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Holoholo: Red VMC 4X trebles worked again!

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Kelly, our minimalist SUP inshore fisherman, provided this short report to let us know the omilu are still around and the hooks are working!



Kelly: Fished Eastside on the morning rising tide over the weekend. Lots of papio action dragging dead oama outside the reef. Caught four and lost four. Red VMC 4x, size 8 hooks from Scott worked great – thank you! They look tiny but they hold. All the fish were caught on the rear treb hook, even this 17″ omilu.

Editor’s note: Still got some 4X trebles in the store. Use to replace weak stock hook, and as stingers on bait. So cheap and so good!

Front hook is a Gamakatsu knockoff from Korea.

Editor’s note: We don’t sell knockoffs. 🙂

Holoholo: Heeia Fishpond Fundraiser for Mauna Kea – Heeia trial nine

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This would be my ninth time fishing at the Heeia Fishpond, and I was hoping to take advantage of the rising tide for most of the time that I would be fishing there. When I got there, the conditions were pretty good for fishing, but it was also very humid due to the rain the night before, and no wind at all. Within an hour I was already soaked with sweat and it looked like I had actually fallen in the pond. I caught two Kaku on back to back casts on the Kastmaster, but then, after that I decided to go after some of the toau. Since both of my poles were occupied, I set up a handline. I had never handlined with a spool before, so unfortunately on the first toss I tossed both the bait and the $15 dollar spool of line in the water. 

Luckily, I had brought my nine foot net, and I just scooped it up. But if the water had been deeper, it wouldn’t have ended so well. I learned how to successfully throw it and landed three Toau in short order. But that was sadly the whole school of Toau. I put on an oama and started whipping with it, and I was just about to take it out of the water when a Kaku came out of nowhere and inhaled it. I was tempted to set the hook right there, but I let it swallow it and then set the hook. I landed it, and it was a decent sized 16 inch Kaku, and really fat for its size. I started to dunk some oama and then I heard the bell ring. Someone had tangled my line and I reeled it in to untangle it. The line was still halfway in while I was untangling it. After I untangled it, I put it back in the pole holder.

Immediately after, the bell started to ring again and the reel started to scream a little. This time it was a real fish. I reeled it in thinking the whole time it was a Papio, but it fought differently than I was used to. Then I saw why. A really fat moi had surfaced with my oama in its mouth. I yelled for the net and my mom came, and she started recording instead of handing me the net. I took matters into my own hands and grabbed the net, and netted the real fat moi. It was only 13 inches, but it must’ve weighed a pound and a half or a little over because it was so fat. Almost obese fat. I tagged it and released it, and watched what could’ve been a real good dinner swim away.

I started whipping shortly after with a bubble and strip rig. I was worried because the leader was only six pound, because I forgot the 20lb I usually use at Heeia because of the Kaku. I just hoped there would be no more Kaku that would bite that day. I was wrong. Far out, I saw a Kaku take the lure and jump out of the water with it in its mouth. It then took off on a short 15 yard run due to my relatively light tackle, with an eight pound mainline, but not ultralight. I worried about the six pound leader the whole time, but somehow it came in close enough for netting. It saw the net and didn’t like it at all. It took off on another run, but that was its last effort. It came in reluctantly into the net after. It was the biggest Kaku of the day, at a decent 17 inches, but good on six pound line. I bagged all of the Kaku that day, as well as the Toau, and donated them to the Heeia Fishpond staff, which were asking for donations. After that, I had a real nice strike on my dunking pole that would not stop. The hook eventually popped and I was super bummed about that. I think it was either a big Papio or Oio.

Overall, that day was sort of a success, but it could’ve been better. Interesting that almost none of the dunkers hooked up at all, but a lot of the whippers on the wall had caught fish. Once again, whipping takes the vast majority, but dunking hooks the quality fish, as it has with pretty much all my fishing trips. I think I prefer whipping. Kastmasters and strips were again KEY in catching the smart Kaku in the fishpond. Scott has some Kastmasters in his shop, the exact same kind I have, for cheaper prices than in the stores. Oama are fully in, go gettum guys.

Big omilu do eat oama!

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Don’t put away your papio gear yet! There’s still lots of catchable oama and the larger papio are still hunting them.

Elias, who had shared his unbelievable 34lb shibi land based catch of a lifetime, was fishing the West Side from the rocks, throwing into rough water estimated at about 15ft deep. He was popping a bubble with trailing Automatic Fly he won in drawing 2 years ago. when he hooked into a screamer.

The beautiful omilu went 5.2 lbs on his digital scale and had recently gorged on oama. You can see the Automatic Fly on the fish below the spinning reel. Looks like the electric blue of an omilu yeah?

I’ve never seen more than 1 oama in the stomach of a fish, and Elias’ fish had 3, so that omilu must’ve been one heck of a hunter.

So get out and fish the uncrowded beaches while the fish are still within reach!

Early June bait report

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NPS photo – Larry Basch

It’s the first week of June, 2019. Traditionally, the iao have blanketed the estuaries, sardines have been in for a while, and halalu have been in for a few weeks. Not this year. Iao have come and gone, sardines are in at some places but not in great numbers, and small numbers of halalu are showing, then thinning out the following day.

Small pods of fresh-from-the-ocean oama have been spotted running scared along the shoreline. It’ll probably be another few weeks before they settle down and start feeding visibly, and another few weeks on top of that before the schools are large enough to target.

So basically, the season hasn’t started yet!

Sharing live oama with friends

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Darren, who has taken me on his boat to jig the Penguin Banks, and to troll nearshore for papio, was hoping for live oama to troll with his son and daughter.  I only had 5 small oama and 5 moose in my tubs so I told him I’d try to catch some oama but no promises since they weren’t biting that well the last time I went.  I changed the hook on my moose rig to catch 4 inch pinkie oama. The smallest hook I had was a #17, which is big for early season oama but smaller than I like to tie and unhook. I normally use a #14 Owner Mosquito hook to land the moose.

I went to my regular oama spot that hasn’t had much oama yet, and was surprised to see 8 other guys in 2 groups fishing.  That was a good sign, I guess.  Since the guys didn’t invite me into their group, I searched around and found a school of about 50 pinkie oama breezing in 2 ft of water.  I didn’t hear the other guys landing any oama, so I palu’d first and the oama ate a little but didn’t swarm.  Great time to use the super secret bait I stumbled upon the last time out, when I hooked a halalu on it.  I put on a small piece, dropped it down and hooked an oama!  Just to check how well they would bite, I dropped the bare hook down and caught another!!  I could see the group of 4 guys fishing while I fished and they hadn’t landed an oama since I got there.  The guys behind me weren’t saying anything either.  Hmm. I put on another piece of the secret bait and repeated the cycle, catching two oama, first with bait and the second with no bait.  Maybe the breezing pile was biting better than the others?

Eventually all the other oama fishers left but a grandpa and his grandson.  I lost track of my pile and had to fish the outskirts of theirs.  The grandpa welcomed me and said the oama weren’t biting too well for them.  I dropped down, and eventually landed one, then landed another with the bare hook again. At this point half my pinkies were caught on the bare hook, which is easier to do since the bait isn’t in the way of the barb, and most of them were hooked in the mouth, not foul hooked.

I felt bad that the middle school grandson wasn’t catching on their cut shrimp bait, so I offered my super secret bait. I only had a little left and they promised to keep it super secret.  Instantly the grandson was hooking up, and so was the grandpa. Grandpa, who was a seasoned oama guy who had tried all the premium baits, was amazed at how well it worked and started making plans to acquire some himself.  I told him that if I ever hear of people using that bait at that spot I know he leaked it!  He was so grateful he was telling me all his secret fishing spots.  The oama still bit for my semi-secret bait, and since I needed to keep them all alive, I looked in my bait bucket.  Was getting a little full, which is very unusual for me since I use the big #14 hook and not as secret bait.  And I’m kind of a junk oama fisher.

I said goodbye to the happy oama fishers and filled my 5 gallon bucket with 3/4 full ocean water.  On the drive home I could hear them banging the sides of the bucket and when I got home 12 were dead. The one pump wasn’t enough oxygen for all the oama.  That only happens when there are more than 40 in the bucket. I placed the rest in two separate tubs and they all survived.  Rough count, including the 12 that died was about 45 – 48.  50 is the daily limit for oama and I was under that.

Darren used some of the livies on his boat 4 days later, and Kelly used a few on his SUP 5 days later.  Both did way better with livies than dead oama.  Here’s how hot the live oama action was on Darren’s boat.  Here’s how Kelly did with his SUP trolled livies.

It sounds like the oama have finally moved into the normal spots on Oahu and are biting really well.  Get ’em before the big moon slows down the bite.

 

Live oama vs big moon and gusty trades

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The winds were forecast to be blowing 15 – 20 mph and the moon was just shy of full.  Not the most promising of fishing conditions but I had some early season oama that were beginning to get skinny in captivity.  Kelly invited me to his partially wind shielded SUP fishing spot.  The winds were still gusty at times but we managed to slow troll the oama.  Kelly let his oama swim unencumbered while I kept mine off the rocks with a floater.

Kelly inched close to the waves and was rewarded with the first fish, a scrappy omilu between a pound and 2 pounds.  I was leery of being dumped in my Scupper Pro and played it safe for  a while, finally finding a stretch of reef that yielded a bunch of 1.25 lb omilu without pummeling me with waves. I hadn’t brought my tags so all were released.

 

 

 

 

Fishing closer to harms way, Kelly had a much more diverse hit list: omilu, kaku, trumpet fish and an aha that screamed his drag. The bite was much slower than normal for Kelly, but the live oama overcame the adverse conditions. He even got bit on frozen oama when the livies ran out.

 

This was my first outing with live oama this season.  I was hoping for a screamah but settled for a pretty consistent bite in the protected waters.  Still dreaming of the screamahs…

Oama bait and switch

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A friend was planning to troll oama off his board on the rising morning tide and I decided to wade out to the break to see I could get anything to bite a frozen oama retrieved slowly.  This would be my first time using oama this season since I’ve been so enamored with top water fishing.

I whipped the narrow raccoon faced top water lure that got so much attention on my previous trip, but nothing showed interest on the way out to the waves.  My friend paddled by and said the strong winds and rain were making it very hard to troll effectively. He had a legal omilu in his bag and said he was gonna try the inshore, more protected waters.

With the tide rising and the wind and rain getting stronger I decided to whip the oama past the reef before the conditions pushed me back to shore.  I didn’t want to deal with double hooking the oama since that tends to make the fish spin and is more prone to getting stuck on the reef, so I was resigned to missing fish that hit the back of the bait.  Sure enough, my first oama got shorter on each cast until I just had the head left.

Small omilu and kaku could be seen at the reef’s edge chopping away at my bait and eventually pulling it off.  Something pulled my bait down and my hook got stuck.  When I popped the line I broke off my 25lb fluoro leader and was too lazy to tie on a new leader so I just slipped on a weight and tied a hook on the 15 lb main fluoro.

I moved away from the bait stealers and cast into a deep channel that separated sections of the reef.  I let the bait sit away from the bait stealers patrolling the higher water column and it seemed to drift against the current, toward me.  Then the line was pulled into the nearby reef edge. Fish on, but it didn’t feel like much with my drag nearly locked down.  The fish was in a small crack in the reef and I could feel my 15 fluro line rubbing. It felt like a big hinalea or roi, and I tried to muscle the fish out of the hole.  Out came a bright blue omilu!  Instead of running out to sea it swam through the cracks in the reef past me towards shore. I followed it, freeing the line from the rocks. It was like being pulled by a leashed dog, running through shrubbery.

holding omilu 8-30-16When I caught up with it, the omilu was pretty spent.  For a decent sized fish it only had taken out 20 yds of line but those 20 yds were pretty frayed.  I hadn’t brought tags with me since tagging in chest deep water was difficult, so my friend took this photo and I bagged the fish.  You can see what a gloomy, windy day it was.

I still had defrosted oama with me, so instead of wasting them I went back to the reef edge and the bait stealers found me.  After feeding 3 oamas to them with none hooked on the front hook I switched back to the narrow faced top water lure.  I was hoping they’d think it was another easy meal and sure enough a kaku swiped at it but missed repeatedly.  Maybe the chop was making it too hard for them to locate the bobbing lure?  I switched to the oama colored Waxwing Baby and hooked an undersized omilu on the first cast.  The bait stealers wised up and I headed in.

Frozen oama was definitely more effective than lures on this blustery day but the bait and switch tactic did work for a while.  The omilu measured 16.5″ FL and was close to 4lb. That matches the largest papio I caught inshore last year, also caught on oama.  Do you think we can catch fish on the top water lures to rival that size?

 

Live oama comes through on a slow evening

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Took the kayak out with two rods, one to troll live captive oama and the other to fish the Shimano Flat Fall jig.  The tide was falling to a minus tide at around dark, and sure enough the fish and bait activity was almost non-existent.  Something hit the live oama but wasn’t strong enough to take drag. It unbuttoned before I could see it.

I slow trolled the reef dropoffs hoping for a strike on the oama, and for a bait ball to show up on the fish finder.  No strikes.  When I found suspended fish I dropped down the 2.8oz flat fall jig and quickly realized my 6.5ft fiberglass/graphite blend bass rod was too soft for the heavy weight of the jig, and potentially strong fish that might eat the jig.  40 feet of water might be too shallow to fish that sized jig. It fell pretty fast and didn’t stay in the strike zone long enough, on the retrieve.  I think I need a heavier action rod, and need to fish it in deeper water.

The evening witching hour arrived when the fish normally feed before dark but I couldn’t find the bait school.  The falling low tide must’ve changed the fish behavior.  I worked my way in, and out of desperation, paddled across a large channel to the opposite side of where the bait normally congregates.  I began to see fish suspended two deep off the bottom and finally got a hookup.  The fish was vigorously shaking its head all the way through the fight so I suspected it was a trumpetfish or needlefish (aha).  I was thrilled to see a thrashing white papio that was trying to shake off the hook barely attached to its lip.  It later taped out at about 14″ head to fork.

The bait school was holding near the bottom, and larger fish were suspended above it. I dropped the flat fall jig again and didn’t get a hit.  When I stowed the flat fall rod away, I couldn’t find the bait school again and it was getting dark so I headed in. Oh well, I learned a new spot the bait school may use.

 

Papio Season is really over…

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…at least at my spots.  I didn’t want to accept the possibility that the bigger predators aren’t hunting inside the reef anymore so I took my board out during the high tide to fish a previously productive spot.  I had even less action than yesterday’s low tide evening session.  A few pulled baits and some kaku bites.  One 7 inch omilu.

What an odd El Nino papio season it turned out to be.  The oama came in later than normal and were skittish during the stormy, humid period.  The papio caught inside the reef were weak and skinny like they were treading water in a sauna too long.  Then the storms passed, the strong trade winds returned, and the inshore water cooled.  New oama swam in, and bigger than normal papio began hunting them.  The inshore fishing was fabulous for a few weeks and then it came to a dead stop.  Although there have been reports of straggler oama piles around, the papio aren’t bothering to make the swim in.  I wonder what triggers them to hunt inshore and then suddenly stop.

Guess we can return to our normally scheduled Fall lives.

White papio caught whipping dead oama

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The wind was much lighter than yesterday so I tried the spot I waded out and whipped last week.  The waves were small enough where I could sit just inside of the white wash, or in a small channel and cast into the surf.  It took a bit of paddling around to find the biters, but once I found them, there were others nearby.

The first papio was a skinny, just legal omilu which I released.  The next was a white papio of about the same length but thicker and more muscular. Unlike the omilu, it kept fighting even when I had it board side.  The next papio was about 10.5″, head to fork and I considered keeping it but as I readied my fish bag it came off the hook. Oh well, I was just thinking of taking it since the fish seemed to all be the same size.

I cast out a rock hard, frozen oama and the fourth papio took it head first.  It was just legal but hooked deep and I didn’t risk killing it by yanking out the hook with pliers so I cut the line off in front of the hook.  Hopefully the hook rusts out or falls out soon.

With so many barely legal fish, I paddled around looking for a deeper spot to safely fish.  I dug around for a larger oama that still had its colors, and tossed it out. Bam, a much stronger fish hit.  The white papio kept fighting even when I had it next to the board.  Omilu seem to pull faster and whites pull more doggedly.  I happily bagged it.

With a nice white in the bag I went exploring and fished some unproductive water.  Then I discovered an area next to the impact zone where the swell rolled through without breaking. I situated myself near the edge of the impact zone and cast another frozen oamasickle.  Hookup, and the fish pulled me towards the waves. Yikes! I put the rod in the rod holder and paddled towards calm water hoping the fish wouldn’t rock me.  When I reached calm water, I sat up and started cranking.  The white, which was initially taking drag, wasn’t nearly as large as I thought.  Man these whites can pull hard.

Pretty good action for a spot I’ve never board fished before.  I headed in to keep the papios in good condition.  Didn’t lose any rigs this time  unlike the snaggapalooza yesterday.

Interesting that, although the larger fish below is just an inch longer than the smaller one, its body is deeper and more angular to make room for its sex organs.  It fought considerably harder also.

Challenging weather conditions, fish still bit

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Dean and I board fished this morning since the wind was supposed to be less than 15 mph.  Contrary to that forecast there were gusts over 20 mph which made it hard for Dean to stand up and paddle.  The wind had less effect on me since I paddle lying down on my longboard, but I was still affected by the chaotic swell.

Dean trolled a dead oama behind a floater the way I used to, and I sat on my board as close to the waves as possible and cast into the surf.  I got more strikes than he did but also got stuck a lot more since my prototype oama whipping rig sinks.  I suspected fish were hitting the oama and pulling it into the rocks since I would pull some snags out and everything came back except for the oama.  When I pulled an eel out of the rocks my suspicions were confirmed.

Dean caught the first fish, a non-legal omilu, and then we both started getting hits, misses and cut lines.  Seemed like other reef fish were pulling off the oamas, and kaku were cutting us off.  I finally stuck a good fish and it ran in a funny way which made me think it was a big stickfish or cornetfish.  I was relieved to see the color of a beautiful 2lb omilu. I finally made use of my gaff by lifting the omilu out of the water by putting the gaff hook through its mouth and out its gill.

The wind picked up and it was hard to effectively fish the surge zone.  My next papio ran through the rocks and popped my line.  Dean was getting occasional hits but having a harder time paddling upwind from his knees.  It was time to head in.

I had quickly gone through 4 whipping rigs and 15 dead oama.

It was more fun to feel the strikes of the fish while whipping the oama but I definitely lost more tackle than I do when I troll with a floater. I’ll have to work on the prototype whipping rig some more.

 

Whipping dead oama got even better!

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Well, I guess I didn’t discover a whole new way to present an oama to hungry predators. It appears that others have been whipping oama, live and dead, for ages.  What’s cool though is that I’m now able to cast a dead one much further than I would try with a live one, and can reach the spots the predators are prowling. On days like today where the wind is gusting higher than 20 mph, it’s a nice option to be able to heave an oama with the wind and not worry about getting blown around on a surfboard.

Dean and I waded out on the 0.3 ft low tide today but because it wasn’t lower we had to stop 50 yds from the surf line.  Our initial casts of fresh dead and frozen oama were hit by small omilus but as I ventured further out and braved the occasional dunking, the hits got bigger.  I dropped a fresh dead oama into a deep sand pocket and something hit heavily then chewed through the line.  Arrgh, had to re-tie line as the waves smacked into me.  The next cast yielded an omilu half and inch short of legal.  Loading up with a frozen oama, I walked further out into the wind and wave maelstrom and lobbed into the tail end of the white wash.  As I picked up the retrieve, something tugged then ran between the coral heads against the almost locked down drag.  My 7′ 11″ medium action G Loomis swimbait rod arched nicely, keeping the tension on the fish with power to spare.  The fish pulled drag and ran back and forth through the canyons of the boulders but never got more than 50 yds away.  I was more afraid of getting cut off than by getting spooled.  After a few mins I could see that beautiful iridescent flash of blue and brought the lit up omilu close.  It was too pooped to resist me grabbing its tail as I walked it back to Dean.

I was stoked holding the biggest omilu I have caught in years, maybe ever, but Dean wasn’t too impressed since he catches larger ones dunking.  I fumbled around trying to hold my rod under my arm, open my sling bag to take out my catch bag, and not lose the fish that I let swim around at my feet.  I never really expect to catch fish when I’m not on my board, so I’m always ill prepared to bag them.  The fins and scutes sliced my hands up pretty good but I guess I’m willing to put up with a little pain to land such a beautiful fish.

Dean and I walked back out to the deeper spot that now had bigger waves coming through.  As I was hunting around for another frozen oama, Dean hooked a screamer on his 6.5 ft light action spinning rod. His rod keeled over and bounced up and down as he cupped the reel to slow the fish down.  The fish was diagonally heading out to sea, unlike mine that did figure 8s around the boulders.  The fish was still running but Dean could feel the line rubbing on the rocks and eventually the line stuck.  Dean slacked off the line and tried to coax the fish into swimming back in but it didn’t fall for his tactics.  2/3 of his line was gone and when he tried to wade out to loosen the snag, it became apparent that the snag was in water too deep to reach.  Sadly Dean popped the line and retied.

We started casting our frozen oama again but nothing bit. It was as if Dean’s fish was the bull of the reef and scared the lesser fish into fleeing.  We headed in with our last baits on. Mine got hit by a large aha that I had snagged in the side and it grey hounded at a much higher speed than papio run but eventually tired out.

Based on the fight of his fish, Dean estimated it was about 5 lbs.  When he saw mine on land, he estimated 3.8 lbs.  Turns out it weighed between 3.8 – 4.2 lb on my inaccurate scales at home.  The man knows his fish sizes.  I’ll go with 4lbs!

I’m still perfecting my oama whipping rig but like what I’m seeing so far. I can cast a dead oama as far as any lure and the hookup ratio is really good.  I was snagging the reef early on today but made some changes to minimize that.  Hopefully I’ll have a few more test runs before the season ends.

 

 

love the small but powerful Calcutta 200TE

love the small but powerful Calcutta 200TE

Note: Per request here’s the omilu next to a tape measure.

Whipping dead oama works, who knew?!

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I had a few fresh, dead oama that I wanted to use instead of freezing them for later.  My last board fishing outing was outstanding but it was much too windy for that today.  Hmm… since trolling fresh, dead oama worked, what if I could somehow cast them out and retrieve them?  Stands to reason that the papio would whack ’em right?

I had never done this before and don’t know of anyone who regularly whips oama since dunking live oama is so effective.  Somehow I had to be able to cast the oama far enough in the wind to reach the areas holding fish.  I decided to use my trusty level wind Calcutta 200TE bait caster that had been sitting idle during the Waxing and trolling expeditions.  I waded out on the low tide but had issues with the Jim Rizutto sliding double hook setup slipping and causing the oama to bend.  I ended up having to hook both hooks in the oama’s head and hope that something would hit head first.  The bait caster, doing what it was meant to do, cast bait, worked marvelously.

Using the wind, I was able to reach the surf zone, and hooked a 10″ white papio on the first cast!  I let it go, and put on another fresh, dead oama.  That one got hammered by a 11″ white.  I missed some hits and ended up with mangled oama but the next 2 oama got hit also.  Then I hooked a fish that pulled drag and brought in a 13.5″ (head to tail) white that went into my fish bag.  I couldn’t believe the action I was getting on the dead oama so I moved spots slightly and the bite slowed dramatically.  Eventually my remaining baits were hit by 8″ – 10″ whites and omilus.  I put on a blue sardine Waxwing to see if I could fool the papio so attuned to oama and came up empty.

Who would’ve thunk that whipping dead oama would be more effective than trolling them inshore?  It’s a really strange season due to the early, extra hot water and humidity shutting down the bite, followed by strong trades and cooler water causing the papio to make up for lost time.  I don’t think whipping dead oama would’ve been as effective last year when the papio could get their fill of free swimming oama.

I’m still refining my dead oama whipping setup to increase casting distance and hookup ratio.  Stay tuned for more oama whipping catch reports.

P.S.  Look what was in the white papio’s stomach! A slightly digested tang and a completely intact baby mantis shrimp.  The white was stuffed and still went after the dead oama.

Trophy oama hunting

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trophy oama gear

trophy oama gear

After losing so many jumbo oama yesterday, I decided to scale up my gear to land the trophy oama.  I felt a little silly but I took my smallest bait casting rig with a Calcutta 50 reel and spliced on a 4lb fluorocarbon leader.  My plan was to fish it like it was a straight pole, and if I hooked a strong oama, the fish could pull drag instead of ripping free. I fished a lower tide than yesterday’s and the few oama around were scattered and feeding.  I landed a few medium sized oama on the straight pole, and then had 3 jumbos tear off.  Time to get the trophy oama rig!

trophy sized oama

trophy sized oama

The oama seemed to know I was loaded for bear and hid for a while.  I finally found them just outside of the shaded area and hooked a few that peeled drag!  Landed a few 6 inch plus trophies and called it a day.  It was much harder to deal with a rod and reel than a straight pole but it was pretty fun to land the bigger fish on the ultralight gear.

Next up would be to land a big papio on one of the trophy baits.

 

Late season jumbo oama

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late season oama school

late season oama school

I went to my early season South Shore oama spot and sure enough the oama had left town.  Panicked, I hurried to the spot where I’ve been finding them lately, and there was still a large school in the protected shallows.  I was relieved to still find them there but frustrated that they wouldn’t even follow my bait.

I went off looking for some hungrier strays and found some jumbo (5 – 6 inch) oama  that would be heading out past the reef soon.  They bit but they were so strong they would rip themselves off the hook before I could land them.  It was a lot like sight fishing for oio.  I would hunt down these larger oamas cruising the bottom for food, hook them, and try to let the pole take the impact of their panicked runs.  90% broke off before I could slide the net under them.

 

jumbo oama

jumbo oama

After all that work I ended up with only 10, but hopefully the size of these bruisers will deter the smaller papio from whacking them when I troll ’em.

If you thought trolling oama on a board was easy…

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…don’t.  The hooking of papio once the trolling rig (mainline to floater to leader and two hooks) is properly deployed is the easy part.  The hard part is dealing with two hooks on a rolling surfboard while trying to delicately scoop a live oama out of the bait bucket and hook it in its nose and tail.  Every time I go out I snag just about everything with those hooks including my surf booties, clothes and finger.  And the line coils seem attracted to my leash and booties.

Today, with the big surf and 15 mph wind, it was particularly frustrating.  The rip current created backwash against the white wash coming in, so I was bobbing like a cork while trying to keep the hooks and line off my gear and body.

The predators (papio, kaku and aha) were still hunting at the top of the high tide and I caught a papio on a live oama, and another papio after an aha shredded and killed the next oama. Then I got such a gnarly tangle near the tip of my rod I had to paddle in to where I could stand, to cut the line free and re-rig.  By the time I got back to the spot the predators were hitting, the larger papio were gone and I just had the smaller fish pull off my oamas.

landed before the tangles

landed before the tangles

The papio landed were 13 and 14 inches and pretty thick.  At least I didn’t deep hook any small fish.

The hunt for a bigger papio

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I tried a deeper water spot a mile down from where I’ve been getting pestered by barely legal papios.  This new spot had deeper channels leading to a 20 foot dropoff, but was also windier than my other trolling spots.  The wind made it a bit of a workout to get out, even on a light trade wind day.  After trolling the inner reefs for the last two months it was a little spooky to not see the bottom and the occasional wave breaking on the outer reef added to my uneasiness.

My live oama didn’t get any action, probably because it was on a 5 foot leader connected to a floater, so I happily made my way back to the inner reef.  I headed in the direction of my familiar spot and expected the same kind of frenetic action, but the bites were infrequent and less aggressive.  A few baits were pulled off the hooks, one hook was cut off, and the two barely legal papio I landed were a lot thinner than the ones I have been catching.  I’m guessing there’s less bait around this area to fatten up the fish.

There was a different strike that didn’t feel like a papio. It ran in spurts like a small oio and immediately found the rocks.  I didn’t feel rubbing but somehow the fish dislodged the hooks on a boulder and I had to break off the line.  This had happened to me a couple times in the last month.  I don’t know how roi feel when hooked but would imagine that roi were lurking in the bouldery reef waiting to ambush a wayward oama.

Well, I branched out to a deeper water area only to end up getting all my hits on the inner reef.  I’m still looking for the first fish of the oama season to scream out line.  All fish hooked were either purposely or inadvertently released.

Oama – Papio season still red hot

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getting a little bigger

getting a little bigger

I was able to surfboard troll my deeper water spot because the winds were lighter and the waves were small.  I ran into some fishing friends who just finished throw netting and they were just leaving when I hooked up with the 10.5 inch (head to fork) papio. Nothing like performing for an audience!

Something took my next two baits off my hooks. An hour into my trolling run, the 14 inch (head to tail) papio hit all the way out by the first break.  I was about to reel in the oama to check it when the papio struck. I felt the initial strike as if I was whipping the live oama, very cool.  14 inches is a small papio but sadly, the biggest of the oama season for me.  The larger papios others have caught were landed at first light.  Ugh, I may have to start fishing earlier in the morning.

There are still some smaller oamas at the usual spots, but not as many as a week ago.  Some of the oama we’ve hooked and lost were the 5 and 6 inch variety so those will be out to sea soon.  Typically, oama season ends in August but this is an especially good and long season.  Get your oama before they and the papio are unreachable.

Small papio continue to slam the oama

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The pre-adolescent papio that were scratching the back of the oamas a month ago are now big enough to swallow the back hook.  That’s fine if the papio are keepers (larger than 10″ head to fork) but bad if they’re undersized.  I went up in hook size to avoid gut hooking the undersized fish, but still had to cut the line to release a deeply hooked 9 inch papio today.

Also landed a 3 ft aha (stickfish), had 2 oamas ripped off their hooks, and landed a legal papio on my last bait.  I was trying an area I had never trolled before, and like the other spots I’ve recently visited, this one was full of pint sized papio.

It’s great that the bite has turned red hot lately, but sad that the hardest fighting fish of the season has been a stickfish!

I haven’t been taking any pics of the recent just legal papio.  I just take 4 or 5 live oama with me to limit the amount of papio juvies I may hook.

Maybe I should troll a jumbo sized oama to deter the little guys from taking a bite?

The predators hit both hooks on the slack high tide

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the pliers are 11 inches long

the pliers are 11 inches long

My captive oamas continue to expire prematurely, taking their tank mates with them.  I’m convinced dying oamas let out a toxin that is hard to remove. I’ll blog about that and other difficulties in keeping oama alive, soon.

So without a supply of lively oamas, I planned to catch some fresh ones in time to troll them on the early afternoon rising tide. Turns out I’m a lousy oama catcher.  A nice couple, Lance and Dianne, took pity on me and gave me some of their oamas, and yet I didn’t get out to troll them until the tide had almost peaked.  The bite was as slow as the tidal movement so I was surprised to reel in the first kaku of the oama season. The kaku was lip hooked by the front hook and looked secure so I paddled away from the surf zone to delicately land the toothy, snapping creature.  A feat not easily accomplished on a rolling surfboard.  When I lifted the kaku it managed to flip and cut the line.  Arrgghh, that was the first kaku of the oama season that didn’t cut the back hook off immediately and swim free.

I put on a new pre-tied leader and double-hooked another lively oama.  Another kaku was hooked by both hooks, this time the hooks held and I was able to drop it into a dry bag and cut the leader off, all without losing a digit.  I’m guessing the kaku like the slack tide since they often feed in placid water.

The slow bites slowed even more so I headed in and my clicker went off again.  This time it was a 13 inch (head to tail) papio getting hooked on both hooks.

The first oama I trolled got weak and died on the hook. No bites.  The 2nd, 3rd and 4th were lively and got hit hard.

Not exactly sure why it worked out this way but all three fish hit both the front and back hooks. No previous fish did that this season.  Maybe the fish are really gulping down the oamas now?  The last oama in the bucket earned its freedom.