Guest Post: Young angler hooks omilu off the sardine pile!

June 27, 2018 By Scott 8 Comments

Matthew is one of the Next Generation anglers who has been learning the ways of the Lawai’a (Hawaiian fisherman) by respectfully watching and learning from the uncles. He’s a very active fish tagger and has a large following on Instagram (@Shorefishing_Oahu_Style). I had communicated with Matthew over social media for almost 2 yrs and thought it was time we should fish together!

Matthew:
It was a good day with light winds, and a favorable tide, so I invited Scott, the owner/editor of this blog, to come out and fish with me at my sardine and halalu spot. The spot that we went to is usually junk unless the bait comes in.

I got to the spot before Scott did and quickly spotted the dark blob in the sandy area that meant there was a school close to the beach. I got my flow-troll and rope and tied it to me as I waded in the clear water. The school was only around 20 yards from shore which was good, but what wasn’t good was that I was barefoot and my feet were getting bust up from the scattered sharp rocks.

There’s a sardine in Matthew’s left hand if you look closely.

I used the smallest size damashi (which is basically a dunking rig with 6 hooked flies on it). Size 4 will work, but size 3 is the best – any larger and they wont bite it. You could also snag them, but they get smart after a while. I was averaging one sardine per 3 casts which isn’t that bad. When Scott arrived, he was whipping with a sardine-colored Shimano Waxwing Boy. The few predators that were busting up on the pile were smart enough to not eat his lures, unfortunately.

After I got enough for bait, I rigged up a live sardine rig, hooked a rather large sardine in the mouth, and cast it right past the pile exactly when an Omilu blew up on the school. Not even 3 seconds after the Sardine hit the water, my rod bent and a good sized 14 inch Omilu was on! It was a rather short but hard fight. I tagged and released the Omilu for it to hopefully get recaptured someday. If any of you are interested in tagging fish, you can visit fishtoday.org/tagit. After multiple attempts to catch more big fish, but to no avail, I switched back to sardine fishing. At around 5:00 P.M., they really started biting. I was getting one or two almost every cast. Then something really big came in and went bananas on the pile. Every minute, the whole pile jumped and there was a huge splash as the either big papio or small ulua busted the pile.

In the end, I caught 54 sardines, 2 halalu, and that Omilu. I ended up catching a decent Oio the day after and then another good sized Omilu.

The sardines are in, the Oama are starting to trickle in, and the Halalu are in if you know where to find them. The predators are often too smart to eat lures. Live bait is always best. It’s summer! Go gettem guys!

Matthew Ikeda
Instagram – @Shorefishing_Oahu_Style

Editor’s note: I’m amazed at Matthew’s ability to become such a successful fisher guy after only fishing for 3 yrs and just being in middle school. His writing is top notch and he even snuck in a bait status report. He might be “angling” for my job. But… he did make one mistake. He caught 53 sardines, not 54, because he insisted I try to catch one with his damashi rig. After I tangled the rig a couple of times because I reeled it through the top guide, I finally caught a dumb sardine that swallowed the hook and Matthew had to yank out the hook.

More sea monster action

January 22, 2016 By Scott 4 Comments

Kelly joined me on the Windward sea monster hunt today. He was on his SUP, using his shorts as a rod holder, and I was on my heavily loaded kayak. Kelly landed a 12″ omilu right off the bat whipping a live tub-raised oama, then the action really slowed for us. There wasn’t much life at the drop off so we paddled out to the fringing reef but I bailed when I saw small surf coming in. I overshot our landing spot coming back in and had to paddle upwind for half an hr. 3 hrs elapsed during this round trip and we were beat.

We still had some live oama left so despite being tired and hungry, we decided to use ’em up near the drop off. At the inner reef channel edge, Kelly chummed pieces of frozen oama and soon enough a 2lb omilu picked through the chum line. Kelly fly lined a live oama on the bottom of the channel and something big picked it up and slowly swam off with it, settled to the bottom for awhile, then pulled hard in spurts. As Kelly tried to slow down the sea monster, the line parted above the long leader. Was it the same sea monster I hooked a few days ago? My sea monster was hooked about 40 yds away from the drop off and behaved differently.

Down to my last live oama, and with no bites to speak of all day, I decided to fly line it since that technique worked well for Kelly. I slow trolled, hugging the drop off edge, and just as I was rounding the corner to come in I got a hit that screamed the ratchet and pulled the rod down on the rod holder, into my shoulder. I instinctively picked up the rod and started cranking but the wind blew me onto the reef. I felt the sickening rub of the reef and threw the rod back in the rod holder and paddled into deep water. When I picked up the rod again, I could feel the line running through a rock pile at the bottom of the channel. Ugh… I tried to free the line but it popped seconds later. This fish wasn’t the sea monster. It felt like a big, 5 lb plus omilu that was smart enough to cut me off instantly. I should’ve paddled for the deep water when the fish hit instead of fighting it above the reef.

We’ll be back, properly loaded for bear. Or sea monsters.

Live vs. Recent Frozen vs. Year Old oama

November 12, 2015 By Scott 2 Comments

The fishing conditions weren’t ideal today. 20 mph plus winds prohibited board fishing and the 0.4 ft low tide was in the middle of the day. I fished the spot that gave up the legal omilus two weeks ago, but the bite was very slow on the recently frozen oamas. Humuhumus chewed off the back end of some of the baits and a large cornetfish was the only thing hooked in the first hour.

I could see a guy fishing the same stretch after I passed through, and it appeared like he was landing keepers with live oama on a floater. With the sun high in the sky the papio were getting a good look at the baits and shunning mine. To make matters worse I ran out of the 2015 frozen oamas and had to resort to a batch of freezer burnt, previously thawed oama from last year. They were gray and mushy and barely resembled the pastel colored juvenile weke. I was expecting even the humuhumus would shun the stinky bait but something hit and pulled hard. The drag was almost locked down to pull snags free, and the reel released line jerkily. It still didn’t feel like much until I saw the hooked omilu followed by its mate.

That papio must’ve felt foolish falling for a stinky, mushy oama. It taped out at 12 1/4 inch (fork length) and was the second and last fish I caught today. I had really wanted to catch a papio to give to a friend tomorrow and was stoked. On a day when the papio were picky, and last year’s oama was barely fit for fertilizer, the ocean yielded dinner.

Was this slow day yet another indication that the papio season is trying to draw to a close?

What’s stronger, baby Omilu or Kansas pond Crappie?

February 12, 2014 By Scott 2 Comments

baby omilus feeding
(Neighbor Island location, photo by JC)

Took a friend from Kansas to a spot on the south shore that gets pounded by divers and fishermen every single day, yet continues to produce. Sure enough there was a guy feverishly whipping the shallows. As we fished about 50 yds from him, a diver made his way through our area. The rising afternoon tide combined with the diver’s activity seemed to stir the juvenile omilu (bluefin trevally) bite. We ended up with 2 or 3 each and I had one rip drag and unbutton before we could see it. My Kansas friend was impressed with how those 4 – 6 inch omilus pulled compared to pond crappie of similar size.

The omilus were far from the minimum 10″ head to fork-of-tail length and were released unharmed. Bait was a homemade secret.