colored goat fish that turned out to be a large 12 inch malu (side spotted goatfish). Whew, finally got some great eating fish to take home.

It was a lot of work to get these small good eating fish, with so much bycatch (taape, hagi, small moana, lizardfish, etc). I gave the big opelu to a friend at the beach who plans to make lomi opelu out of them, and kept a small one to freeze for bait.

The malu had crabs and some red & white shrimp in its stomach a little bigger than my CHL Minnows, and the yellow spot papio had translucent baby fish just a bit bigger than the minnows. No wonder the small damashi lures were so effective. Maybe really big fish were eating the same small food? I’ll be taking 40lb damashi with longer shanked Gamakatsu hooks next time and hope to see what’s been busting me off!

Here’s a comparison of the yellow spot papio and uku, prepared as sashimi and steamed.

Here’s a comparison of the malu and moana, prepared steamed.

Video: See how damashi fishing was affected by weather and solar-lunar influence

March 5, 2024 By Scott Leave a Comment

Recently fished the same area 3 times in different weather and solar-lunar conditions as I had mentioned in this post. The fish bit really well in the afternoon on the first 2 trips because of weather and solar-lunar effects, and only the “rubbish fish” bit on the 3rd outing because the water was too calm and clear.

Here’s a short video of the damashi/sabiki fishing to support this.

0:04 1st time – 2pm, slightly overcast with Major Bite period. The target fish (uku, moana kali, yellowspot papio) I had been looking for bit, but they were small.

1:11 2nd time, 2pm, dark skies with heavy rain, no bite period. Every drop of the damashi during the rain storm got bit, even by akule (goggle eye) that normally don’t bite during the day.

1:49 3rd time – 11am, very calm and clear, no bite period. Too calm, only the “rubbish fish” bit.

Kayak fishing after heavy rain and brown water – underwater surveillance

March 16, 2021 By Scott Leave a Comment

Finally, a small break in the rain and wind. Normally, fishing after a cold front is not too productive, but it’s been a month and a half since the last kayak outing and I was going nuts. The guys weren’t able to join me so this would be a solo expedition to learn more about the area we’ve fished the last 2 times. I brought Guy’s secret damashi bait he uses and brought my underwater GoPro rig to really see what the Garmin Echomap 44CV Plus was marking.

At about 18ft deep there were a lot of marks that looked like a scattered school of bait fish.

I lowered the GoPro and expected it to record fish spread out all over the place but instead there were these air bubbles! Is that what the fish finder has been marking? Look how murky it was.

At 100ft, I marked reef fish on the bottom and dropped the GoPro down. Very few fish showed on the video and it was still very murky that far from shore.

I’m beginning to think a lot of the marks I’m seeing on the fish finder are fish being marked more than once as they remain under the fish finder’s “cone”.

Time to fish! The baited damashi was lowered and a keeper moana came up on the first drop. It was a little too big to use for bait so I brained it with my “iki spike” and put it in the fish bag. Turns out that was the only fish I brought home. 🙁

I eventually caught a smaller moana that I put down live and nothing took it. I set that moana free with two superficial wounds and put down a frozen opelu. After a long time the bait stealers picked it apart.

On this slow day, the biggest fish landed was a table boss (a’awa) that was foul hooked in the cheek on the damashi and felt like something much better. It was shaken off and set free.

I slow trolled a frozen opelu on the way in that got picked up. Something ran for a few seconds, then dropped the opelu. A second later it got heavy and I started cranking in what felt like a 5lb weight. Then the weight released and a small tako came up! I’m thinking a fish pulled off the body of the opelu (notice that the head is left on the top hook) and the tako lunged for the head but got hooked by the rear hook. It tried to latch onto a rock and eventually dropped that rock. I was trying to figure out how I’d unhook it without it climbing all over me, but the little guy did a Spider Man swing to the side of the kayak, shook off the hook and disappeared.

Very slow day of fishing. Nothing touched the compact tungsten jig either. I think the predator fish didn’t want to deal with the murky conditions and were hunting in cleaner water.

Side Note: The little compact ExpertPower Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) battery I mentioned a few posts ago hardly lost any juice after the 6+ hours of fishing. It started at 13.5 V and ended with 13.0 V. Light, lasts long and was really inexpensive. Almost too good to be true. If you missed that post you can read it here.