For boat, kayak and even from shore, calm days with little swell are much more comfortable to fish. But those days are often extremely slow.

As an unplanned experiment, I kayak fished the same area 3 times. The first was overcast and a little choppy; second time had cross swell and a rain storm chased me off the water. The third time was glass calm with no swell all day.

On the first outing I stumbled upon biting fish in the early afternoon that happened to coincide with the solar – lunar bite time. The bite was surprisingly good and a 25lb ulua landed on the light jig rod ended the day.

The second outing was a little slower because it wasn’t during a good solar – lunar period but when the rain storm rolled in the fishing got really good. Akule, opelu and lai were hunkered down in relatively shallow water and biting on every drop of the damashi. Unhooking the lai slowed me down and I left when it got too cold to fish. Akule normally don’t bite during the day and must’ve thought it was night time!

The third time was so pleasant to fish. Easy to paddle, no current to push me off the spots but only the less desirable fish like taape, moana and hawk fish bit well.

I slow trolled a bite size opelu out to 200ft and back to the shallows with no interest from predators. Bait stealers eventually ripped it apart at 100ft and a big kawalea took a frozen opelu later.

The water surface looks like a mirror in this photo!

I had to work really hard to catch some nabeta to salvage the trip, chumming around and baiting my damashi rig with opelu skin.

So why do fish bite better on the darker days with more chop on the water? It seems like prey fish such as opelu and akule feel safer when they’re harder to be spotted by larger fish, and the predatory fish feel they can ambush prey fish better when it’s not as easy to see them approach. So on the calm, bright days, you’ll see the smaller fish on the food chain moving around carefree, while the larger fish are taking naps some where.

What should you do to help generate a bite? Chum around to start a feeding frenzy and use the freshest bait possible.