I used to think consuming oama instead of using them as bait was a sacrilege. I would never waste such a perfect papio attractant but I’ve been hearing that many people are frying up their catch in this bumper crop year.

successful oama outing

My friend Herb, who hasn’t fished for oama since childhood, was interested in the first hand experience of catching, cleaning and frying the tasty critters.  After a few pointers and the disclaimer that most newbies take a while to develop the oama catching touch, we stalked the oama on the inside of the flats.  There were some moments of frenzied feeding but most of the time was spent coaxing the fish to bite by snapping the bait up and down near the bottom.  After nearly 5 hours (yes time really flies when you have oamas falling off your hook) Herb had enough to feed his family and I had enough to keep alive in my fish tubs.

Click here to see how I did with those oama.

cleaned oama

Next Herb had to painstakingly scale, gill and gut the fingerling weke.  Later he was told that scaling wasn’t necessary so his next batch of oama were just gilled, gutted and fried.

frying the oama

They were then rolled in flour, garlic salt and pepper, and deep fried.  A dipping sauce of shoyu, Sriracha hot sauce and lemon juice topped off the onolicious meal.

finished product

Although his family thought the fried oama was delicious, Herb said he’d have to seriously consider the time it took to catch and clean those little guys.

I have a new found respect for the oama fisherfolks that are catching to eat. It’s a lot of work!