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You are here: Home / Archives for papio season

The Season has started!

July 26, 2023 By Scott 7 Comments

It’s the last week of July and the El Nino has been warming the air and water for a few weeks. We expected that to kick off the oama, halalu and papio seasons but it seems like they all just recently started picking up. Halalu are in a few of the regular spots, in large piles and have been attracting papio and even ulua. Oama are beginning to fill in at the regular spots, and still look like they just swam in from the deep.

Since this is a transitional year from La Nina to El Nino, with the scientists predicting it will just be a moderate El Nino, maybe the fishing season will be similar to how it used to be: oama and halalu will peak in August and thin out by October; papio will be hitting the early piles now and not be as showy by September, but still catchable if you put out a live bait.

Now is the time to whip near the bait piles in the early morning and late evenings as the predators try to ambush the bait in the low light. To help with that, we have restocked our Japanese Domestic Model (JDM) lure supply with what was so successful in 2018 and 2019.

Go to the Store > Newly Added to see the recently added products, or select the product category you’re interested in.

2021 Oama Season – *** Check for Oama updates ***

August 13, 2021 By Scott 16 Comments

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is oama-9-25-17.jpg

Well the 2020 oama season was a bust, as was the nearshore fishing and life in general. Looks like the 2021 oama season hasn’t really started yet, and it’s already the middle of August.

*** Update (11/6/21): While the inshore water temp this summer was cooler than the “good” oama years, the fall water temps haven’t cooled drastically, so there’s actually new oama coming into Oahu’s north and windward beaches. Papio are still being caught off the shore too. Not sure if this is because a new La Nina started, but this not-so-cold water has extended the luke warm oama season.

*** Update (10/12/21): Still got some catchable oama if you find the right school at the right tide/time. There’s also still some papio inshore. Get chance!

*** Update (9/27/21): On Oahu, it seems that the oama didn’t go into the traditional South Shore spots as much as they normally do, and instead went up on the Eastside. There’s some papio hitting those oama, so get both while you can. The wind and water temps are dropping so we’re definitely in a Fall pattern, heading into Winter.

*** Update (9/7/21): There were reports this Labor Day Weekend of oama schools numbering in the low hundreds biting sporadically. Not sure if the papio are still inshore looking for oama, but only one way to find out.

*** Update (8/31/21): There’s a glimmer of hope! Some folks have reported catching a few tiny oama off small piles. Maybe the major wave of oama is beginning to come ashore, a month late.

*** Update (8/26/21): No schools of oama found to be biting baits yet. Not looking good for the oama season at all.

*** Update (8/17/21): The catchable oama mentioned a few days ago became less catchable and ran from the anglers. The schools haven’t really settled down yet in most places. ***

*** Update (8/14/21): A few of the traditional spots reported catchable oama this weekend. Maybe there’s hope for the season after all! ***

Here’s how the past years have gone:

  • 2014 – Normal start and stayed a little longer than expected. Arrived in late June and was mostly gone by October.  El Nino began late this year and water began to warm up.
  • 2015 – Season started late and ended late. Oama came in late July and stayed at some places past December. El Nino in full effect.
  • 2016 – Season started late and ended late. Oama came in late July and stayed through November. El Nino ended this year and water began to cool.
  • 2017 – Normal start and slightly late ending. Oama came in late June and began to leave in October, at most places. La Nina brought a lot of rain.
  • 2018 – Season started in late July, ended in the fall and wasn’t particularly long or good. La Nina was thought to have ended before the Summer and could be blamed for the late start.
  • 2019 – Season started late and fizzled. Weak La Nina effect continues to affect the fishing.
  • 2020 – Blame the La Nina? Blame the Covid pandemic crowds playing in the water? It was the worst oama and papio season in recent memory.

Sorry for the bleak prediction but it’s looking like a terrible oama season unless they come in late and strong. With NOAA’s announcement of another La Nina winter, that’s unlikely. The silver lining is the halalu piles in the traditional places that are drawing large papio in the early morning hours.

Holoholo: Papio action is heating up!

June 9, 2021 By Scott 10 Comments

Matthew is back with a very timely shore fishing update.

Matthew: It’s only been a few weeks since I wrote my last post, but a lot has happened since then. Like flipping a switch, the Papio bite has turned on all of a sudden and is excellent as of now. All of my friends have caught Papio on their last trip or two and most of the time have caught more than one per trip. 

I was pretty dead set on fly fishing a few weeks ago, and landed another nice Oio which was my second on the fly rod, but then the weather report for Sunday presented some not-so-ideal weather conditions. High winds, cloud cover, and a fast rising tide would have made it extremely difficult to sight fish. I decided to go check out an old Papio spot, and was treated to a nice Papio on my very first cast. Welcome back to Papio whipping. I hooked up to three more that day but lost them all, but was still satisfied with the one Papio.

A few days later, I went Papio fishing at the same spot and was treated to the best day I’ve had whipping. I landed seven Omilu ranging from 11-15 inches, had many more spit the hook, and saw countless chases and boils. This is probably an average day for someone fishing on another island, but for two hours on Oahu, it was a “once-a-year” kind of trip.

Fly fishing was now completely tossed to the curb and I was now hooked on Papio fishing once again, my old passion. I was invited to my friend’s beach house for dinner and I figured, why not bring my pole just in case? Sure enough, I had some time and I threw a few casts at an area that I was completely unfamiliar with. As dusk approached, I was able to land my biggest Papio in a few months, which put up a great fight. 

The next Sunday, I had a chance to go with two guys I’ve been fishing with for a while now, and hit up one of the old spots. We had yet another good day. I landed a Papio and a Lai, one guy landed three Papio, and one guy lost one and had a bunch of bites. 

So, enough of that… But what about predictions? So far, this season is looking like it is going to be an above average season, and it’s been looking like it for a few weeks now. The Halalu and sardines are in a select few spots that I know of and the Oama are starting to make their appearance at some of my spots too. I’ve been seeing some Iao on the flats, which almost always means that predators will be drawn towards shallower waters. Other fishermen have been sharing similar results to our catches and have been reporting the same uptick in bait sightings. Hopefully this year will make up for last summer’s subpar action. 

In summary, the season is just starting, but if you haven’t gotten out fishing yet, now’s the chance. I’d guess that the good fishing will last until mid-August, and then by October the bite will probably be dead or at least slow again. Stock up on summer gear, stay safe, have fun, catch some fish, and I’ll catch you on the next report??

Still a little early in the “season”. Here’s an early bait prediction.

June 25, 2020 By Scott 21 Comments

Photo by Matt

July is right around the corner but there aren’t a lot of bait fish in. The early oama that came in last month have grown to mid-size but the second wave of oama hasn’t arrived.

There were some halalu piles, like the one Matt found to have his personal best catch, but a lot disappeared and there’s speculation that they were illegally netted.

The iao (Hawaiian sardine) weren’t in at my whipping spots and the predators that follow them into the shallows were missing. I checked two spots with some new lures and bolo’d both times!

Thad’s omilu on Lawaiaflies

The guys (and gals) have been starting at dawn with flies on long leaders behind floaters and have been experiencing improved omilu action.

We’re hoping a waves of oama and halalu come in soon but it is looking like an off year compared the recent banner years. How do you guys think this season will pan out?

Oama and predator report – Sept 2019

September 6, 2019 By Scott 4 Comments

Haven’t been getting oama reports lately and haven’t seen guys fishing the popular spots so when my friend David said he was gonna be doing some late season oama fishing, that was enough motivation to get me to check the grounds.

David had the school to himself when I arrived and the oama were 5 to 5.5″ fish with that light green color that indicated that they’d be sticking in the shallows for a while. The school size was larger than we could see from where we stood, and David had no problem getting them to eat his variety of baits. If Tina is the Oama Psychologist, David is the Oama Technologist. He loves to tweak his equipment, baits and technique to improve his catch ratio and level of enjoyment. Here’s David landing an oama with the DIY snag-free net he wrote about earlier.

I didn’t see any predators around the oama pile so I whipped the deeper water, covering a lot of ground with the Shimano Shallow Assassin with “Flash Boost” (4 inches long), but nothing was interested. I returned to shore to find the tide was a little too low on the flats and the 1 ft deep water was lined with broken pieces of limu. But there were very small iao jumping once in a while so something was hunting them. The trick was to cast lightly and hold the rod tip up so the Shallow Assassin would stay on the surface and not latch onto any limu.

15 ft in front of me the water erupted and I was tight to a fish that was taking some drag! I could see it’s silhouette because the water was so shallow, and thought it might be an oio. After a few short dashes I got a better view and realized it was a kaku putting up a spirited fight in very shallow water.

I didn’t measure it but was bigger than the small kaku I normally catch in that spot. Looks like it tried to bite the tail off the lure and it was a little tricky to extricate 2 of the 3 barbs of the treble hook to release the fish.

I walked the shoreline, casting into a foot or two of water and eventually got tired of taking limu off the hook. Put on my trusty Shimano Waxwing Baby (2.7 inches long) with rear double hook that ran snag-free and made about 50 casts before the water erupted in an “S” pattern. This was a bigger kaku and I felt it hit the lure but miss the hook. That’s the problem with the upturned double hook. It doesn’t snag limu but also doesn’t hook fish well that hit it from the side.

That ended my slow evening of whipping very shallow water with small swimming lures. Dusk arrived and David had close to a limit of oama in his fanny pack cooler to be served fried crispy for friends later. No one else joined him at the oama school that evening.

It’s the first week of September and the oama are still around in some spots but the fishers and predators seem to have gotten their fill of them and moved on. Guys are still catching papio but further out in deeper water.

Most of the halalu spots have dried up, though there’s still big schools at a few places, and those halalu are being fished hard!

The Shimano Shallow Assassin has never bolo’d. I think it’s the combination of being such a small lure that casts well and swims enticingly. Every time I’ve restocked it in the store it sold out within 2 days. But I’ll be bringing in some other really popular, hard to find JDM lures soon, so please give them a try too!

It’s official, the Summer fishing season has started!

August 5, 2019 By Scott 3 Comments

It’s the first week of August and like clock work the oama are filling in around the island and omilu are coming into the shallows to grind ’em. Omilu are even being caught on frozen shrimp now, in places that weren’t biting a week ago.

White papio are schooling up to feed and spawn, and kaku are hanging around the sardine schools, falling for lures that resemble the baitfish.

Halalu have been in for a few weeks and are drawing bigger predators.

We suspect this isn’t gonna be a long season, so get out and get yours now!

The Bolo is over!

June 2, 2018 By Scott 15 Comments

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.

 

Lychee and mangoes ripening, what does that mean for this year’s oama season?

May 8, 2018 By Scott 7 Comments

 

 

 

 

 

Early season lychee and mango have been picked and eaten.  Some old time fishermen believe that the seasonal triggers that cause those fruits to blossom and ripen are the same that trigger oama to come into the shallows.  We sure could use early season oama because it has been really slow inshore and even nearshore on our kayaks.

I haven’t caught a decent fish since February, and favorable wind days have been scarce.  But just recently, the bite seems to have picked up.  The guys are beginning to get white papio and omilu just outside the reef on their watercraft, or from land at hard to access places, so maybe the bait fish have arrived.

Erik and Kekoa got these throwing Yuzuri Hydro Poppers off Erik’s tin boat.  Multiple white ulua hit and cut off or shook off.  With that many whites and omilu staging just off the reef edge, there must have been a source of bait nearby.

 

 

Maybe the bait was this?  Early season papio tend to be larger than later season papio, so the early season fisher is rewarded with smaller crowds and bigger fish.  Go get ‘um!!!

Is the first wave of the Summer papio season over?

July 15, 2017 By Scott 2 Comments

these picky oama took 2 of us hours to catch!

It’s now mid-July and from what I’ve been hearing from you guys, and what I’ve been seeing on the water, the “first wave” of the season is over.  Friends and I have this theory that the oama came in early, in June, and some spots are now barren because the oama have gotten big and left for the reef.  The oama remaining in other spots are akamai to the normal baits we’ve been using, and have gotten lock jaw.  The big papio that came in a few weeks after the oama did have either been caught or are eating oama out in the deeper water.  So is it time to hang up the fishing gear and wait ’til next year?

Well, if you want to catch oama now you have to find “new, dumb ones” or figure out when they’re the most hungry.  Be creative with the baits, they “old” oama have seen everything by now.

If you have oama to use, you’ll have to take them further out since the papio aren’t coming close to shore anymore.

And if you like to throw lures like I do, be prepared to get bolo’d.  The papio and other preds are hunting further out, as mentioned, and are keyed on the abundance of natural baits still around.

There’s still fish to be caught during this next stage, but it will take akamai fishers to catch them.


If you have any fish stories or reports to share, please comment on my posts or contact me through the Contact page.  I’m always stoked to hear that this blog has gotten you fired up to fish more often.

Papio Season is really over…

October 23, 2015 By Scott 2 Comments

…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.

Did the papio season come to a dead stop, or just hit another pause?

October 17, 2015 By Scott 5 Comments

In talking with other lure whippers and oama dunkers, and from my own experience, the papio season has been red hot in the last few weeks.  Larger than normal papio were being caught inside the reef, some even reaching small ulua status.

With high hopes, I fished two previously productive oama whipping spots this week with Jason, who normally whips plastic grubs, Waxwings and other hard plugs.  The first spot’s calm inshore area was a strange tea color.   Just last week it was loaded with hungry whites.  The bite on the dead oamas was very slow and only kaku were hitting far inside of the break.  Jason ended up with a couple 15 – 20 inch kaku and I just had gouged and cut off baits to show.  Convinced the papio had to be around somewhere I inched closer and closer to the waves and got splashed up to my cap multiple times.  My waterproof bag proved to be not so waterproof when I had it opened to get more bait, and I ended up soaking my main reel and backup reel.

The following day, after taking apart both reels and lubing them  with anti-corrosion lube, we hit a spot that had been red hot last week.  The inshore protected areas were tinged brown like yesterday’s spot.  An 8 inch omilu hit my first dead oama so things were looking up.  But for the next hour or so, small papio nipped and pulled off the oama baits, a larger papio took drag and unbuttoned and we were inching closer and closer to the impact zone.   I was tripped up twice in surgy water, falling head first in waist deep water with my rod in my hand.  The first time I fell so suddenly my neck felt like I had whiplash and I had to massage out the tight muscles. I had never fallen wading to the break before; what the heck has been going on these last two days?  Guess I’ll be finding out how good the anti-corrosion lube is.

Where did all the larger oama-eating papio go?  Jason switched to plastic grubs and caught a few small omilu but even they were fairly scarce.  Did the season come to a sudden end or did something else cause the predators to stop chewing?

Is it Papio Season Yet?

May 21, 2015 By Scott Leave a Comment

modified board mount sitting on a bucket

modified board mount sitting on a bucket

Boaters have serviced their boats in anticipation of Ahi Season.  My prep for Papio Season was much easier. I cleaned the old wax off my longboard and modified a board mount I got from boardfisher.com to be more wind resistant.  The original milk crate setup was very ergonomic but caught a lot of wind when stuffed with gear.  I simply cut off the back 1/3 of the crate, letting the wind blow through, and reinforced it.

 

 

 

I took the mount out yesterday, with my last batch of `opae lolo, to see if the papio started prowling the reef.  The lolos got hit by small fish but nothing stayed on the hook.  I switched to the blue sardine Waxwing Baby with high hopes after the successful field test and addition of a much stronger,  sharper double hook.  After flailing the water for more than an hour, all I caught was a small cornetfish.

I guess it’s not papio season yet.  No influx of bait fish to draw them.  Shucks.

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