Thad, our JDM expert and shoreline whipping enthusiast, provides this report in early October.

Thad: Like many years before, I wasn’t able to fish this season’s peak summer months for oama, halalū, or papio due to other important things going on at home.  Seeing and hearing of all the action my friends were having made me envious but I knew fishing would always be there and the next summer season would be just around the corner. 

Recently, I’ve been able to venture out to do my regular early morning fishing sessions and was expecting the predator action to be slow so I went oio fishing instead.  My friends were able to catch and release some legal sized papio while we targeted the oio so I wondered if the season had truly slowed down.  It was already the middle of September and the bait schools weren’t as plentiful but it seemed like the papio were still hunting inshore. 

The following weekend, I decided to devote my time whipping some CHL grubs Scott had given me to try.  It was a decent morning with five omilu landed and several more that came off.  Nothing big, but all legal sized ranging from 10 to 12 inches.  Were these the last remaining papio of the season?  Only one way to find out.

Two weeks later I decided to try my luck whipping some papio flies my friend Brandon makes for me, which I’ve had much success with in the past.  The result of this morning session was several more hits and misses, with a 10.75 and 15 inch omilu landed. My fishing partners also landed a 13 and another 15 inch omilu on grubs.  Still some pretty good action for October.

This past weekend I went on a solo mission – which is usually when the big ones bite right?  I noticed a small school of tiny baitfish darting around the shoreline as well as a small pile of oama.  The first cast of the morning with Brandon’s “Sparrow” fly produced a 10.5 inch omilu.  Several casts later, something blew up on the fly only a few yards out and took off.  There was no slowing the fish down on the first run.  Then I felt the fish pop off much to my dismay. 

I continued casting but whatever it was, it wasn’t around anymore so I decided to change it up and try a Mark White oama lure.  One the second cast, another solid hook up and short run before the lure popped out of the fish’s mouth again.  I like to change up my lures often so I went with grubs to see if there were any takers but no luck.  It was nearing the end of my fishing time so I switched back to the trusty Sparrow fly to cast as I worked my way back.  Sure enough, I got a few more tugs here there before I landed an 11.5 inch omilu to end the day.

Since I wasn’t able to fish the peak months of the season, I have no way of comparing the recent action to how it may of have been in June – August.  The recent action has been pretty good though, so I have no complaints.