halalu whipping Archives - Hawaii Nearshore Fishing

Last year was my indoctrination into halalu fishing, casting long leaders of 3lb fluoro in cramped quarters. I gave up after 3 trips, and on my best day, only caught 5 halalu. Search for “halalu” on this website and you can relive my struggles.

Last month, the early season halalu came into an area that wasn’t being fished too hard so Matthew, starting 7th grade this year, insisted I try halalu fishing again. The idea of fumbling around without too many people watching appealed to me. Since the halalu were still small, and mixed in with sardines, Matt suggested using the smallest damashi set possible and casting past the school, then slow jigging through it. I wiped down my corroded 6’6″ Daiwa spinning rod from the 80s and put on my dad’s old Stradic 1000 FH. It still had the 4lb mono I spooled on last year and assumed it was still good.

When I found Matt at the beach, he was fishing with guys whipping strips, jigging halalu flies and even bait fishing with long poles. Not exactly uncrowded but the school spread out enough where we could have our own lane to fish. He made room for me and I cast my 6 hook damashi rig just past the dark pile and lifted, dropped and cranked my way through. I felt the frantic pulses of life on the line and reeled in my first…sardine. I kept it, not knowing if I’d catch anything else, and cast out again. Second cast, another sardine hit but shook off. Man, damashi fishing can be really effective with those 6 fish skin flies flitting around like tasty little critters.

I eventually got lucky and hooked something that pulled much harder but it ripped off the hook. Matt told me I have to fish a really light drag and that if I jig more aggressively, the sardines would be less inclined to bite. Following his advice I hooked another strong pulling halalu that I eventually grabbed and tossed into my floating bait bucket. The other 5 hooks snagged my equipment or tangled so I had to learn damashi hook management in order to stay in the game.

The bite really turned on as more people joined the perimeter. Word of biting halalu travels fast! One nice guy was using homemade flies and didn’t want to keep the halalu since they were too small for his wife to eat, so he was putting the fish in Matt’s bucket. Being a respectful kid has its privileges.

The school moved closer to shore as the tide rose, and the ratio of halalu to sardine increased as I jigged more erratically. Everyone was saying this was the best the school has bitten this season and I felt so blessed to have a successful season opener. Matt and I had to leave, and after fishing less than 1.5 hrs, I set my personal best despite spending a lot of time shaking off sardines and unhooking the damashi hooks off my gear. 14 halalu and some wounded sardines. Not a haul but much better than the 1 halalu an hour pace I had last year with Thad, Frank and Erik.

Much thanks goes to Matt for turning my halalu luck around. Matt wrote about the first time I fished with him, when he damashi’d up a bunch of sardines and halalu, and turned a sardine into an omilu. Here’s that guest post.

Stay tuned for more halalu catch reports and “Halalu Fishing for Dummies” tips.

Thad, Frank and Erik wanted another go at the halalu; Kelly couldn’t make it. This would be Erik’s 2nd attempt and Frank’s and my third attempt. Thad had done a lot of halalu fishing in the past but only once recently, when he took Frank and me for our 1st lesson.

Since Frank’s CHL Minnow with a red bead worked so well the last time, I purchased those and some other halalu necessities from Charley’s. This time Ed gave me more halalu pointers and I was beginning to think I could do better with the proper technique and equipment.

The starting tide was a little lower than the last time but would be rising very quickly since we’ve been having so called King Tides for more than a week. The bite was a lot slower than our previous trips and Thad, our Halalu Hammah, had to work to catch the first fish on his home made flies. Frank joined him and began hooking up with the purple obake CHL minnows, and actually overtook the Hammah! I entered the fray and eventually caught one with the purple obake minnow. Hmmm, maybe this isn’t so hard after all?

Erik started with a combo fly and grub offering and hooked something that pulled drag off his small Shimano budget reel he had just picked up from Nankos this week. The fish took him through the line up twice but Erik managed to steer it away from us and after a 6 minute scrap with a 2lb leader, skillfully landed a 13 inch white papio! He tagged and released it to distance himself from second place on the Tag It leader board.

I went back to whipping for halalu as Thad and Frank were hooking up every few minutes. The tide rose, the bite slowed, and Thad tried different fly patterns and soft plastics. Frank stuck with what worked for him and kept jigging the CHL minnow with the right-hand-on-the-blank-fast-cranking-with-the-left-hand technique. I tried to copy his style and was failing badly. I hadn’t had a nibble in an hr, with only 3 halalu in the bucket. I gave up, walked around, took pictures, drank water and watched the guys jig. Erik was struggling too so we tried to cheer each other on. I even had Frank try my rod, and I tried his. His soft, telescopic 6 ft rod had a nice, soft whippy action when jigged high up on the blank. My old, graphite whipping rod didn’t flex at the top of the rod. Aha! That’s my excuse! I stopped fishing again but resumed to try different retrieves that I’ve seen other regulars succeed at. None worked. In the last few hours Erik and I didn’t catch a single halalu.

True Halalu Hammahs can stand on water! Halalu pile circled in red.

The tide got really high where only the two Hammahs continued to fish, with water rushing past their tabis. The other regulars had given up and gone home, and it was time for even the Hammahs to quit. Final count for this challenging bite: Frank had 32 (only his 3rd attempt at halalu fishing, what a natural!), Thad had 27, I had 3 and Erik caught the largest fish but no halalu. Technique definitely matters when the bite gets tough!

This may be my last attempt at Halalu Fishing! Hope you enjoyed the posts.

Halalu – Season 2

3rd time’s the charm for halalu fishing?