Holoholo: Papio Palooza at the Old Stomping Grounds

July 19, 2021 By Scott 1 Comment

Big Island kayak angler Shea (IG: @shea_ue, YouTube: Affordable Wahoo) shares an incredible early morning shore whipping bite. There’s even an action packed video capturing most of the retrieves and strikes! Sounds like the papio are in, and are hungry!

Shea: My friend and I got to the grounds just at 5:15 AM, just as it was getting light enough to see the heavy offshore rains on the horizon. I was armed with my light shore casting setup: Okuma Hawaiian Custom 9’0 medium paired with a Daiwa Fuego LT 3000 spooled with 12lb Fireline braid. We were both using plastic casting bubbles and some craft fur “deceiver” patterns that I tied back in 2019. This was the first time in over a year that either of us had been to the area so we weren’t sure what to expect. The plan was to just see what was biting practice catch and release.

It was still pretty dark when I made my first cast out over the reef’s edge. I retrieved it with my favorite pop-pause action, using short downward sweeps of the rod to chug the bubble forwards a couple feet, then reeling to pick up the slack. Something exploded on the fly just as it was passing over the drop-off about 30 feet out. After a brief but intense battle, I scrambled down the rocks to the waters edge and landed a healthy 15 inch white papio (juvenile Giant Trevally). It had inhaled my fly, but after some finagling with my pliers, I sent the fish home with a good release. A couple casts later, another smaller white papio around 9 inches long grabbed the fly way out in the deep and came in without much of a struggle. My friend landed her first fish of the day, an 8 or 9 inch omilu (Bluefin Trevally) a few minutes later. This was also her first ever papio on a fly!

We kept moving along and working the edge of the reef and it wasn’t long before I took another strike just as I was bringing my fly into some structure. This fish felt a little bigger and pulled drag as it dove over the edge and I could immediately feel the grating of my leader against rocks. Luckily, the fish decided to change direction and unpinned itself from the bottom. A couple minutes later, I was able to slide an ~16-17 inch white papio onto the rocks, work the hook out from the corner of its jaw, and nose dive it back into the water. My 8-foot 25lb test Mason soft monofilament leader was pretty scraped up, so I decided to retie.

On the very next cast, a scrappy 11 inch omilu inhaled the fly and came in pretty easily after a short run. I couldn’t believe how fired up the fish were over this fly! I had tried using it at this exact spot a few times back in early 2020, but didn’t hook anything but a few aha (needlefish). Baitfish such as halalu, sardines, and nehu are much more abundant this time of year, so perhaps that helps explain it.

The wind picked up and we decided to change up the game a bit and re-rigged with 10lb J-line fluorocarbon leader, a size 3 “aji” hook, and soft plastic glitter strips. We used the tailwind to bomb casts way out there for a half hour or so, missing a few strikes and landing a couple small lai (Doublespotted Queenfish). My friend lost the glitter strip I gave her on a cast, then found a Campania grub on the ground and landed a 9 or 10 inch omilu on it. Way to improvise!

The big lai weren’t cooperating, so I changed back to the fly and a couple casts later, had the most explosive strike of the day as a white papio almost went airborne on the lure in 3 feet of water. It did the usual strategy of diving right over the dropoff, but this time I held the rod tip as high as I could and managed to keep the line off the rocks. I think this was the largest one of the morning, somewhere around 18-19 inches long and very healthy. This fish really surprised me, as it was already 7:30 AM and I’m used to the white papio bite stopping right after sunrise. Sometimes it pays off to wake up early and just go even when it’s cold and rainy, because you never know when you’ll be in the right place at the right time!

Here’s the video capturing all the action.

Tight lines and fish responsibly everybody!

-Shea

Holoholo: The oama and papio season has started!

August 3, 2020 By Scott 7 Comments

The oama have arrived just in time for traditional August to September period. Matthew describes how the papio bite has spiked accordingly.

Matthew: Summer seems to finally be picking up. What started out as a very bad season may be turning around pretty soon. Oama are coming into several spots and the Papio bite is very hot right now. Oama are in, “young and dumb” which means that they are easier to catch. Perfect papio snack size oama, around 3-4 inches, and also good for oama fries if you prefer to eat Oama. If you find the right pile, many piles right now don’t need palu or super “finessy” gear, they’ll just bite the bait without thinking.

Understandably, with the arrival of the Oama, the Papio have been coming inshore. My friends and I have been getting hot action whipping at different spots, but the one thing they have in common is a lot of moving water with some depth and structure. It’s a good time to go whipping or dunking right now.

Many people are dunking Oama right at some piles I’ve seen, and some decent fish have been pulled up on live Oama. I’ve even caught these roi, taape and menpachi whipping fresh dead oama, and missed some big omilu so far.

Whipping lures around the piles has also been effective. More halalu piles and sardine piles are showing up around the island, but some have been netted.

Oama are starting to trickle in, Papio are biting good, we’re having beautiful days, time to get out there! Just be sure to wear a mask and practice social distancing, for the concern of you and others around you. Stay safe, good luck, and most importantly, have fun. ~ Matt

Holoholo: Fishing during the winter months

April 3, 2020 By Scott 10 Comments

Our Middle School Holoholo writer Matthew is social distancing like the rest of us, and took up fly tying! He also wanted to share how tough this Winter has been for him.

These past few months have been great for a lot of people, but they’ve been the worst four months in all the time I’ve been fishing. During December, January, February, and March, I went fishing a total of 39 times, sometimes going two different spots in one day (mostly because winter and spring break fall in those months) and only caught a measly total of 7 notable fish (not counting a bunch of Hinalea, Nunu, and Lizardfish), which were a 2-3 lb Omilu, a 2 lb Omilu, Three good size Moana, and a small Kaku. Not counting as a fish, but I did catch my first ever Samoan Crab on rod and reel. I tried a bunch of spots, deep and shallow, and tried just about every technique from flies, kastmasters, grubs, to dunking but still not much. I had the mentality, “If I keep pounding I’ll eventually get something”, but eventually it seemed like it would not get better, so I’m giving up until summer, or until this coronavirus passes, which I hope it will. On a positive note, pretty much everyone else has been catching a lot of stuff, with more Papio popping up on my Instagram feed. Certain hammahs have been catching like it’s still summer at certain deep spots, or wading.

In the downtime, I decided to pick up fly tying. I’m figuring if I can’t catch fish I might as well stock up for when the fish are actually biting. At first, I had no idea, and the flies looked horrible. I had no idea what to do, and I just used nail polish to get the flies together at the head. I kept trying, got a little better, my UV flashlight and UV resin came in, and I was able to finally add eyes to some flies.

After a lot of refining the design of the flies, I think I am starting to get the hang of it, but I still have a very long way to go to get to the level that other local fly makers are at. Eventually, I want to sell some to pay back the significant amount of money all the fly materials and tools cost. If anyone has any tips for me they would be greatly appreciated, from materials to different designs I could try, everything would help me.

Good luck to all of you guys that are still going fishing now, although it seems like everyone is doing quite fine. Stay safe and healthy during this outbreak and practice social distancing.

Holoholo: Persistence paid off

November 18, 2019 By Scott 8 Comments

Holoholo reporter Matthew describes how he overcame the slowdown at the end of “papio season” and found a way to consistently catch fish in the “off season”.

Matthew: Mid September to Mid October was one of my worst streaks ever. Lost a lot of big fish, couple whitewashes, and many lost lures. At the end of November, it all changed for me, but before that it was slow-complete shutoff bite. Some others have been getting good luck, but I haven’t been as lucky as them and the bite has significantly slowed down for me.

Many fishermen have been getting good and consistent luck on flies, which might mean that the bait is getting bigger and that I need to upsize my two inch grubs for something a little bigger. Most of the master fishermen who use flies fish semi-turbulent deep water. I fished a few times with a group of fly fishermen and one time got totally smoked by them. One guy got two Papio, his girlfriend landed six Papio, and I landed none on the grubs. They were using bubble and fly rigs, and the flies seemed to be either oama or light brown colored.

I have been getting limited luck on the sardine pile somewhere with a Lai and two Kaku, and then a nice sized Yellowspot Papio at a spot near my house. The next five trips passed painfully, with over 15 hours fished with not a single fish landed. In those trips, I lost a big Omilu, around four pounds. It fell off as it was being reeled up the wall. That was really painful.

The next trip, I hooked a screamer on my ultralight and fought it for over 10 minutes at dusk. I could barely see it when it came close to shore, but I immediately recognized it as a big white Papio, upwards of 17 inches. It made another run, and I was able to see it one more time before it made a last huge run, and I felt the line go slack. The four pound line had cut. I knew it was coming but I was still mad. Probably the closest I’ve ever been to having a fit when losing a fish. I don’t usually get mad, but that was after two trips of nothing and last trip of losing a big Omilu. I was beaten. I thought for sure that next trip I would land a fish, but I was dead wrong. I hooked something big, and lost it again. This time I didn’t even get to see it but I think it might’ve been a decent Papio.

Fed up with all of the losing fish and whitewash, my morale was at an all time low and seriously did not know what was going wrong. I decided to make a last ditch run to one of my most consistent spots with my partner. It paid off greatly.

The first cast, I landed what felt like a small Papio, but upon closer examination it was a nunu. I didn’t care. I needed anything after that long whitewash period. It got even better though. The next cast, I hooked something that ran really hard, and resisted in the whitewash for quite a long while. It made another run and that’s when I knew it was a good sized Omilu. I had to find a safe way to land it, and my partner went down in the splash zone and netted it for me. I was screaming. I don’t know how the neighbors did not think something was wrong and called the police, but I’m glad they didn’t. After five trips, my gamble had finally paid off at the spot I knew I should have been fishing all along. The day was not over though.

I proceeded to land another good sized Papio, and another, and another. I was pretty hyped, and so hyped that I didn’t even bother to change my leader where it was frayed. As it so happens, laziness Within thirty minutes, I had landed four good size Omilu and a Lai. My partner had also landed a Lai as well. This was probably the best day I’ve had all season, and so late in the season too.

The following weekend, my sister had a tennis match, so I got to fish during her tennis match at a place right near the courts. The water was really murky and I had a hard time seeing inside the water at some points. The fish didn’t seem to care though. I was using my ultralight and felt something take it with a lot of power and make a very powerful run out toward the open sea. It took a whole two minutes for me to bring it into sight range, and I landed it another minute later after it made a few stubborn runs right at shore. To my surprise, it was the biggest Kaku I had seen in a long time inshore. I didn’t measure it, but it was pushing 24 inches or a little up.

On the ultralight four pound test and a 1/8th size kastmaster, it was amazing that either the very bendy hook did not bend out or that the line did not touch the Kaku’s teeth. I made another few casts, and hooked another Kaku, at around 14 inches, on the ultralight again. I landed it, but it didn’t fight half as hard as the other one. I switched to the bigger kastmaster with the VMC red trebles, and landed another Kaku, this one at 13 inches roughly. Already happy with my success, I let my dad use the ultralight with the kastmaster in hopes of him catching his first Kaku, and he handed me the light rod with the grub and egg lead.

We moved more toward clear water and stayed there for five minutes when I felt a take, and all of a sudden, line started peeling out, and after a very spirited fight, I could see the electric blue outline of a decent size Omilu coming in. The fight lasted too long, because I was really letting it tire itself out so the hook wouldn’t pull. I got it in eventually and it was roughly 12-13 inches fork length. That was the last bite of the day for me, however, I was still very happy because all of this action happened between 1130 and 1245pm. I had a chance to fish later that day, and since I was already happy with the action, I decided to go after something that I never catch anyway-Moi.

I went to a spot I heard had Moi, and after a while, I had a fight with something that pulled hard, but with hardly any drag pulled. I started yelling to my uncle as I realized it was a Moi. I took a picture, and then measured it. It was half an inch short to my dismay. I released it.

The next cast I hooked something that felt really big, and pulled a lot of drag, when all of a sudden the hooked popped. I am 99% sure that it was a very legal moi. The very next cast, I hooked another Moi, and during all my excitement, I forgot to release it in the tidepool the other Moi was in, and I threw it back into the ocean. I realized what I did as soon as I let go of the Moi, and made a rushed cast toward the Moi hole, but the bite had already shut off, and the Moi weren’t biting anymore.

I’m sure I would have caught a legal Moi that day if I hadn’t released the little one. I kept casting, and on the way back, I was lucky enough to catch my second Kagami Papio ever, even though it was small, I was still stoked on landing such a rare fish again.

Anyways, hopefully it sheds some light on the next few weeks of fishing. I haven’t been trying for Oama at all in the past few weeks, but I have been seeing quite a lot while whipping. Lots of Omilu are coming up onto the sand when the waves pound it just to eat the oama. Maybe it’s time to try a little bit of oama style lures? The nehu are still somewhat in as well as the mullet. Good luck guys.

Holoholo: Ala Wai JDM vs Non-JDM and King Tide fishing

July 9, 2019 By Scott 7 Comments

Soon to be 8th grader, Matthew, fished the target-rich Ala Wai Canal with traditional and JDM lures, and fished the bottom and the top of the King Tide on a beach outing. Here’s his very entertaining recap and recommendations.

Matthew:

Ala Wai

Most people think of the Ala Wai as a stinky, bacteria filled canal, and that’s very true, but fishermen see it as a gold mine for fishing. Some of the less brave fishermen don’t fish it, so that takes away most of the crowd. But the fish that do remain in there have seen just about every lure on the market, including grubs, spoons, and poppers. So you have to switch it up a little bit. I use JDMs, which are lures that are made in Japan. I took Jacob, other Matthew, Luca, and Vance to fish the Ala Wai.

The first hour and a half was very boring, with no strikes, until I switched it up with the JDMs. I tried the Shimano Shallow Assassin Flash Boost 99mm, which is a solid lure, but I had never tested it much. First cast on it and boom, a nice Omilu hits it but the side treble got stuck in its scutes, which made it feel huge. I kept fishing with it for a while, and eventually landed a decent White Papio, and a good size Kaku.

Editor’s Note: Shameless plug – there are still 3 Shallow Assassin Flash Boosts left in the Store.

Then I switched to the transparent JDM model of the Lucky Craft Sammy purchased in the Hawaii Nearshore Fishing store for $7.50. First cast, and I could see a Kaku following it in. I paused the lure for a second and it jumped on it and immediately went airborne. I tagged and released it quickly and got back to fishing.

I landed one more on the Sammy before I decided to switch it up to the secret JDM lure that I’ve been using recently. No surprise at all, I landed four fish on it, three being Kaku, all violent and exciting strikes, but then I saw a bait school getting busted on in the middle of the canal.

I casted far out there and saw four or five White Papio each fighting each other for the lure. They missed it many times, but one eventually grabbed it and stuck on. Right away it started peeling drag. It took an easy 30 yards on the ultralight setup and I started to get concerned of the huge log it was trying to run into. I radioed back to my mom that I had a big one on, and I decided I had to lock down and boost it or lose it. Remember, this is six pound line main with a 2500 size reel, an ultralight setup. I locked down the drag and muscled it out from the log close to where I could see it. When I saw it, my heart dropped.

One treble was in its mouth and hanging by a flap of skin. I loosened up the drag, and that must be when it saw me and it took another 30 or so yards. It kept resisting for another minute or so before I got it close again. I kneeled down and grabbed the leader, and brought it up onto land. It was the biggest Papio I had caught in a while, so I was of course happy, and tagged it and released it. This was on a rising tide, and was around 2.1 feet when this happened.

Beach Fishing

Cut back to July Fourth and a -0.5 tide. This was the lowest tide I had ever fished and I could walk all the way to the breakers. First cast and the lure flies off to Narnia and I never see it again. Strike one. I keep walking out to the breakers, and retie. I spook a giant Oio and it scares me to the point where I fall off the boulder I’m standing on. Strike Two. I landed hard on the bottom of the boulder, right on top of a Wana (Sea Urchin). Dang. Strike Three.

I pull off the creature but leave the spikes on my foot, and wonder how I am going to get inshore, because if it took me 30 minutes to get out here with two feet able, how am I going to do it with one? I see my answer soon. I go into the sand channel, which is a lot deeper, but only up to around my waist, and walk all the way in. I quickly pulled the spines out of me, and was careful for the rest of the time not to step on that foot hard.

First cast since I made it in and boom, an aggro kaku hops on. It had a tag in it, and was my own! It had grown an incredible 4.5 inches since April, which is a lot. But that was the only fish of the trip if you don’t count an eight inch Omilu.

Go to July Fifth and I go fishing on the huge 2.5 King Tide. The spot looked a lot different from when it was a negative tide. I set my dunkers out from 6pm. I started whipping but the only fish that came up was a slimy Nunu (trumpetfish0, but it was caught on the Shimano Shallow Assassin Flash Boost 99mm. It got dark really fast, and I started to eat my food.

The rest of that night passed horribly quiet until 10pm, when we left. Not a single bell rang or a single bite. The dunking bite was horrible, as well as the whipping bite. Maybe because of the swift current? Keep tuned for future updates.

JDM vs Non-JDM Round 1

June 8, 2019 By Scott 4 Comments

So, we kicked off our informal comparison of Japanese Domestic Model (JDM) lures vs Non-JDM lures. The plan was to use Erik’s aluminum skiff to take us to promising reefs for wade whipping.

As Erik and I were launching we saw papio blowing up bait fish. We scrambled to put a lure on, and Erik threw a JDM micro jig; I threw a Shimano Waxwing Baby. On the second cast I hooked a papio and was surprised it was an omilu, not a white, in the muddy water. Waxwings are sold in the US and not in Japan, so Non-JDMs were up one! I got another hit that missed the upturned double hook, and the school swam out of reach.

We picked Robert up on the way to the wading spot, and he rigged Carolina-style with a non-JDM soft plastic knob-tailed shad. Erik threw a JDM popper, I threw a JDM hard plastic sub-surface lure, but there was no life on the flat. We got back in the skiff and trolled around for nada.

Then Erik put us on a drift into the shallows and Robert connected with an omilu on his Maria micro jig, followed by a lizardfish. Officially, the jig is not distributed in the US, but sold in some local tackle stores here, so we considered it a JDM jig. JDM 1 – Non-JDM 1.

The sun was sitting on this action-less day so we dropped Robert off and headed back to our launch site. Low light conditions are when the popper really shines and with 5 mins to go, Erik pulled off the last inning rally. His JDM popper got hit as soon as it landed in the water, and the fish pulled drag like a big papio. Turns out the biggest fish of the day was foul hooked, but was released relatively unharmed.

Final score JDM 2, Non-JDM 1. We really didn’t have enough shots at fish to stage a head-to-head lure comparison. We did confirm that the papio really aren’t in yet. More testing to follow!

Holoholo: Heeia Fishpond – Trial 7

October 19, 2018 By Scott 8 Comments

7th Grade Matthew’s mature, insightful writing style continues to impress. This time he blesses us with a recap of his most recent Heei’a Fishpond Holoholo Day outing.

Matthew:
Note: I have fished this place six times before and this will be my seventh time trying it. In the past I have caught Moi, Kaku, Toau, and Papio over here. There seems to be an abundance of Toau and Kaku mostly though, all feeding on Ama’ama or Nehu. In the past I have had both good days and bad days, and found that the tide is a key factor.

I had signed up for a Heeia Holoholo day, because I thought that the old heeia story posted by Scott in 2015 was long outdated and needed another story to give more info on the pond. I got to the fishpond at 8:15am, where before the introduction I caught some opae with a net and put them in our bucket. We did a little introduction to everyone fishing at the event, then headed off to go fishing. I immediately got my stuff and fast walked the ½ mile to the fourth makaha. I set up, got my oama on, sight casted a kaku, and, screamer! Of course, it snapped the line after. I set up another oama rig and went to the third makaha. There I saw a school of around 10 kaku and a few good sized omilu cruised by once in a while. What were they there for? I soon saw my answer as I spotted some large nehu school in the deep section of the area. They all did not bite my oama at all, but that was about to change soon.

The current stopped and all of a sudden, the kaku started eating everything I threw at them, even lures. In that brief 20 minute period, I tagged 9 kaku and missed many more. The person next to me landed a few papio, and a few kaku in that time also. Then, like a magic switch, the fish all of a sudden stopped biting. I could still see them there, but none were even looking at my lures or oama. I eventually gave up, and this is where the opae came in handy. I used the opae and caught a nenue, kupipi, and many toau on the opae. It seemed like the less desirable fish were still willing to bite, at least. My friends that I invited, Jesse and Jayden, were having fun with the toau and kupipi also, who were also disappointed that the Kaku bite had shut down. We fished for the remainder of the time for toau, and then sadly, our day ended very quickly. We headed back and made a few casts along the way, but nothing came out of this last ditch effort for a Papio. We said our goodbyes to Jesse and Jayden, as well as the Assistant Executive Director, Kelii. This was a good day with many Kaku, and hopefully one of them will get captured.

Overall Fish Status: Oama are still here, but get them before they get big and move past the reef. It is best to find a new and “dumb” pile instead of the larger, smart ones. Sardines are still around, but are much less preferred than the oama, unless you are fishing around a sardine pile, which then live sardines would work. Halalu are around, but many spots have been netted, so keep your halalu spots as quiet as possible. Larger fish are coming to hit the piles, and even pelagics in some select spots. Akule appear to be hanging around in a few spots also. Nehu and Iao are littered around the shoreline, so if you see a small pile, it may be a good idea to cast right past the pile and see if a predator is waiting.

We found papio that wanted to bite!

September 13, 2017 By Scott 2 Comments

By all accounts, this summer season has been the best in recent memory for oama and halalu. Both species came in early and are still around in big numbers. Theories for their respective abundance are: 1) previous oama seasons have been very good and the increase in adult weke led to another good spawn 2) akule grow faster and spawn better during rainy years and the last few years have been rainier than those previous.

Whatever the reason for such a great bait season, it’s actually been hard to catch papio lately because they’ve had so much bait to choose from. Kelly had been scouting some grounds on his SUP and invited Frank and me for a dawn patrol outing at one of his productive spots recommended by Erik, our nearshore boat friend. It’s been great to share knowledge in our little fishing hui.

I don’t think I’ve ever arrived at a fishing spot while it was still dark. Early mornings are not my thing but Kelly had a mid morning appointment so dawn it was. The water was sheet glass calm and stayed that way until about 10:30.

In the too-early morning stumble I forgot to take my pack of frozen oama, so I bummed 3 frozen halalu and 5 frozen oama off Kelly and Frank. The guys paddled off on their SUPs and I kept in touch with Frank via waterproof walkie talkie. They were trolling with a small weight on their line and I was using a floater. Kelly hooked up first, followed by Frank. I followed their trolling paths inside the break yet nothing hit my oama. Kelly missed another fish while retrieving his line and suggested I whip instead of trolling high up in the water column on such a clear visibility day. The guys went out through a large deep channel to fish outside the break but I opted to fish the edge of the channel itself, carefully eyeing the small surf wash over the reef shelf.

Frank reported via walkie talkie that he landed his second papio so I knew they were hooking up. I left the floating oama out and rigged the second rod with a sliding weight to drag an oama near the bottom. Something pulled it off and on the next cast I hooked a poopa’a. Well at least that was more action than I got with the floated oama. Frank called in his 3rd papio and I asked what he was using. Halalu! I dug around and pulled out a 6 inch halalu. It was big for the size of Gamakatsu Live Bait hook I was using but I was too lazy to re-rig. I cast it out and as it was settling to the bottom the line moved. Finally, a real fish. Started cranking it in and remembered to turn on the GoPro cap cam. Drifted into my trolling line so I kept the fish on a short leash as I reached for the net. You can see the trolling line in the video. Cardinal mistake, keeping its head out of the water so it could shake the poorly placed hook. Well, at least I had video proof I *caught* a decent fish. I figured I solved the bait secret and looked for another halalu. The last two were pretty beat up with their stomachs oozing stuff but I tried ’em anyway.

Next cast, still in the channel, I hooked something… arrggh, turned out to be a roi. But the halalu bait was on the outside of the fish so I tried to net it before the halalu fell off. Kept it too high in the water again and you can see the halalu sink to the bottom. I stabbed the roi deeply with a knife and sent it back to join the halalu.

I only had one more beat up halalu left so I changed to a larger Gamakatsu Live Bait hook. I like them when just using one hook behind a bullet sinker because their shank is short so the bait fish is butted close to the sinker. I put on a nice looking oama and some kind of shiny papio followed it back to the boat. It kind of looked like a small kagami, but it didn’t commit. Some other fish hit the oama and jumped out of the water but didn’t hook up either. Tired of missing fish, I rigged the last halalu and something, roi I’m sure, pulled it into the rocks. Just then Kelly was making his way in. He said he and Frank found a hot spot past the waves and the bite was really good on the trolled halalu.

I could see Frank paddling in towards me, then start fighting a fish just outside the break. He called me via walkie talkie to report his largest SUP caught fish. The 19 inch omilu was still alive with really dark coloration like it had swum out of a cave. Frank had used his last halalu, a pretty large one that was missing its tail. Man, the fish really wanted halalu at this spot.

Frank was trolling a small lai and I followed behind casting a 1 oz sinking swimming lure. With all the action the boys had I braced to have the rod wrenched from my hands. The lure cast well, swam pretty well, but nothing hit it. Hmm… I swapped it out with a sinking lipped lure that worked on big white papio in the past. Nada. Frank’s lai got pulled off and he put on an oama. I switched to a small tungsten jig. Maybe the dawn witching hour was over, it was past 10am at this point and nothing was interested in our baits. As we paddled in, Frank got bit on his trolled oama near the side of the channel I had fished in the morning. He landed an omilu and missed another 2 before we called it a day.

Maybe it was due to the extremely clear visibility and proximity to a halalu school nearby that caused the predators to strongly prefer halalu baits over oama and show no interest in my lures. Frank had his best day SUP fishing, ending with 6 omilu from 13 to 19 inches, and one lai. I took a mercy papio from him, and he dropped fish off with his daughter on the way home. After proving to be a halalu prodigy, he’s now dominating the SUP trolling scene. Kelly did very well also in the short time he was there and was an excellent host.

Live oama vs big moon and gusty trades

July 10, 2017 By Scott Leave a Comment

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

September 1, 2016 By Scott 4 Comments

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.

When 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?

Big Island Boat Trip wrap up

June 16, 2016 By Scott 2 Comments

Capt Wes and me after the trip of a lifetime

What an amazing bottom fishing trip we experienced this weekend. The conditions were calm and Captain Wes put us on some really productive grounds. Not only did the shallow water jigs catch the uku I had been chasing for awhile, but out fished bait while landing omilu papio/ulua, kagami ulua, white ulua, nabeta, moana and random reef fish. The 3-piece Cabela’s travel rod held up against a 30lb ulua and the Shimano Curado 300EJ bait caster proved once again, that bait casters have an advantage when heavy jigging.

Thankfully the blood stains on the brand new Patagonia Sunshade Crew I was “testing” came off in the wash that night. It can now be my lucky fishing shirt without looking like I just slaughtered something.

The Tokunaga Challenge weigh-in was the day after our fishing trip, and Naoki was there fish printing ulua on t-shirts. He warmed up with my Kagami before the weigh-in started and now I have a memento of the trip of a lifetime.

While it sounds impressive that my reel had only 15lb fluoro as its main line and landed a fish twice as heavy, it was a serious mistake on my part to be so under gunned. I didn’t expect to hook such a large fish on a small jig, but down in those Big Island dropoffs, big fish lurk. I’m gonna take off the fluoro and just run 50lb braid, which is thinner than the 15lb fluoro I had on. Top it off with a 40lb fluoro leader and I can be boost-happy again!

Papio still around in mid-November

November 9, 2015 By Scott 4 Comments

I wanted to determine the spots that still held inshore papio this late in the season so I checked another spot I hadn’t fished all year. The spot was an area I had trolled oama in the past but was never really good near shore.

I wasn’t expecting much so I was really surprised when I hooked a 12″ (fork length) omilu on the second cast, just a few yards from shore. The omilu looked like it had been eating well over the course of the summer.

After this surprise fish I didn’t hook anything else as I worked my way down the shoreline. I worked my way back and caught a slightly longer omilu about 5 yds from where the first was caught. This one was considerably fatter too so there must be a reliable food source nearby.

I decided to save my remaining frozen oama for a survey of another spot and called it a day. It was great to know papio were still catchable so late in the season, so close to shore.

Challenging weather conditions, fish still bit

October 7, 2015 By Scott 9 Comments

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!

September 30, 2015 By Scott 7 Comments

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

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

Red hot 2 hr fishing window

September 23, 2015 By Scott 17 Comments

new best day ever!

Today was supposed to be the light wind day of the week so I took 6 live oama and 4 fresh dead ones out for a surfboard troll. I planned to fish a different stretch of the beach by paddling into the wind and letting the wind bring me back to the launch point.

I started with a recently deceased, medium-sized captive oama so I wouldn’t waste a livey on the way out to the surfline. Nothing bit it after reaching the break and trolling parallel to it for 10 mins, so I was about to put on a livey on instead. All of a sudden my ratchet screamed and the rod bent over. I hadn’t heard my ratchet scream all year so I was initially spooked! It was actually hard to pull the rod out of the holder; man I missed those screamers. The fish pulled drag in a straight line, then let itself be worked in halfway, then took off again. While I was loving the fight, I strongly suspected it was an oio that decided it needed to add oama to its diet, and I really wanted a nice sized papio instead. The fish started shaking its head, which gave me hope, then pulled line straight out again. After a hard fight against a tight drag, the largest omilu I caught in 2 yrs flashed on its side. It was hooked on the front hook and somehow had broken off the hook that was in the oama’s tail. I was stoked and I had only been fishing 20 minutes. I contemplated heading back in but I didn’t want to waste the live oama.

I put a live one on and something pulled it off without sounding the ratchet. I wonder what could have done that? I put on another livey and this one got eaten by a 10 inch C&R omilu. The next livey hooked a 15 inch (head to tail) omilu that pulled drag nicely and was added to the catch bag. 2 good sized omilu make a decent catch so again I contemplated paddling in but I still had 3 live oama and 3 dead ones.

The next 3 live oama were mangled and crushed but I couldn’t hook the culprit despite the two hook setup. I put a dead oama on and saw the floater go under. When I retrieved the line all I got back was the oama’s head. I put the second to the last dead oama on and let the wind blow me back to the launch site. The ratchet went off but the fight felt a little weird. There was a lot of resistance but the fish wasn’t pulling a lot of line. When it got close, I realized why. Somehow a 14″ omilu was hooked on the front hook and a 10″ omilu was hooked on the rear hook! And another omilu was swimming with them, trying to join the party. Crazy. I shook the 10″ omilu off and kept the 14″ (head to tail) omilu. That was more than enough fish for one day, so I dumped the last dead oama and went in.

Darin’s oio

Darin, whom I had met before, was dunking ika from the beach. He said a lot of undersized papio had been hitting his baits in the last hr, with one legal omilu in the mix. I wished him luck and ran into a guy who had been hooking legal white papio on his Crystal Minnow from shore. His C&R lure action was in the last 30 minutes. While we were taking he noticed that Darin was on a nice fish. What the heck was going on? Were all the planets in alignment or something? We went over to watch Darin’s fish make numerous strong runs before being subdued. The oio went 21″ and 4lbs and Darin packed up his gear to get the fish home in good shape for fish cake.

There wasn’t a particularly good solunar activity period today but something made the fish feed aggressively at the break and at the shoreline. I suspect the fish are trying to make up for all that lost time spent hunkering down during the stormy, humid weather. The trade winds have cooled the water nicely and it looks like the papio season isn’t over yet.

The larger omilu I caught went about 19″ (head to tail) and made 3 lbs on my not too accurate hand scale. Not that big as omilus go but bigger than any omilu I’ve caught last year and this year. With so many papio competing for not much bait this season, I suspect larger than normal papio are coming onto the reef to find food.

Trolling big oama and `opae lolo on my longboard

April 22, 2015 By Scott 3 Comments

My out of season oamas had a sudden die off and I was left with just two. They were 7 inches long and skinny so I figured I’d better use them before they expired. I also took a bunch of `opae lolo.

I was halfway out to the break when a SUPer asked if I caught anything. Just as I sat up the drag zipped and that was it. The jumbo oama was gone and the line was cleanly cut. Must’ve been a kaku. I put the last oama on but nothing touched it. I replaced it with an `opae lolo .

The lolos got hit but the fish weren’t large enough to hook themselves on the size 1 Owner baitholder hook. The floater would be pulled down and a mangled lolo would be left. Trolling such a delicate bait didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.

sorry, it was getting dark

I started heading in, trying to figure out a better way to use them when the drag screamed. It was nice to fight a decent sized papio after so many weeks of small papio and drag burning oio. The omilu taped out at 15.5 inches, head to tail, and will make my parents very happy.

For comparison I plan to fish the same conditions with swimming plugs and kastmasters. I’m hoping the papio and kaku put on their predator hats and attack them.

(Click here to see how I did just using lures)

Fun flats whipping in less than ideal conditions

November 15, 2014 By Scott 6 Comments

Pete from NorCal was back and looking to go another round on the flats. Here’s how we did the last time we went hunting for late season oama. The tides were less than ideal during this week and the best option was to fish the wade-able low tide this evening and cast cut bait and Makata strips. The tide was falling, unfortunately, not rising.

obake weke on the shallow flats

Whipping from shore hasn’t yielded anything substantial recently and we only had a couple hours to fish, so we had low expectations. To make things even more challenging, Pete was using a freshwater spinning setup without much line. The cut bait was getting all the small papio bites so we stuck with that and worked our way out towards the surf break. Pete hooked something that fought like a small oio and had to tighten the rear drag on his small spinner to bring it in. It was the first obake weke I had ever seen in that area and it put up a very respectable fight. If we had quit then, it would have been a successful outing.

We had 20 more minutes to fish so we made it to a sandy channel in the shallow rubble and then every cast resulted in a strike. The 4 inch papio were swarming our baits, then I hooked a beefy Christmas wrasse that took line, followed by an almost legal omilu. Pete landed a grunting humuhumu.

Pete caught the target fish!

On his next retrieve, Pete’s reel started screaming. The fish pulled line in long bursts like an oio which really surprised me given the commotion caused by the previous fish landed. Oio are notoriously easily spooked. I expected Pete to get spooled on the light setup but he patiently worked the fish in, lost some line, and regained some. Finally we could see what it was, a 2 lb oio, the premier flats fish. I later felt Pete’s drag and it was set pretty tight from the battle with the obake weke. Pete masterfully manhandled his first ever oio with trout gear!

end of a successful day

He turned my camera phone on me to as I made my last cast.

All things considered, our short outing was very successful. All fish were released unharmed.

If you thought trolling oama on a board was easy…

September 16, 2014 By Scott 2 Comments

…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

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

September 8, 2014 By Scott Leave a Comment

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

September 2, 2014 By Scott 1 Comment

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.