After 5 kayak and 6 shore fishing bolo trips, painfully documented in this post, I can finally say it’s over!  Thanks for the well wishes and suggestions on how to break the bad luck streak.

From shore I had been testing the 13 Fishing Concept Z bait casting reel I was given at the Fred Hall Show in March.  Was stubbornly sticking to top water and sub-surface lures although the thought of dragging bait did cross my mind. The reel cast and swam light lures really well and had some near misses so I was hoping it was just a matter of fishing the right conditions.

The last two spots I wade fished were so murky and muddy that the fish couldn’t see the lure well.  Changing things up, I  tried a spot where I could walk out to the break on a very low tide.  Hadn’t fished it in more than a year but the last time I did, the omilu were going nuts for the JDM sub-surface lure.  Here’s how the action went down that day.  This time, on the -0.1 ft tide,  I almost made it to the break.  Hedging my bets because of the clear water, I dropped down to 25lb fluoro leader instead of the 40lb I had been using to prevent kaku bite-offs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My second cast into a small sandy pocket hooked something solid. I set the hook a few times to make sure it wasn’t gonna shake off like the previous fish on this bolo run, before turning on the hat mounted GoPro.  The Concept Z reel is so light and small yet has a max drag of 22lbs.  I had the drag set enough to over power the kaku so it came in green and flopped around like a trout avoiding a landing net.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since I was so far from shore I tried tagging the kaku in the Promar ProFloat net. Keeping it captive wasn’t a problem but measuring the sharp toothed fish while keeping my reel out of the water was a challenge. I ended up grabbing the kaku through the net and doing a rough estimate.  19 inches, tagged with #A5651.  And just like that, my bolo was over.

On my next cast, a kaku of about the same size followed by a pound half omilu investigated my lure and turned away 10 ft from me.  That was it for the action in that little sand patch so I walked back to shore with a lot of weight lifted off my shoulders.  Sorry for all the photos of a slimy kaku but I needed proof I finally landed a fish with the Z reel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the zero foot tide I gathered some pipihi and mussels for my Toby puffer. Interesting that the pipihi were a 1/3 the size of the ones I gathered earlier at another spot with a large lava rock shelf.

I whipped a sandy, protective cove and missed 2 more kaku.  Fellow whippers I talked to when I was leaving said they saw a large omilu come in, swirl around and go out in the area I caught the bolo-breaking kaku.  Fishing is a matter of inches. If that kaku had hit the lure an inch back from the front hook I’d still be lamenting the bolo.

Seems like the omilu are coming in looking for bait but not finding much yet.  Still no reports of large oama schools inshore.