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1st new Phenix rod continues to be lucky, 2nd new rod is unlucky? Mahi catch and cook, sort of.

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(l to r) Phenix Black Diamond East Coast with Avet SX Raptor, Phenix Black Diamond with Avet MX Raptor

Fishermen are superstitious. Some rods seem luckier than others. And some rods seem unlucky as well. I used the second of the Phenix rods I’m demo-ing, the Black Diamond Extra Heavy 30lb – 80lb rod, with a new Avet MX 2-speed Raptor holding 620 yd of 50lb braid. Much bigger gear than I need but I wanted to see how it felt against a fish.

To hedge my bets, I also brought the Black Diamond East Coast Heavy rod I used on the last trip that caught 2 small ulua and a kawakawa. Since it’s a lighter setup, I fished that one with no weight and put a sliding tungsten weight on the Extra Heavy rig.

3 kayak friends fished the Windward spot the day before and found bait and preds relatively shallow in the calm water, taking home a 30lb ulua, a shibi and a small mahi. I’ve never caught a shibi ever, and I fish this spot a lot so I was very impressed and had high hopes. I brought extra ice and wondered how many fish would fit in my fish bag. The water was choppier for me, with a 12mph east wind blowing into a NW swell, which made getting out a slog but all that surface commotion encourages the predators to feed.

I caught 2 medium sized opelu in the blind, then tried for another 30 mins and couldn’t find any more. I put one out, headed to where my friends had gotten action the day before and something hit the bait and raced across the top of the water. It was so skinny I though it was an aha (houndfish) but it turned out to be a very hard fighting baby mahi. It looked bigger when it got closer so I decided to keep it and missed hitting it with the kage too many times to count before I finally got it in the boat. Not wanting to waste my only other live bait, I put a frozen opelu out and it was ignored.

I went in to the shallow ledge and put a frozen opelu on the Extra Heavy rod with the sliding weight and somehow got tangled in my motor/rudder. I eventually freed it, dropped the bait down again, and that creature that keeps running my bait into the rocks did it again, but this time I couldn’t pull the hooks free. I spent a long time bending the extra heavy rod and could feel something pulling back but could never get it to swim out. Finally I busted off and had to retie that rig.

In order to avoid another snag, I put the remaining opelu on the Heavy rod with no weight and immediately hooked an aha with the single hook, which is kind of rare since aha usually hit the middle of the bait and avoid the hook. The aha was released since I was still hoping to fill the fish bag with pelagics.

Paddled back out to the bait spot and hooked something near the bottom that pulled downward pretty hard. I was super stoked to see a big opelu and thought about putting a wire stinger rig on my front hook of the heavy East Coast rod but lazily thought nothing would hit that large an opelu at 2pm. Well, a minute after it was let out, something took off with it. I waited 10 seconds for the fish to turn and swallow the opelu, then fought the fish for a few seconds more before it let go of the bait. Arrrgghhh!

Looking at the mortally wounded bait, it appears that a mahi grabbed it sideways, dog bone style, and didn’t turn it to swallow it because it was too large.

I couldn’t catch another opelu, tangled the heavy rod’s line around my rudder again, and realized I blew my shot. Headed in while I still had battery left for my original J-1 Bixpy motor. All 3 live opelu got hit on the now lucky East Coast rod, and the XH rod wrapped my motor twice and snagged once. Not a good first showing.

I had forgotten to bleed the little mahi when I landed it, so it had a bit of loose blood behind the gill area when I cleaned it, but wasn’t as bad as a “red meat” tuna.

Since I’m not much of a cook, and less of a fish eater, I marinated the mahi pieces in taco seasoning and pan fried it.

My wife warily tried the mahi fish tacos and was pleasantly surprised that they weren’t fishy and had a nice texture. The taco seasoning was a little over powering so she wants to try mahi again with a subtler presentation.

Since we have more light wind days forecasted, I’ll be out again looking for a fish to bend the XH rod.

Tested the new Phenix Black Diamond East Coast rod and caught 3 different tackle strainers

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Standard Black Diamond XHeavy on the bottom, Black Diamond East Coast Heavy on top. Zoom in to see details.

Recently became a Phenix Rod dealer to pair with the Avet reels we sell and realized not many, including myself, have used a Phenix Rod. Ordered two 7ft casting rods to try off the kayak: Black Diamond 30lb – 80lb Extra Heavy and Black Diamond East Coast 30lb to 80lb Heavy. The East Coast version is thinner and a little softer in the tip, with lighter components. The original Black Diamond series was made for West Coast style stand-up fishing, and built to fight big fish and take a beating.

(top to bottom) St Croix Mojo Salt 30-50lb, Phenix Black Diamond 30-80lb, Phenix Black Diamond East Coast 30-80lb

The St Croix Mojo Salt 30lb to 50lb is actually thicker and bulkier than the two 30lb to 80lb Phenix rods due to the tighter and stronger carbon fiber build that Phenix employs.

I put the diminuative Avet SX Raptor on the lighter Black Diamond East Coast and it felt very easy to handle.

The winds lightened this past week and I was finally able to explore a Windward ledge that has always intriqued me. I stumbled upon some big opelu inside the ledge and took one out to 270ft with no bites. One the way back into the shallow ledge I dropped the GoFish cam down and later confirmed it was a barren sandy area with just a few hagi too small to eat the opelu.

At the shallow ledge I traded out the big opelu for a slightly smaller one, and it got picked up by a strong fish with a lot of head shakes. To max out the ability of the Phenix rod and 2-speed SX Raptor, I put it in low gear and grinded away, hardly lifting the rod at all. 4 minutes later I was surprised to see an omilu over 10lbs trying hard to shake the hook. It was admired for its beauty and released. There is a video at the bottom of this post showing all the action, but don’t skip ahead!

Working my way back to the grounds I normally fish, I ran into more daytime opelu schools and caught 3 of them on my 3-hook damashi. That almost never happens to me. I put them out with a sliding weight and each got taken by something that pulled for a while and then held onto the rocks, and when I pulled the hooks out, the leader came out with no nicks at all. I have been suspecting a tako does this at this spot because when roi hole up in the reef my line gets nicked up. Whatever it was, it grabbed the 3 opelu and I was out of live bait.

I had fresh opelu from the Kalihi fish market, and sent one down. It got taken as I paddled away, and since I was so shallow, I assumed I hooked another papio. I was pleasantly surprised to see a kawakawa circle. I kage’d it to bring it onboard, and subdued it with Bert’s Brainer.

Since kawakawa always travel in schools, I put another fresh opelu down and it got taken immediately by a stronger pulling fish. Assuming it was a much larger tuna, I battled the hard surging fish, wondering what would have such strong head shakes. The fish had run through the rocks when it first grabbed the bait, and had pushed the sliding weight all the way up to the FG knot joining the braid to the leader. I couldn’t slide the weight back down and was worried I’d break the FG knot by trying, so I handlined the fish in. I was surprised and disappointed to see a small ulua gasping at the surface.

After releasing the ulua I pulled on the weight and sure enough the FG knot parted so I called it a day and went in.

The Black Diamond East Coast rod and SX Raptor were a delight to fish with yet, in low gear, brought all the fish in within 5 mins each. It was very easy to pull the rod out of the rod holder even when the fish were running, because the “slick butt” didn’t get hung up at all. What a powerful, effective combination.

Here’s the video of the action: