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.