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Holoholo: First fish on the fly gear!

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Accomplished whipper Jeremy recently picked up the fly fishing game. He landed his first fish on fly gear this Saturday, and followed that up with a solid catch on the spinning gear Sunday. He’s making it look easy during the “off season”.

Jeremy: Had a good weekend of fishing. 

Saturday morning:  Winds were projected to be light, so I decided to bring out the fly gear.  I’m still a beginner and I need the lighter winds so I can practice casting.  Fly fishing, especially the casting, is the hardest type of fishing I’ve ever done.  I still suck at it, but can’t get better unless you practice, so my buddy and I headed out just as the sun was coming up.  We split up and started looking for tails.  My primary goal was to get in casting time, so I blind casted as I made my way onto the flats.  I still haven’t caught anything on the fly gear, so catching any fish would be an added bonus. 

I slowly walked and looked for tails and every so often made some casts into “fishy” areas.  At around 7:15am, I made a blind cast, slowly stripped in my fly, and about halfway into my retrieve, I felt a small tap.  I set the hook and there wasn’t much movement, so I figured it was a really small papio.  But after about 5 seconds, I think the o’io finally figured out he was hooked and took off on a blistering run.  I stop the initial surge, got him turned, and then he decides to swam almost directly back to me!  I tried to crank my reel as fast as I could to keep tension on the line, but it felt like he spit the hook.  Just as I’m about to give up hope, I feel tension again on the line.  Yes, fish still on!  He made a couple more small runs before I finally landed him.  Chee!!!  My first fish on the fly setup!   Took a few pictures and released him back.  

No other action for the rest of the session, but I was stoked.  Landed my first fish and got to get in some much needed casting practice time.

Sunday morning:  Winds were slightly stronger, so brought out the spinning gear.  No action in the first hour, but around 8am, I felt a small tap on the line.  I set the hook and it felt like I was stuck.  I maintained tension and then it took off.  Scrapped the fish for around 5 minutes and landed another nice o’io.  

No action again for the next hour, then I get another slight tap.  Set the hook…Hanapa’a!  Small one, but it’s a beautiful 13” omilu.

Awesome weekend for me.  Landed some nice fish in this “slow” period.  But, one thing I’ve noticed recently is the strikes are really different.  I’m not getting any of those hard hitting ones.  Almost all my bites in the past couple months were really small taps or felt like dead weight, like I was dragging in seaweed.  It’s like the fish don’t really know they’re hooked for the first few seconds.  So my tip for the week:  set the hook if you think you felt a bite and keep constant pressure for a few seconds, even if it feels like seaweed.  It might actually be a good sized fish ?

Holoholo: Fly fishing odd ball slam

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Jason, our resident fly guy, provided this unusual catch report and insight to what’s going on near shore.

Jason:

I was getting over a cold and felt that a fly fishing session was just what the doctor ordered. My first choice had no parking, so it was onward to my backup spot.  I got there, rigged up, threw on my wading boots and waded out, looking for fish and “bombing” (blind casting) as I went.   

On my wade out to my usual spot, I hooked a small scrappy omilu while “playing” with a spotted eagle ray.  As often happens when sight fishing bones, it seemed to come out of nowhere to snatch the fly before the ray could get to it.  It wasn’t much bigger than 7,” but what a load of fun on a fiberglass fly rod.  

A little while later, while bombing, I thought I had snagged the bottom.  I waded up to the spot where the fly appeared to be stuck, and tried to free it.  It was unusually stubborn, but after some finagling, I felt it give, but with a weight at the end.  “Great, a rock,” I thought to myself.  I was shocked to see a fully inflated porcupinefish appear at the surface  This was a first for me.   It appeared to be foul hooked below its anal fin (probably very near its actual anus, haha).

After a good chuckle, I continued to bomb the same general area, working a bit to the left, then later, a bit to the right, in front of a big blue hole, maybe a hundred yards or so from the “mouth” where it opened up to a nice, wide channel.  After about a dozen casts, I was about ready to call it day when I finally felt a tug.  There it was; I was just a short 2 minute fight away from completing…. the Fugu Slam! Actually, I don’t think that’s “a thing,”  but I’m calling it that from now on HAHA.    All were hooked on the same fly, too, which earns me extra prestige points haha.  

The bone was a rat, no bigger than a couple pounds, but this was about as fun and interesting a day as one could ask for.   

Holoholo: Big oio and yellow spot papio caught in cold shallow water on a fly

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Jason has been a shore fisherman since he could walk in the water with his dad.  He started fly fishing for oio in 2016.  He has a unique vantage point to provide fish reports since he’s standing in the water for hours looking for fish.  Here’s a short recap of a recent successful outing.

Jason:
It was a chilly and windy December morning, but I had been jonesin’ to fish all weekend, so I decided to go. The tide was also up which meant spotting the few fish that were around would be difficult, and I would be mostly blind casting.

As expected, the day started out pretty slowly. At some point i missed something that felt like a small papio, but other than that, no bites and no fish sighted. After a few hours of blind casting like a mad man, suddenly, out of the blue, I felt a subtle take, followed by a sharp tug – I set the hook and it was on! It felt like a pretty nice fish, and I must’ve wrestled with it for a good 5-7 minutes before finally bringing it to hand. A friend was about 100 yards east of me, so I waded over and got him to snap a few photos before I released the oio.

I went back to the same spot, still basking in the glow of the oio catch and thinking the day was just about over when I suddenly felt another good take. This time it felt a bit different. It ran hard, but in shorter spurts, and when brought in close, I noticed it tended to sit passively in the current, hardly moving. “papio!”, I said aloud to myself. A short while later, I brought it in close enough to see color and sure enough, I saw the electric blue outline of a nice yellow-spot papio. I had caught two around the same size in this channel about a year ago, so it seems to be a hot spot for them. Not bad action for a chilly and windy December morning…