I had planned to cautiously explore a new area 2 miles out by kayak but the wind forecast kept changing so Capt Erik graciously offered to take me on his aluminum 14ft Lowe 1457 with 9.9 hp Yamaha tiller motor. The winds were under 8 mph at launch time and the waves weren’t bad. Capt Erik used his Navionics mobile app to provide navigation and we zipped out, past the waves, to the furthest of his spots he wanted to check that were within kayak distance from shore.
Capt Erik tested the surface bite by throwing a Yo-zuri Bull Popper and I dropped down the front half of an opelu on the bait rig. We didn’t have a fish finder but the Navionics app said we were in about 60 ft of water. Nothing was called up by Capt Erik’s popper and my opelu just got picked apart if it was too close to the bottom. Capt Erik switched to an Ahi USA damashi rig he tipped with plastic grubs and started getting moana and taape. The taape were kept to “clean the reef” of invasives, and the bigger moana were kept to join the fish fry. His damashi action looked a lot more fun than the non-action I was getting, so I put the bait rod in the rod holder and used my jig rod with a 2 hook damashi set. I put on a CHL Luk E. Lee (emerald green) Minnow and a Purple Obake Minnow I had left over from halalu fishing.
We were bringing up fish on the damashi but nothing too outstanding (hage, table boss, small goats) so Capt Erik kept moving us to the next mark he had on his Navionics app. I was surprised that not even a papio hit the baited line with halalu so I asked if we could go deeper. Big fish live in deeper water, right? By the length of the fall of our damashi rig, we guessed were were in 100 ft of water or more. Nothing hit our damashi or the halalu for a while, and then I finally hooked something on the damashi that made my rod tip twitch in a weird way. Turned out to be the slimy trumpetfish or nunu. What was he doing all the way down there in that barren depth? Capt Erik drove the boat even deeper and then he brought up a bigger nunu!
Without a fish finder we couldn’t easily locate drop offs so Capt Erik went further out and I reset the bait rig with a 6 inch frozen halalu about 12 cranks from the bottom. We used the damashi to gauge depth and bottom hardness, and I kept bouncing mine on the bottom. Suddenly my bait rig went off and the fish kept running! I had to bring in my damashi from a long way down but Capt Erik offered to reel it up so I could set the hook on the fish. The mystery fish had taken quite a bit of line and when I settled into the fight it felt heavy and strong. Bigger than any uku I’ve fought, no head shakes like an ulua, and too slow to be a pelagic. I was thinking “shark” by the steady pull with short breaks mixed in but Capt Erik said that a shark would’ve cut the line by now unless my Gamakatsu Live Bait hook or trailing VMC 4X Inline hook found its way into the corner of the mouth.
The next likely suspect was a kahala but I didn’t feel the head shakes associated with that species. I tried to bring it up as quick as I could but it had other plans. It took more than 6 minutes to get it to the surface, and it was 20 lb class kahala. Man those fish are really strong! I was thinking medium sized shark the whole time. The Gamakatsu Live Bait hook was perfectly set in the corner of the mouth and the trailing VMC Inline hook was busted off!
In this photo the CHL Purple Obake Minnow looks like a goatfish’s barbel!
I asked Capt Erik what is found with kahala in the depths and he said kawakawa, shibi, etc so I hurriedly dropped another bait down after releasing the kahala. Capt Erik saw the scum line where two currents came together and put us on a drift towards that. He felt his damashi weight settle softly and surmised we were over sand. The deep water lizardfish he brought up confirmed that. Wishful thinking, I announced that nabeta often are caught with those lizardfish, since we had experienced that on the Big Island last year. On my next damashi drop I felt small head shakes and some resistance and brought up the coveted nabeta on the CHL Obake Purple Minnow! We couldn’t believe we stumbled upon deep water gold.
Capt Erik dropped his 6 hook damashi set down and hooked something immediately. He very carefully reeled his catch to the surface and it was a whopper of a yellow/brown nabeta! That one looked more like deep water gold! We drifted off the spot and started catching lizardfish. A few birds were circling above and we could see 10 inch fish tail slapping the surface. I readied for the screamer that never came. All that activity must’ve spooked the nabeta because we weren’t catching anything on the bottom. Luckily Capt Erik marked the first nabeta spot with his Navionics app and took us back to it, so we could follow the same drift down.
We both hooked up on our first drop and I was really impressed with Capt Erik’s navigational skills to gauge depth and drift with just the mobile gps app. Despite having to run the boat, he jumped out to a big lead as I started to miss fish and drop them on the elevator ride up. He was up 7 to my 2 and we were nearing our departure time.
I really wanted to add to the fish count knowing how coveted these fish are and rallied with 3 more at the end. Our lofty goal was to get 10 nabeta and we ended up with 12!
Fishing with Capt Erik and his very upbeat personality is always a good time, but finding “our” own secret nabeta hole with just the Navionics app made it a trip of a lifetime.
Cooking Tip: Yesterday I fried one of the big yellow nabeta that Erik caught but it didn’t brown and crisp up because I didn’t leave it frying long enough. The meat still tasted good but the skin and scales weren’t like the fried panko they were supposed to be. Kelly said to just deep fry on medium heat until the skin turned brown, flipping it if the fish wasn’t covered by oil. I did that to this nabeta and look how onolicious it came out!