The rare light wind, small wave, small moon day presented itself.  My fishing partner, Frank, was out of town so Kelly graciously filled in.  Kelly planned to troll frozen oama on the way out to the deep and then switch to damashi tipped with ika when fish showed up on the EchoMap 44CV fish finder/map charter.  I planned to keep things simple and bottom fish with frozen opelu and maybe drop a jig with the other rod.

I hadn’t bottom fished with bait at this particular spot and wanted to see if that would be the difference maker.  Kelly hooked an undersized omilu within minutes of launching and released it. I steadily paddled out, telling him my depth via walkie talkie as he followed behind.  Before I reached the 100 ft mark, Kelly battled and landed a big aha which he also released since he hoped for better fish in the deep.

Fish gathered under me so I dropped a frozen 6 inch opelu down on a relatively small offset circle hook.   The first couple were getting pulled off the hook without me even detecting the theft.  Then some came back with 2 inches missing off the tail, or puncture marks through the body.  At first I was excited because our last two big moon bottom fishing trips yielded no bites, but as I quickly went through my bait supply,  concern mounted.  Kelly damashi fished and after a while got a bite. Up came a big nabeta! Whoohoo!  I was surprised they were in 100 ft since I thought we were over a rocky ledge, not the sand that nabeta hide in.

More of my opelu were mangled and the bite pattern sure looked like fang-toothed nabeta, though maybe I was wishful thinking.  I was down to a 3 inch piece of a big opelu head and three 8-inch whole opelu.  I changed to the 12/0 VMC circle hook I had been using in the past, since the offset hook I was using had too small a gap to slip around the bait.  With the opelu head securely hooked through the nostrils, I dropped down and waited. Tap, tap, tap. Kelly was watching nearby when the fish ran hard with the bait and took drag for a second. It managed to pull the bait off without getting hooked.  Sigh…

Kelly magically brought up a moana on his damashi and I hooked it through the nostrils and set it down.  I drifted that moana further out, over ledges for a good amount of time and nothing hit it.  It was a good test and in the future I’ll stick to opelu if I have some.

We started fishing our way in, and Kelly stretched his body by standing and fishing off the SUP.  Takes a lot of dexterity and calm water to do that.  At 60 ft he got a bite.  Here we are, hoping the fish isn’t “black”.

I ended the day with no fish landed, extending my bolo head streak to 7. Kelly felt bad and insisted I take home the nabeta since that’s the only fish my wife wants to cook and eat.  He said to gill and gut it right away and place it on paper towels in the fridge to keep it dry.

I rolled it in corn starch, deep fried it lightly, pulled it out to let it cool and fried it again, “Coach Haru style”. I slightly under fried the outside so it wasn’t as crispy as it should have been but my wife ate it to the bones.  Nabeta is the best! Thanks Kelly!

And while I got skunked once again, I do believe I got so many hits and steals because of the dark moon phase and moving tide.  Just gotta convert that knowledge to fish caught, next time.