…don’t.  The hooking of papio once the trolling rig (mainline to floater to leader and two hooks) is properly deployed is the easy part.  The hard part is dealing with two hooks on a rolling surfboard while trying to delicately scoop a live oama out of the bait bucket and hook it in its nose and tail.  Every time I go out I snag just about everything with those hooks including my surf booties, clothes and finger.  And the line coils seem attracted to my leash and booties.

Today, with the big surf and 15 mph wind, it was particularly frustrating.  The rip current created backwash against the white wash coming in, so I was bobbing like a cork while trying to keep the hooks and line off my gear and body.

The predators (papio, kaku and aha) were still hunting at the top of the high tide and I caught a papio on a live oama, and another papio after an aha shredded and killed the next oama. Then I got such a gnarly tangle near the tip of my rod I had to paddle in to where I could stand, to cut the line free and re-rig.  By the time I got back to the spot the predators were hitting, the larger papio were gone and I just had the smaller fish pull off my oamas.

landed before the tangles

The papio landed were 13 and 14 inches and pretty thick.  At least I didn’t deep hook any small fish.