pipihi

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.

At this point I’ve gone kayak or shore fishing 11 times and besides a shark and hage, haven’t landed a thing. Out of 5 kayak attempts, 3 were so windy we had to cut the fishing short. Out of the 6 solo shore fishing trips, all either had tides too low for the predators to come in, or choppy conditions due to wind and waves. But I’m just making excuses for my bolo head streak, Thad was able to catch two large fish in the same conditions, at one of the spots I tried and failed. Here’s how he did.

It seems that just as I’m getting close to catching fish, something new gets in the way. When I kayaked the deep with Kelly, he caught a nabeta on damashi at 100 ft and I had some scarred baits that looked like they had been raked by nabeta. Even had a good drag puller come off. Here’s the write up for that trip. The next time I went out to that spot solo, the conditions were too rough to safely fish. I’ve given up with kayak fishing the south side until after the fall, when the wind and waves drop.

So I wade fished a spot on Thad’s recommendation and had a bunch of kaku strikes on my go-to sub-surface lure but none stuck because I had changed the rear hook to a strong Owner inline single hook. I went back with that same type of lure sporting stock treble hooks and the wind and waves cloudied the water and made it hard for the kaku to find that lure.

Albino pipihi on the upper left

But I didn’t come home empty. I gathered some pipihi (those small, black salt water snails you see on black rocks when the tide recedes) for my Toby puffer since he’s been getting tired of frozen shrimp. Toby couldn’t break into the tough shell so all the pipihi crawled out of his tub! I crushed one for him and he sniffed it and pushed it around for awhile, then figured out how to eat it. I put the remaining pipihi in another tub that didn’t have any fish and they crawled out of the water but didn’t flee like they did earlier. Pipihi are a lot smarter than I thought. Well one was hanging out on the outside of the tub, and since he was a flight risk, he became Toby’s next meal.

I figured I’d check the spot I last fished in April, hours before the historic flood that tragically dumped mud in East Oahu homes. I was horrified to find the water looking like this, 6 weeks later. There was so much muddy silt on top of the sand that it was actually slippery to wade. The normal bait was gone and the few bait fish I saw were darting all over the place because they couldn’t see predators coming. The tide was also too low to fish, so I just waded around, wondering how long it would take to flush out all this silt and debris.

I consulted the guys to see what I could do to end my bolo streak. Kelly said I needed to get a “bolo head” haircut to accept the bolo and move on. This “side bolo” was the shortest I could handle. Maybe my catch will improve to a side bolo of at least a consolation fish?

Do any of you have any other suggestions for me? By the way, I’m loving my new prescription Maui Jim Twin Fall wraps, but only wish I was seeing fish on my hook with them.

The Bolo is over!

The Bolo is real!