I met David last year on a day that the oama didn’t want to bite the usual cut shrimp bait, and my experimental bait was doing the trick. Here’s how that day went down (I refer to him as “the grandpa” since he was fishing with his grandson). We ran into each other again, and David turned me on to his secret baits and methods. Since then we’ve tried to help each other get better as oama catchers and papio fishermen. Another great friendship, like that with Tina the Oama Psychologist, forged on the oama grounds.

David generously shares a key improvement to a critical piece of oama equipment:

Most real fishermen have forgotten more than I could ever hope to know. But I do have one tip that could help Oama fishermen. The net…. Getting your hook stuck in a fabric net is the pitttttts and of course it always happens when the bite is “on”, especially if you don’t pinch down the barb. So some people line the net with a plastic bag, but when the net is in the water, the bag floats up and out of the net plus it makes an irritating noise when the captured Oama are thrashing around in the plastic.

My solution, is to line the net with shade screen. They sell it at City Mill. It’s that dark green stuff that covers flower hothouses. You can either pull off the red or blue netting from the ready-made nets and discard it,  or just stick the shade screen into the net and use a needle and thread (or thin cord or wire will do), to secure the shade screen into the wire hoop of the net; or use plastic ties.  I happen to have large needles for sewing leather or carpet, and use leftover braided line to secure the cloth;  you can easily make a large needle by using some stainless steel wire and crimping the thread at one end, the same way you would make a needle to bridal live bait. The fish hook doesn’t  penetrate or stick on the shade screen because it is a plastic woven fabric and it severely reduces frustration levels.  I’ve made shade screen nets out of old squash and racquetball rackets also.  I hang them around my neck with bungee cord. Shade screen nets are stiffer and hold their shape and you can fabricate them so that they are shallower than mosquito fish nets that are too deep.

After all, the purpose of the net is just to secure the fish before it throws the hook and wiggles out of your hand, so a deep net is not necessary. Most of my shade cloth nets are only a few inches deep, kind of the shape of a small wok, just enough to keep the critters from wiggling away. The fabric is very cheap.

Aloha.

David