Eastside: Calm, big moon, light boat traffic. Small fish hungry because big fish not attacking?

January 20, 2022 By Scott Leave a Comment

The winds continued to be very light, and the North swell took a break so I went to one of my favorite Eastside spots to compare conditions with the Southside. I had never fished this area in January, and was expecting the water to be cold. Instead the water was sheet glass calm and a degree warmer, 75.5, than it was last week on the Southside.

It took 45 mins to get out to the first spot, with the Bixpy motor doing the heavy lifting. I had forgotten that the Eastside comparable depth was a mile further than the Southside. First drop in search of opelu and a small-medium nabeta came up! I hadn’t found these all of last year, and was very pleasantly surprised. Caught 2 more to make a meal of them but snagged structure twice and had to retie. Left the area to get away from snags and didn’t find any bait. The damashi continued to get bit and occasionally bit off on every drop. If this were the Southside on a sheet glass day I’d have to use bait on the damashi, but the fish were happy eating CHL Minnows.

I was really enjoying seeing what would come up next until realizing I had spent 2 hours playing on the reef without a hard tug, so I put out a frozen opelu and headed out to 225ft. Nothing showed up on the sonar and nothing hit the opelu. So different from the summer when deep opelu schools were hanging out near the bottom and kawakawa were taking dead bait.

Drifted back in, had the opelu pulled off at the shallow drop so I put on a live long nabeta looking wrasse and it was just pecked at. Dropped down a live 9 inch lizardfish next without better luck. Put down another frozen opelu and it got pulled off. Seemed like the small bait stealers were pretty brazen because they knew the big predators weren’t around but definitely preferred opelu to reef fish you and I wouldn’t eat.

A bunch of weke nono and a baby uku came up on the damashi, but too small to keep and it was past time to head in. Can’t believe I was playing in the calm water for almost 5 hrs. Then my bait rod finally hooked up but the fish ran into a cave. I’m telling myself it was a roi so I won’t be as bummed. I broke the line off and heard sea birds laughing behind me. I turned around and couldn’t believe my eyes. Fish were crashing on the surface and birds were dive bombing the bait that was chased up. I didn’t have hooks on my bait rig but wanted to get a closer look so I motored/paddled over but the melee ended and the birds sat on the water waiting for the bait school to be chased up again. Unfortunately the action didn’t show up well on the video I took.

Well, the frenzy never reappeared so I headed in with just 3 yellow nabeta in my fish bag after 6 hrs of hard fishing., I learned that the small fish still bite even though the water is super clear but the predators may not feed on calm days after a big moon. It’s definitely worth going back in the Winter until the damashi bite slows down.

My neighbor masterfully deep fried the nabeta by first seasoning in salt and pepper, then coating with corn starch. He scored the fish to allow the oil to cook the bones to crunchy perfection.

When in doubt, fry longer to make sure the bones are cooked through and the flesh is no longer mushy.

Uku ate live moana so the fresh opelu was taken home to fry!

January 20, 2021 By Scott Leave a Comment

Wind was light and the South Shore was the safest bet as a mega North swell was pushing through. To give our main spot a rest, Frank and I checked out an area we hadn’t fished in more than two years.

For 4 hours we dropped damashi rigs, jigged lures and trolled fresh, store -bought opelu. The only action was a small fish that hit the 100gm tungsten jig but unbuttoned on the way up. Out of desperation we baited the damashi hooks with a bit of opelu skin and then it was instant hagi with some moana mixed in.

Frank dropped down a “moose” moana that got pulled off his hooks and so I reluctantly baited up with a smaller moana. I’ve been told that moana is “uku candy” but I’ve never caught any uku on the red and black, chubby goatfish and was just using the moana as a “bonus line”. We were drifting out to deeper water and I was trying to catch better fish on the baited damashi. 5 minutes later, my moana bait got tugged, pulled in short spurts and dropped. A few seconds later it got picked up again and something surged for the bottom, then fought in a jerky, spastic way. The fish pulled hard but was stopped with a pretty tight drag so I began to get hopeful despite the fact that we had never caught any uku in this area before.

A good sized uku surfaced, a bit smaller than the PB uku last time. I netted and spiked it in the brain, so I’d avoid batting my new Garmin 44CV Plus fish finder.

While its heart was still beating, I pulled the gills and hung it over the side to bleed. Frank quickly caught another moana, put it down and began to pedal to where I got my strike but his moana was hit instantly. After a spirited, jerky fight, he landed his first uku ever! When he pulled the gills of his fish, the guts came out so he didn’t have to gut it on land.

The bite was on, and I put a small deep water lizardfish down that got pulled off while I had to take a phone call. Doh… Then we tried frantically to catch more fish to bait up but the offshore winds suddenly picked up and we had to scramble in.

Since Frank kept his opelu on ice instead of using it as bait, he enjoyed a fried opelu lunch following his delicious steamed uku dinner.

My uku ended up measuring 24″ (FL) and weighing 7lb. Interesting that my biggest two uku were caught this winter when uku is supposed most prevalent in the summer.

It had the milky white, creamy stuff that the previous big uku had. Coach Haru said that its semen, and is a delicacy in Japan. Maybe next time an adventurous eater might want to try frying that. I cut up the fish and shared with friends.

I’m stoked to know that uku do eat live reef fish, and will ration the expensive opelu. Frozen opelu gets quickly chipped away by hagi whereas a live fish normally can avoid the piranhas of the reef.

Winter kayak bottom fish scouting trip

December 29, 2020 By Scott 1 Comment

Normally, the Fall is the best time to kayak fish the deep. The winds drop, there’s spots with small waves, and the water is still warm enough to keep the preds close to shore. Not this year. The water temps were lower all year compared to the previous warm water El Nino years, and the bite was slow.

There was a calm day last week that was too good to pass up, and I invited a friend with a new Hobie Compass to join me on the East Side. Guy has fished inshore on his pedal yak but hadn’t gone offshore since he didn’t have a fish finder and was still getting accustomed to fishing from a seated position.

The shallower nabeta spots were barren so we kept going deeper til we started getting deep water lizardfish. That at least told us we were over sand. Finally we both caught a nabeta each, and then it was non-stop lizards and little porcupine fish. After bouncing our lead for a couple of hours, we finally gave up and headed to the deep reefy area.

I began marking reef fish near the bottom at about 270ft, but the first one that came up was a chunky taape. On the next drop something heavy hit the little CHL Minnow and pulled drag off my reel. Felt good to finally hook something of size and I had the drag a little too tight for the 15lb Hayabusa damashi set and the line broke off at the top swivel. On a previous trip I battled what I think was a ray on the damashi for a long time so I thought the damashi line was strong enough to handle medium tension.

By this time Guy wasn’t feeling too good because it turns out he normally takes seasickness meds but couldn’t find any Dramamine that morning and was using those pressure wrist bands. Don’t try them alone – they don’t work that well!!!

After rigging up another damashi set with 15lb branches and 20lb main line, I hooked another strong, surging fish that broke the branch line off! Guess that was a sign to break out the prototype 100gm tungsten jig I received from a second tungsten company. The jig is only 3.5 inches long, simply shaped and wasn’t coated with a protective clear layer but boy did it get to the bottom quickly.

After getting bitten by the ulua and the shark

On the second drop I hooked what felt like a small ulua. Guy was watching me and listening to my running commentary. Hopefully I wasn’t making him feel worse. I wanted to land the ulua to show him how effective deep jigging was, but within 20 seconds my rod tip started jerking erratically. Sure enough my fish got sharked and I had to fight the shark for about a minute. Luckily I got the jig back when the shark bit through the assist cord.

Guy decided to troll rather than bob around and bottom fish, and slowly made his way in pulling a kastmaster. I tried really hard to land something on the jig but the commotion the shark caused must’ve spooked the other preds. When Guy reached the inshore water he got such a strong hit he had trouble getting the rod out of the rod holder. He fought it long enough to feel its power but it got off. He guesses it was about a 4lb papio. That woke him up and cleared his head! He changed his sinking kastmaster to a floating Yozuri Crystal Minnow and continued to head in. Within a few seconds he hooked another screamer that jumped like a mini marlin!

The aha fought much harder than he expected and when he got it boat side he saw that it was foul hooked near its back fin. It later taped out, nose to fork of tail at 37 inches, which is a pretty good sized fish.

The next day Guy fileted, skinned and deboned the aha, making beautiful clean fish sticks.

He fried the nabeta the way Coach Haru taught me: salt and pepper, coat with corn starch, fry to a golden brown, take out to cool and fry again so the skin and scales are crunchy.

Judging from this photo I’d say his family loved their first experience eating nabeta.

Takeaway: The water temp was 76 degrees, a little cooler than normal for December. The nabeta were deeper than they were in the summer, and hard to find. Bait and preds were still on the deep reef, concentrated in small areas. The compact tungsten jigs continue to get bit by big fish, usually within the first 2 or 3 drops.