The two little oama on the bottom just swam in from the deep and still have a bit of their “blue water” color. In contrast, the moose oama are probably gonna leave the safety of the shallows soon.

The oama came in late this year, finally filling in around mid-August.  Few spots still have oama, 2 months after they came in.  What is in abundance are pesky baby papio, hanging out with the mixed sized oama that are left and getting to the baits first.

The past warm years have had lots of baby papio, but never this many, this late in the year.  I blame the late developing El Nino for that.

I tried to get past the papio to reach the oama on the bottom and found the effort to be extremely frustrating.  With that many papio mouths looking for food, I hope the reef’s eco balance isn’t thrown off too much.