Holoholo: What kine papio did I catch on my SUP? Catch and Cook

June 26, 2019 By Scott 3 Comments

My kayak fishing partner Frank took his fishing SUP instead of the kayak for a quick outing and presented Kelly with his mystery fish after Kelly correctly identified it.

Frank: I had to get some SUP (kayak style) fishing and exercise in before the storms this week. I headed out looking at the dark gray clouds coming from the east, hoping I would get a few hours of calm winds and no rain. After three laps around the area that was productive on my last outing, I headed East of the channel to try another action area and finally got hooked up. I had to paddle for about 15 seconds to make sure I was clear of breaking waves. After grabbing the pole from the holder and starting reeling in, the fish was already in a hole and I got rocked.

Feeling the bite was on I headed back to the West side of the channel and on my 2nd lap hanapaa! This fish was strong and was taking line in spurts. I didn’t want to get rocked twice so I tighten drag to muscle it in. He fought all the way to the leader and was still splashing around refusing to be netted. I could see stripes on the papio and I got more excited to get a fish I never caught before. Finally in the net and secured on the deck, I saw that the trailing treble hook did its job. The fish went in the cooler bag and was still flopping around while I did my last 2 laps before heading in.

Got to my car still not knowing what kind of papio it was. I asked my friends and Kelly said “barred” papio. I gave him the fish since our kitchen is being renovated and he was stoked. He said the fish is uncommon and very tasty. I’m glad he and family enjoyed the special catch. Thanks to the FWA (Fishing With Aloha) crew for mentoring me at my new hobby. Be safe and Blessed. Frank

Kelly:

Frank gifted me his barred papio (Carangoides ferdau for you wanna be marine biologist types, like me) and I was super excited to try eating one for the first time! The 15″ fish was very thick and fatty, with pinkish meat similar to a yellow spot papio.

When cleaning it, I was surprised to find that it was full off eggs. Cleaning a fish with eggs is always bittersweet, since I like to eat fried fish eggs but would have loved for the momma fish to have been able to produce offspring.

We filleted the papio so we could make half of it sashimi and the other half steamed, Chinese style. The eggs were fried crispy, with only salt and pepper seasoning. They were ono however not much different from other papio eggs.

The sashimi was amazing, a bit like yellow spot (smooth and creamy) but less oily and the steamed portion was very good as well.
Thanks again Frank! Now I can asterisk this “bucket-list” fish. One day I still hope to catch one myself and if/when I do, I will know how to prepare it … next time I’m making the whole fish sashimi!

Holoholo: Aha (needlefish) catch and cook

January 9, 2019 By Scott 1 Comment

Kelly is one of our core fishing buddies and a terrific SUP fishing minimalist. He joined Frank and me out in the deep on a calm day and sent a message to the marauding aha by keeping two to eat!

Kelly:
Since the water was malia (calm), I decided to join the ‘yak trip and see how far out I could go on my SUP while hopefully still fishing effectively. My backup plan was to troll the shallow inshore reefs for papio and awa awa. I arrived well before the latebird ( Scott 🙂 ) so I decided to troll the inshore reef before he/Frank launched and test the inshore action. After an hour with no strikes, I saw them launching from the beach so paddled over to intercept them on the way out. The glassiness of the water and slow start inshore swayed me to tag along with the yakkers. I figured that I wouldn’t catch anything on my surface trolled oama, but it was a nice day for a paddle.

Well long story short, I ended up with several large `aha so decided to keep a couple for pupus (snacks). Turns out those fish are rather tasty and here are some photos of the end result. Our guests in town from Japan really enjoyed the panko `aha!

Holoholo: SUP fishing with oama

August 27, 2018 By Scott 2 Comments

My SUP fishing friend Kelly has guest posted in the past and started off the Holoholo section. He consistently brings home the kau kau fish during the oama season and also during the “off season”. I shared 9 live oama with him that he used for his Maunalua Bay outing. He forgot his Flow-Troll bait bucket that day and had to keep a 5 gallon bucket from tipping over on the deck of his SUP!

Kelly:
Hi Scott,
My friends and I have been capitalizing on the late oama run on Oahu and using them outside of shorecasting range to catch papio and some other oddballs. Two weeks ago we went in the Waikiki area and I got a 3-pound omilu and a couple of 2-pounders. Sorry no pics, because went in my opu fast.

Omilu and taape filets

Opihi and lomi awa awa

Raw awa awa fish balls

Fried awa awa fish balls

Last week we went in Maunalua Bay (thanks for LIVE OAMA!) and I got a 3-pound awa awa, 5 small omilu (1-2 pound, best kine fo’ grine) and two ta`ape. The ta`ape had eggs, so was good to take them off the reef. Ate those fish fast kine, but managed to get pics of the fileted fish, lomi awa awa and cooked patties for you.
K-den,
Kelly

Kayak fishing the deep in light wind, small moon conditions

May 14, 2018 By Scott 6 Comments

The rare light wind, small wave, small moon day presented itself. My fishing partner, Frank, was out of town so Kelly graciously filled in. Kelly planned to troll frozen oama on the way out to the deep and then switch to damashi tipped with ika when fish showed up on the EchoMap 44CV fish finder/map charter. I planned to keep things simple and bottom fish with frozen opelu and maybe drop a jig with the other rod.

I hadn’t bottom fished with bait at this particular spot and wanted to see if that would be the difference maker. Kelly hooked an undersized omilu within minutes of launching and released it. I steadily paddled out, telling him my depth via walkie talkie as he followed behind. Before I reached the 100 ft mark, Kelly battled and landed a big aha which he also released since he hoped for better fish in the deep.

Fish gathered under me so I dropped a frozen 6 inch opelu down on a relatively small offset circle hook. The first couple were getting pulled off the hook without me even detecting the theft. Then some came back with 2 inches missing off the tail, or puncture marks through the body. At first I was excited because our last two big moon bottom fishing trips yielded no bites, but as I quickly went through my bait supply, concern mounted. Kelly damashi fished and after a while got a bite. Up came a big nabeta! Whoohoo! I was surprised they were in 100 ft since I thought we were over a rocky ledge, not the sand that nabeta hide in.

More of my opelu were mangled and the bite pattern sure looked like fang-toothed nabeta, though maybe I was wishful thinking. I was down to a 3 inch piece of a big opelu head and three 8-inch whole opelu. I changed to the 12/0 VMC circle hook I had been using in the past, since the offset hook I was using had too small a gap to slip around the bait. With the opelu head securely hooked through the nostrils, I dropped down and waited. Tap, tap, tap. Kelly was watching nearby when the fish ran hard with the bait and took drag for a second. It managed to pull the bait off without getting hooked. Sigh…

Kelly magically brought up a moana on his damashi and I hooked it through the nostrils and set it down. I drifted that moana further out, over ledges for a good amount of time and nothing hit it. It was a good test and in the future I’ll stick to opelu if I have some.

We started fishing our way in, and Kelly stretched his body by standing and fishing off the SUP. Takes a lot of dexterity and calm water to do that. At 60 ft he got a bite. Here we are, hoping the fish isn’t “black”.

I ended the day with no fish landed, extending my bolo head streak to 7. Kelly felt bad and insisted I take home the nabeta since that’s the only fish my wife wants to cook and eat. He said to gill and gut it right away and place it on paper towels in the fridge to keep it dry.

I rolled it in corn starch, deep fried it lightly, pulled it out to let it cool and fried it again, “Coach Haru style”. I slightly under fried the outside so it wasn’t as crispy as it should have been but my wife ate it to the bones. Nabeta is the best! Thanks Kelly!

And while I got skunked once again, I do believe I got so many hits and steals because of the dark moon phase and moving tide. Just gotta convert that knowledge to fish caught, next time.

Guest Post: Big South Shore Omilu on SUP – Catch and Cook

November 16, 2017 By Scott 16 Comments

It really was this big and I have the photos to prove it!

Here is a guest post about a recent stand-up paddleboard fishing adventure on the South Shore of O`ahu by my fishing buddy Kelly. He prefers staying a little anonymous for now.

Howzit fellow fishers! Scott was nice enough to humor me and let me do a second writeup for his blog. In my first guest post I caught a personal best yellowspot papio in Waikiki. Lucky Lucky.

It was a nice calm Sunday morning with a very high tide 2’+ at 7:12am and the moon phase was good, so I dragged my lazy butt outta bed early to see if the fishies would give me any action. The surface of the water looked smooth and some surfers were preparing in the dark to paddle out, so I did the same with my wetsuit and fishing gear. Hopefully no freak sets would wipe me out, as occasionally happens!

As has become my custom, I brought my foamie SUP board, although the new wrinkle for this trip was that I decided to try an ancient used Penn 209 level-wind that I bought from eBay for $25. The reel was loaded with 30lb test Yozuri Hybrid fluorocarbon/mono that some fishers in Hawaii swear by. Hopefully this reel and the heavier line would allow me to land some of the larger fish which have been giving me trouble the last year or so. I had asked Scott to service the reel, since it was kinda similar to the bait casting reels he uses. The drag had been very sticky and freespool was all hemajang and when I took it apart it was giving me fits getting it re-assembled. To my mild surprise, Scott was able to do a full service and even get it so that the drag was silky smooth and the freespool could now spin for days. I was now loaded for bear and figured the little papios were gonna be toast.

At about 6:30 in the morning I paddled out at one of my usual spots, with my cheap-o used conventional reel and charity hand-me-down baitcasting pole from Scott. The rod was a bit stiffer than I am used to and that little trigger kept jabbing my lower back due to placement but the setup seemed to be passable. I figured at the very least, I would get to paddle in some nice glassy water, get some cardio in and see a beautiful Hawaiian sunrise. 🙂

As you may have read in my other guest post, my fishing budget is extremely limited and I always try to catch fish using very inexpensive tackle that still works for the fish I target (papio). I have found that just trolling dead baits like frozen oama, halalu or sardines with a pole stuck in my shorts is pretty easy and productive. It also minimizes my gear (and prep time) and allows me to catch/surf a wave if and when one happens to come along.

The sun was just rising and the tide was peaking, so I felt there was a decent chance to catch a legal-sized omilu or two for dinner. Since the water was very high and I had LIVE oama, I decided to stay inside the breakers and close to shore, at least initially. Scott had generously given me some live oama, which I picked up in the bucket right at the spot he left them in his garage. The pickup was in the wee morning hours, prior to heading to the fishing spot -so I am very grateful that he would leave the liveys out for me! Scott even let me use the bucket and pump. I think I owe him some good homemade char siu soon. 🙂

Editor’s note: Welcome anytime!

So off I paddled, first out about 50 yards then parallel to shore. My instincts proved true and within 5 minutes of launching from the sandy beach, I got a 2+lb omilu in the bag. The fight was pretty good even though I was using a big soda-can sized floater to try to keep the big live oama from swimming down and snagging the bottom. Despite the resistance of the huge floater, the omilu made several strong runs before I dragged it onto the board.

The floater seemed to be working as an attractant, because after re-baiting and paddling back to about the same spot, I scored another thick 2.5 lb omilu right away! Both were caught within casting distance from shore. The morning was still young, so I decided to hang around to fish a bit more and use my last few liveys.

With the pressure off and the tide now falling, I headed out to the breakers. Often the action in the surf zone is hot and heavy, with all the turbulence and whitewater seeming to stimulate the fishes to eat. I landed another 2-pounder in the surfers’ channel on the way out and then decided to go past the surfers to scout some new reefy areas, quite a bit past the breakers. Anything else now would be icing on the cake.

After about 15 minutes, and a couple bait stealers taking my last liveys, I switched to a frozen, salted Halalu from Thad (that halalu trip was written up here) and replaced the floater with a light clip-on weight. Those freebies from good friends seem to have some kind of mana, as I always seem to get lucky when using gifted gear/bait!) Actually there was a lot of Aloha involved in this fishing trip, since Thad gave me the secret bait I used to catch the oama and he also gave me charity salted halalu which he caught whipping. Scott gave LIVE OAMA, the baitcaster rod and serviced my new old reel, another friend gave me the remnant line I used for leader and so on and so forth … maybe I stay just one old pa’ke (thrifty Chinese) fisherman … haha

As I trolled about 40 yards outside the surfers, I hadn’t had a nibble in about 10 or 15 minutes, so I was contemplating going in early to clean my fish. Maybe the halalu was not a good bait for this area? Maybe the bite was pau already…?

As I was daydreaming about why I wasn’t getting hits, all of a sudden BINGO-BANGO and my clicker started SCREAMING. My line was ripping out -it sure is nice to hear that loud clicker, since I usually hear a pretty quiet spinner drag. Scott’s comment regarding his screaming clicker sounding like Wicked Tuna played in my head and I told myself that this was a BIG M’Fer and I better not lose ‘em!

I fiddled clumsily with the reel since I am not used to using a conventional, I had to switch hands and flip the pole over, then finally set the hook two or three times by jerking the pole upwards, more out of habit than anything else. Of course, that made the fish pretty unhappy and he went on a 20-yard spurt. Since the water was about 15 or 20 feet, I let him run a little more than I usually do then started to retrieve line slowly, but surely. During the fight I vacillated with letting the fish run then clamping down, afraid of being rocked, as I often am. Finally, I rationalized that my line was heavier than usual and my reel bigger and stronger than my junky spinner, so I could probably just boost the fish in. I palmed the spool and just started “winching”, which is kinda how I feel fighting a fish on a rather foreign (for me) conventional reel, but after about three or four minutes, I saw the familiar electric blue hue and knew it was a nice sized Omilu.

The fish made a couple of death circles under my board, and I used the time to grab my glove from my pocket. I don’t bring a net, so I just grabbed the tail on the scutes with my gloved hand and the fish was mine. The knockoff Gamakatsu live bait hook I used was easy to remove and as I bagged the fish, I realized my backpack cooler would not zip up, so I had to leave the tail sticking out.

By now I was sooo dang stoked! My paddle-in seemed like I was just floating on a cloud, so effortless. I rarely catch nice sized papio, usually just papiopio, which are mighty tasty anyways. It turns out that this was my second largest papio … EVER!

After fishing, I stopped at Scott’s house to return his bucket/pump and he was nice enough to weigh my fish with his IGFA certified spring scale. Turned out to be a bit over 6 pounds and made lots of sashimi, poke and vina dos.

My wife also experimented with the filets and made a Japanese style nanban-fu dish that is served cold and was pretty AMAZING .

The sashimi was cut and eaten on the second and third day after the fish was caught. We like to eat our raw fish than way for most fish, since the flesh tends to be a bit softer after a couple days (depends on fish type though). My catches are small and I always ice them very well, that is the single most important aspect to keeping the fish as fresh as possible with the goal always to have sashimi quality fish at home, whether we eat raw or not!

We made poke from the not as pretty but still super fresh cuts of fish. This time I made a sweet ginger shoyu poke, which is normally the most popular with my children. Basic ingredients are shoyu, sugar, round onions and ginger. Other things we like to add depending on taste and availability are sesame oil, chili pepper, honey, toasted sesame seeds, green onions. You can also try the secret ingredient, a touch of oyster sauce … get creative and let your taste buds make the decisions!

Vina dos is a Portuguese style vinegar fried fish that my kids love. We use it for the bones, belly and other “scrap” pieces of the fish. Many popular recipes are online, so I wont go into detail but the main ingredients are vinegar, Hawaiian salt and fresh garlic – lots of garlic is the key! Oh, I almost forgot, my mom made a fish soup (“chiri”) with the head … no waste 🙂 … we live by the motto … “you kill it, you eat it” … although maybe that is just my old plantation pa-ke roots coming out … hahaha

Thanks for reading my fishiiiiing taaaales!

Always get chance when you have live oama…

July 13, 2017 By Scott 2 Comments

peaceful paddle out

Screamah addiction lured Frank and me back to a deep water channel that came up empty the last two times we fished it. Erik had been consistently hooking big papio and ulua with poppers off his small boat, and I stubbornly felt we could get something big to bite our live oama offering.

We launched in absolutely beautiful, glassy conditions and glided to the general area. Hope began to fade as I scanned the fish finder’s blank screen. No bait fish near the surface and no white papio below. Our live oama went on a tour of the likely looking reef drop offs and channels for the next 4 hrs. Maybe the water was too calm and clear? The wind began to pick up, and the tide surged, yet the only things grabbing my oama were reef outcrops and a fat puffer fish. I got stuck 4 times, trolling over shallow water out of desperation, and the puffer was hooked so solidly in its lower lip that I cut off the hook. I was out of trolling rigs, and even bummed one off Frank, so I had to use my 20 lb fluoro main line to make a 2-hook trolling leader.

water has begun to bump up a bit

Frank got stuck a couple times also, but had devised an anchor system for his SUP and could retie his rigs while staying in place on the papa. Brilliant! I drifted a lot while retying rigs because I didn’t want to create an anchor trolley system for my kayak. Frank continues to improve his fishing processes and had built a “rack-a-yak” washing station for me to clean my yak off when we land. Maybe he can help me build the anchor trolley!

We were sun burnt, tired and really disappointed. Besides an omilu that Frank lost right at the net, we didn’t have anything to show for our efforts. We positioned ourselves to let the current push us in, and as we entered shallow, murky water, I took the fish finder’s transducer out of the water that was marking bait near the surface and Frank pulled up his live oama. Even though I had never caught anything this close to shore, in such silty water, I left my oama in the water out of complete desperation. Then the ratchet went off. The sound was faster than I would hear from a snag so it was actually a fish! I got the rod out of the holder, felt a few surges and the fish came off. Ugh… Frank was too far away to hear the ratchet but did hear me yell “HOOKUP!!”. He paddled over as I put the transducer back in the water. 5 feet deep and so silty we couldn’t see more than 2 feet down. He quickly deployed his live oama and I put a new one on and retraced my route.

“HOOKUP!!” Couldn’t believe I hooked something else and was overly excited. I’m so used to saying “hookup” instead of “hanapa’a” after fishing so many years in SoCal, I guess.

Expected a white papio hunting in the very silty water yet it was a fat 1.5 lb omilu that took the back hook down in it’s gullet. The fish bled during the hook extraction process so I kept it. After Frank took this photo, he trolled the inside and when I tracked him down he was landing a similar sized omilu. The fish finder said 3 feet!

We trolled the shallows some more but the bait fish were gone and so were the omilu. I guess God wanted us to each catch a fish and spare us the bolo head.

everything is strapped to Frank or his board for easy transport to and from the launch point

Erik fished shallow water on his bigger boat, and Kelly fished inside the break on his SUP. Both said the bite was very slow. We’re thinking it was because the moon was still so big and the clear night skies let the fish feed at night.

And Frank and I learned that as long as you have live oama in the water, you always have a chance.

Live oama vs big moon and gusty trades

July 10, 2017 By Scott Leave a Comment

The winds were forecast to be blowing 15 – 20 mph and the moon was just shy of full. Not the most promising of fishing conditions but I had some early season oama that were beginning to get skinny in captivity. Kelly invited me to his partially wind shielded SUP fishing spot. The winds were still gusty at times but we managed to slow troll the oama. Kelly let his oama swim unencumbered while I kept mine off the rocks with a floater.

Kelly inched close to the waves and was rewarded with the first fish, a scrappy omilu between a pound and 2 pounds. I was leery of being dumped in my Scupper Pro and played it safe for a while, finally finding a stretch of reef that yielded a bunch of 1.25 lb omilu without pummeling me with waves. I hadn’t brought my tags so all were released.

Fishing closer to harms way, Kelly had a much more diverse hit list: omilu, kaku, trumpet fish and an aha that screamed his drag. The bite was much slower than normal for Kelly, but the live oama overcame the adverse conditions. He even got bit on frozen oama when the livies ran out.

This was my first outing with live oama this season. I was hoping for a screamah but settled for a pretty consistent bite in the protected waters. Still dreaming of the screamahs…

Converting “finding” to “catching”

June 20, 2017 By Scott 1 Comment

Frank and I checked a protected, deeper water spot I hadn’t fished all season. In previous years, the white papio and awa awa would be hitting non-oama bait schools before oama arrive on shore. The plan was for me to locate the bait and predators with the portable fish finder mounted on my yak, and for Frank to bring ’em up for viewing with frozen oama. Once Frank identified the predators I’d try hooking them with a sinking lure.

A few minutes into our launch a large fish symbol appeared on the fish finder, 5 ft off the bottom. Anything suspended above the bottom is a potential predator and sure enough Frank hooked up on his 1 yr old frozen oama he slow trolled in mid-water. The fish battled hard, up and down, and Frank was able to land the first white of the day. I cast out a heavy sinking swimmer that worked well the first time I tried it, but hadn’t worked since. Nothing. Frank baited up with another frozen oama, retraced his route and was on again. This one shook off before he could see it.

The bite stopped so we ventured out into the 12 – 15 mph head wind for a mile and a half or so but there were no bait balls and no bites. I put on a 2 yr old frozen oama and we let the wind blow us back towards our launch point. As we got neared our destination my line felt like it snagged the reef edge. I yanked and pulled and a scuffed up 11 inch omilu came up! It might’ve been pulling a little line off my whipping reel (no ratchet) and I might’ve been dragging it for a while. It was tired but managed to swim back down.

We neared the channel where Frank had his earlier strikes. I checked the opposite edge that had held awa awa in the past after seeing small bait marks on the fish finder but nothing took my oama. When I paddled over to Frank, he smiled and exclaimed “I had a screammmmmmaahhhhhh”. Something hit his oama and made 2 or 3 very strong runs straight down, against his tight drag. Unfortunately the hooks pulled and I wasn’t able to witness the biggest fish he’s battled so far. He asked if he should have run a looser drag but that’s risky too since a big fish could find the reef edge, or take a lot of line in a few seconds. I think I’ve read that 1/3 of the breaking capacity of the line is a good amount of drag to run. ‘Course we go by feel, and don’t pull line off with a scale, but it’s good to remember not to run too tight a drag unless the grounds are really snaggy.

Frank baited up with another frozen oama and circled the area that had been so productive for him. I paddled through a channel closer to shore and my light whipping rod bent over like I had snagged the reef. Line peeled out smoothly so I realized I was actually on a fish. This fish fought up and down like Frank’s and felt bigger than it actually was because of my lighter action rod and small reel. It later measured 14 inches (FL) and was headed for my family’s dinner. I baited up again, paddled over to Frank and we trolled the stretch side by side.

the top fish is only 1/2 inch shorter than the bottom fish but looks a lot smaller due to camera angle

Fish showed up in the same area on the fish finder just as they did when we started the day, suspended off the bottom. Frank had to tell me I hooked up again because my rod was bending from the tip but I couldn’t tell without the sound of a ratchet. The fish felt pretty big but ended up 13.5 inches (FL). While it was fun to battle the whites on small gear it was a big disadvantage not to have a reel with a ratchet to tell me when something was tasting the oama. I liked to imagine I was on Wicked Tuna when a strong fish would scream the small trolling reel.

All in all, it was a successful day. Frank paddled his custom Fishing SUP further than he had in the past, against a stiff head wind. My cheap fish finder found the suspended whites and the frozen oama brought them up for identification. I was a little disappointed that the sinking lure didn’t get bit. Next time I’ll try to drop a jig on the whites’ head and call them up with a popper on the surface.

SUP and Kayak whipping action

May 3, 2017 By Scott 8 Comments

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!

Oama trolling on kayak and SUP

October 10, 2016 By Scott 6 Comments

My friend Frank, a superb waterman, just started SUP fishing. He wanted to R&D some of his fishing attachments so we did a little oama trolling. The wind was initially light but then the rain came through, and strong gusts came with it. The murky water extended fairly far from shore so it took a while to find clean water.

The first strike came on my weighted frozen oama in a deep channel about 20 ft from the papa edge. It was a chunky white papio, about 1.75 lbs.

By the time I bagged it and rebaited I was blown off the spot and couldn’t find my way back. We eventually found cleaner water inside and Frank’s oama, slow trolled over a shallow reef got hit but the akamai fish wrapped himself up in a hole. The wind started gusting over 20 mph and we began to make a run for our launch site.

On the way, Frank’s next oama, under a floater, got pulled down and Frank landed this omilu in the wind storm. I was impressed that he could find an omilu in the murky chop. We didn’t measure it but it was easily legal.

When we got near our launch spot the wind slowed so we decided to fish upwind of the spot so the next wind storm could blow us in. Then the rain started pelting us but the fish still bit.

A 10.5 inch omilu bit close to the papa edge. It hit the back hook and took the oama for a ride. I didn’t have my tags with me so it was released tag-less.

Then the rain starting pelting us and I hooked a slightly better white. The photo wouldn’t have come out so I didn’t bother taking one. It was closer to 2lbs.

The forecasted increase in wind came an hr earlier and blew us off the water.

All but the first fish were caught on live oama from my tubs. I think that’s what made the fish bite on this bad weather day. The last two unused ones were set free in the murk. Hope they remember how to run from predators.

Frank made sashimi, soup and fried fish with the 2 whites and omilu. Just about everything was consumed by his family except for the bones.