Thad, our JDM product expert, breaks down how his papio/ulua season has played out.

Thad: The plugging season at the spots we frequent on Oahu began a little later this summer than in the past couple of years.  My fishing buddies Dino, Travis and I devoted a few sessions here and there from early April with the hopes that we would catch the start of the season but to no avail.  On a whim, Travis wanted to try plugging a brand new spot in early June and convinced me to skip the flats fishing that day and I’m glad I listened.

We walked out near the edge of the reef and began casting our lures at the crack of dawn.  It was still mostly dark with just a slight glow of the sun on the horizon when on my second cast, something came up from the deep to attack the new popper I had ordered from Japan.  As it tried and missed three times, I could barely make out the splashing in the dark even though it was only 20 yards from me, but I could hear it.  As the lure reached the tip of my rod in an area about shin deep, I kept the popper in the water and swept my rod back and forth to keep it moving with hopes the fish was still around.  The ulua came up onto the reef shelf and while swimming sideways in the thin water, grabbed the lure and took off for the deep!  It may have been the most exciting eat I’ve ever experienced.  Unfortunately, after a hard 5 minute fight, the ulua popped off and got away.  Based on the strength of the fish, it was a good sized one and definitely the largest I hooked this year. 

I checked my lure and hooks and everything looked ok so I cast it back out and proceeded to show Travis the retrieve style I was using for the first hit when I got another one.  This one felt smaller and I quickly brought in a 4lb white papio.  After a few pics, the fish was released.  I ended the short morning session with another catch and release 4lb white papio before we called it a day.  Overall, it was an exciting start to the 2024 season. 

The next weekend, Dino and I decided to try a spot on the opposite side of the island from the previous week.  I lucked out again and within the first few casts, I felt a tug as the lure was nearing the rocks I was standing on.  I set the hooks several times – harder than I did when I lost the first ulua.  This fish felt heavy but wasn’t running nearly as hard.  As it neared me in the whitewash, I pointed my headlamp towards the area of the fish and I could see that it was a small ulua foul hooked on its side.  No wonder it felt heavy.  I was able to tag my first ulua of the season with a PIFG tag and safely release it to grow some more.

The next two weekends in late June were spent traveling in Japan with my family and friends.  I didn’t do any fishing there and constantly imagined all the ulua swimming around our Oahu shores just waiting to be caught.  I returned home on a Saturday in early July, determined to get back out the next morning.  My friends and I don’t normally fish the same spots very often and enjoy rotating them or testing new ones so that Sunday, Dino and I decided to try another spot, different from the ones I recently went to.  As usual, we met early in the morning before sunrise and started our walk to the spot.  It was a dark moon that weekend with small surf and light winds. Excited to be home and fishing again in near perfect conditions, I told Dino I had a very strong feeling one of us would be hooking up.

We were throwing our lures for about half an hour and the sun was just beginning to glow on the horizon when I felt a strong tug in the distance on my second sweep of the cast.  To ensure a good hookset, I yanked hard several times.  This fish also felt like a good one on the initial strike but I was using a slightly heavier set up than before so I boosted the fish in quickly – so much so that at one point I told Dino I didn’t need help landing it because it might be a papio.  When the fish in front of me, I shined my headlamp at it and to my surprise, it was a decent sized ulua.  I yelled to Dino that I needed his help after all so he quickly got to the water’s edge, grabbed the ulua’s tail and brought it up on the rocks.  What a great feeling to start the season 2 for 3.  Unfortunately I forgot my PIFG tags so after taking a few pics, the fish was released tagless.

The rest of July and August was filled with more missed ulua strikes and papio landed without any slow down in the action.  It seems the late start to the ulua bite this summer means the action will continue later around Oahu as well.