The tides haven’t been good to troll my remaining oamas and the north winds have made the water pretty chilly.  Instead, I’ve been wading the flats on low, evening tides in search of oio.  I’ve actually seen them feeding with their tails out of the water (tailing) but haven’t been close enough to take a suitable picture with my camera phone.  The oio look to be 5 – 8 lbs.  I’ve tried casting my cut shrimp setup near them but haven’t gotten any to take.

A helpful guy I met on the beach told me of his secret bait. He had three strong hits when I was out wading and ran out of bait. I gave him some shrimp but the picky oios snubbed that bait.  I’ll try to acquire his secret bait and give that a try next time.  It was great to see so many oio consistently feeding over the last few outings.  The lay net ban on the South Shore has definitely helped restore the oio fishery.

On that conservation note, I returned the large weke I caught 2 weeks ago.  It hadn’t eaten anything in captivity, including live opae, but was still very healthy as it swam to freedom.  Too bad I couldn’t train him to tell me where the oio were hiding.