oio taegu recipe

The inshore bite really slowed in the late December, early January time period. The 8 – 1o inch omilu have shown up sporadically but the larger ones appear to have gone wherever they go during the winter. Awa awa have been saving the day for Kelly, as he nimbly trolled dead oamas between sets on his SUP. Lacking the paddling speed and courage, I fished away from the impact zone on my longboard with not much to show for it.

As a last ditch attempt to find a feisty predator, I kayak fished the deep waters of the Windward side solo today. The winds were very light, and armed with live tub-raised oama, I had high hopes. After an hour of aimless paddling I finally got a strike. It felt like a decent omilu, but it broke the surface halfway into the fight. What I thought was a short awa awa turned out to be a pretty large lai. My family doesn’t eat lai so I shook it off the hook.

Hopes raised, I paddled through bait marks on the fish finder, skirted the edge of dropoffs, and even dropped my oama to the bottom. Nada. The evening witching hour came without any predator activity and I dejectedly paddled for home. As my landing site came within view, my ratchet finally screamed. I hoped it was a thick papio but suspected awa awa in such deep water. The fished towed me a bit and spun me around before I could see color. Awa awa it was, and it saved the trip for me.

It taped out at 26 inches (forklength), not as large as the previous one I caught here in the summer, but my first keeper of any kind in 3 trips. The papio continued to prove elusive.

Chester made lomi lomi awa awa out of the fish and said it had a delightful fresh, mild taste. With the left overs he made taegu for us, using recipe below. Yummm!

This taegu recipe had been featured in Lawai’a magazine. Chester uses a small convection oven and dries on the lowest setting. He puts it outside so it doesn’t stink up the whole house. Genius! Oh, and he only uses a half teaspoon of chili pepper flakes. Adjust that to your heat tolerance.

Fishing the afternoon rise alone, I didn’t have a dunking friend to compare results against. I wanted to see if I could get an oio to bite my cut bait in the general area that the dunkers had out fished me last week. My Calcutta 200 TE was spooled with a 15 lb fluorocarbon top shot, up from the 12lb I used last week, so I could use more drag to turn the silver speedsters.

making circles around me

As I walked out on the just rising tide, I was startled to see about 4 tailing oio at the deeper end of the flat. They didn’t spook when I cast to them but they didn’t take my bait either. Eventually losing track of the tailers, I cast into the edge of the channel where I had hooked and lost last week’s fish. Just like last time, I felt a light nibble and then a take. This time the fish sped up and took about 75 yds of line, then slowed down under the tight drag and let itself be pulled back. It made a series of spirited runs but was under control unlike the fish I lost last week.

pooped

In a few minutes the fish was spent and had given up. The oio looked to be about 4 lbs and more than 22 inches. While I was deciding whether to keep him so Chester could make taegu ala Bruddah Bill’s recipe, see below, managed to shake off the hook and slowly make his escape. Oh well, a bigger fish would be a better use of Chester’s time.

A few small omilus and an obake weke bit before the water got deeper and a lot murkier. I called it a day knowing the drag bait technique does work on the flats oio and my inshore bait caster setup can easily over power a 4 lb oio. Whatever took out 160 yds without stopping last week was much larger and stronger than today’s fish. I’m beginning to think it was a shark since it didn’t spurt like most oios do.

I need to do another head to head with a dunker to see which technique is more effective on flats oio. Stay tuned.

The recipe below was featured in Lawai’a magazine.

Last ditch attempt to catch something/anything; taegu recipe included

Whipping for oio on the flats