It’s the middle of April, and back a few years before the seasons got all “kapakahi” (uneven, unpredictable), sardines and iao would come into the shallows during the spring, and oama would begin to trickle in late July. The last couple of years didn’t have much of these very important shoreline bait fish, and thus, the shore fishing was slow.

Well, large schools of iao have been spotted on the west and east sides of Oahu and hopefully will draw in the shoreline predators. An unexpected large school of medium sized oama was spotted a month ago on the east side but hasn’t been seen since. The oama were running into my legs because unseen predators were harassing them.

Offshore, the opelu schools have been hit or miss, depending when and where you went, but if you caught some, they’ve been deadly for mahi, kawakawa, shibi and even the occasional ono.

These early indicators hint of a more “normal” summer season. What do you guys think?