Hawaii Nearshore Fishing

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Holoholo: The Bait Is In, Realistic Lure testing

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Casden Chow is a 9th grader on O’ahu and is an avid fisherman who fishes from shore and kayak.

Casden:

The last couple weeks, I’ve been able to go on a couple whipping trips after a depressing hiatus due to school. Summer is finally here, and the fishing is heating up! I wasn’t expecting too much on this first trip. I thought I’d just check out what was around, and it ended up being a good recon mission. I came across this reef edge that created a small pocket of calm water and saw sardine piles holed up there, so I threw on a tiny 10g jig that I thought would imitate them well. A nice little kaku ended up biting. It was great to get a little action after a long break. These were probably some of the first bait piles of the season. 

This was mid-May, which is pretty early for bait to come in. I asked Scott about this, and he said that this year there’s an El Niño weather pattern, which brings larger warm water currents, more bait, and in turn predators to our waters. I also did some reading and found out that this could be one of the most intense “super” El Niños in a long time. To my surprise, Scott also told me that the oama were already in, so my next trip I wanted to test an interesting lure. This is an extremely realistic oama softbait. I rigged it with a belly-weighted EWG hook. I’m sure we’ve all heard “Some lures catch fish. Some catch fishermen”. They looked really great, so I was excited to see how well they worked. Would they actually swim well and catch fish, or were they just made to look pretty? The tackle shop owner I bought them from said people had gotten action just dunking them and letting them float in the current, pretty nuts!

The next spot I tried was super shallow, so I walked out to a reef ledge that dropped off into deeper water. The weather over the weekend was pretty rough. I was debating whether to go out, but you won’t catch anything sitting at home. At least if you’re out there, you have a chance. It was a bit of a battle with rough winds and waves on the ledge. I ended up getting pretty bad wind knots later in the day and got soaked. The lure was also light, which made things a little hard with the wind. I figured out that a sideways cast kept the line and lure close to the water without it getting blown back by the wind. I didn’t really know what the best way to work this lure was. If anyone has ideas about the best retrieve for this lure, please let me know! I ended up getting bit on a stop and burn retrieve. It was a nice little papio, probably around the 14-inch range.

The lure swims super well and looks like a real oama. Very good start to early summer fishing. I’m excited to see what is to come. Thanks, Scott for giving me the info about the oama and teaching me about these crazy weather patterns. 

Editor’s Note: Casden is one of very few people that actually listened to my crazy El Nino ramblings!

SUP and Kayak whipping action

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Frank had been customizing his surf SUP for fishing and came up with design where he could sit kayak-style with legs supported by foot rests, and paddle as if it were a surf ski.  It was much easier to transport than my kayak, and he could climb back on easily if he huli’d (flipped). If I huli on my old Scupper Pro, it’s a struggle to climb back in with all the accessories attached, and the hatch would have let in water.

We went out on a light wind, low surf day to see how Frank’s Fishing SUP fished.  I had misjudged the waterline of my kayak when I made an adjustment to the fish finder’s transducer mount so the transducer was high and dry and unusable. I rely heavily on the fish finder when scouting new grounds so it felt severely handicapping but turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  Without the drag of the transducer mount, the Scupper Pro felt lively and glided like it had never before.

Frank ventured into the white wash, and I stayed just out of range, trying to gauge the tippy-ness of the kayak.  Straddling the kayak as if it were a longboard helped greatly with stability.  Frank found a small break in the surf and hooked something on his JDM sub-surface lure. It tugged pretty hard for about 10 seconds and then unbuttoned.  That gave us hope.  An hr later I had yet to feel a tug.  I followed Frank into a protected break in the surf and watched as he fished up in the white wash.

In the serenity of the calm 5 ft water I hooked something! It pulled drag a bit and was hard to bring in. Turned out to be an omilu that was hooked on both treble hooks. I was stoked to catch something decent in the safety of the protected water and eventually worked my way further into the waves as they got smaller with the rising tide.  The grounds looked great but we didn’t get another strike for the next 2 hours.

At 6pm, when we were considering paddling in, we made one more attempt. It was the witching hour, after all.  We looked for the largest boulders and turbulence and bam! Something ran against my tight drag, making two strong, brief runs, then the hook pulled. UGH!  The two treble hooks were bent open! The fish probably was hooked like the first fish was, and was able to pry itself loose by straightening out the hooks. Since I had pinched down the barbs, it easily slid off after that. That had never happened to me before, mainly because I had never hooked a big fish with treble hooks.  I’m still amazed that the Owner 2X #3 treble hooks opened so easily but friends have since explained why single hooks are a much more secure connection to the fish.  I’ll be replacing the hooks on these very productive lures soon, hopefully keeping their swimming action intact.

Frank’s Fishing SUP performed very well. He was able to paddle comfortably and access rougher water than I could risk. Frank is very skilled at fabricating customized solutions and has created a fishing / surfing SUP transformer. He gets compliments on his gear wherever we fish. We both have some equipment and technique tweaks to make to fish safely in the wash, and we’ll be back, ready for the next SCREAMAH!