top water kaku Archives - Hawaii Nearshore Fishing

A friend who rarely gets to fish was off this week so we went wading on the Windward side. The first spot we checked look a little murky near the muddy bank, so we tried a sandier spot that is normally clearer. The bait fish were scarce near shore so we made a big loop that took us out to the reef and back.

He was throwing the Waxwing Baby and I started with the raccoon-faced top water (middle row on the right). I got two weak boils on that top water lure and changed to a splashier JDM lure with a small, cupped face (top row, on the right). It got one boil and that was it for the spot. My friend’s Waxwing didn’t register any hits.

We decided to fish that murky spot we had shunned earlier. The tide was almost at its peak and the water had cleared significantly. We walked out into waist deep water and started searching. My raccoon-faced lure started getting boils and hits and I hooked the first fish of the day, a smallish kaku. As I walked back to shore to tag it, it shook the hook. On subsequent casts, kaku would follow the lure in pairs and sometimes lunge for it if I made it dart sideways. My friend’s blue sardine Waxwing wasn’t getting any attention so I offered the raccoon-faced lure. He declined because he hadn’t top water fished before and didn’t want to lose my lure. After watching more hits and misses he relented.

I gave him a quick lesson on how to dip and chug the lure and told him to watch its swimming action carefully. On his second cast he lost track of the raccoon face but his light rod bent over. The fish pulled drag and as he brought it closer we could see that it was a good sized kaku. Then the line went slack. Arrghh! The line was cut above the swivel he used to join his main line to the leader. Maybe another kaku hit that swivel trying to get in on the feeding frenzy. I tried to hide my disappointment because he was already feeling bad about losing what had become my favorite lure. To cheer him up I gave him a chubby top water lure painted up like an oama (middle row on the left) and told him that I have a lot of those I buy used on eBay.

I put a blue and silver chubby top water lure on, same style and size he was now using, and got some boils. The kaku were following like they were following the raccoon face but weren’t committing. I made it quickly dart to the side and a kaku jumped on it. A few seconds later the leader cut. Our second top water lure lost. The kaku in this spot were more aggressive than previous spots I had fished.

Running out of top water lures, I put the splashy lure (top row, right) I had used earlier in the day. It generated much fewer boils but eventually landed a 17 inch kaku that I was able to tag.

The top water action was so good at this last spot that Erik wanted to fish it at the middle of the tidal rise the next day. Erik started with a wider, chunkier top water lure he had been meaning to test but it kind of rolled side to side as he chugged it back. It also caught a lot of side wind on the cast. Not exactly confidence inspiring. I was using another blue/silver chubby lure, identical to the one I lost the day before. It found the kaku and I had one one that I was bringing in but the fish shook the hooks and I had to dodge the incoming lure missile. Lesson learned, retrieve the fish at an angle in case the lure comes flying back.

I gave Erik a light colored, translucent chubby lure to try, as a comparison to the chunky lure he had put away. He liked the bobbing, walking action but the bite completely shut down for both of us. We whipped the area, and then waded away for about 45 mins. When we returned Erik got a boil on successive casts and then hooked a kaku that jumped and eventually threw the hook. Not as much action as the previous day but still fun to see a fish explode on the surface.

At least for these two days, the Japanese top water lures outfished the Waxwing and chunkier domestic top water. I’ll have to find another raccoon face on eBay!

Top water plug fishing has become my favorite fishing technique of late. There are a lot of shoreline spots that host papio and kaku ready to jump a bobbing, slurping lure. Even if the water is only a foot or so deep, the lures float and don’t get hung up. With a 25lb fluoro leader, I haven’t been cut off by kaku yet.

Sounds like an ideal fishing method huh? Well, the top water hookup ratio is notoriously low. The fish either hit the lure body but miss the hooks or get suspicious and veer off at the last millisecond.

There are recommended times to fish top water, and some lures are designed to have better hookup ratios than others.

Fish seem to hit top water lures better when the sun angle is low. Dawn or dusk. The fish may be more easily fooled in the low light, or they don’t like looking up into the bright sky to feed. When the sun is overhead I often get weak attempts to pull the lure down.

This lure shape has always attracted fish but often the fish splash next to it a few times and become disinterested. Maybe it’s because the body is so fat that the fish are blocked from the hooks? Look at the scratches on its back, opposite side of where the hooks are. To be fair, most of the attackers are kaku trying to slice off the back end of the lure. If they were decent sized papios they probably would’ve wolfed the whole lure down.

When I miss fish with the chubby lure above I switch to this narrower, bobbing lure. It misses fish too, but eventually hooks one.

Maybe the fish’s jaws are wrapping around the slender body better and eventually finding a hook? Both lures are sold out of Japan and this narrow faced lure is especially hard to find. The model I’m fishing is really a freshwater bass lure that I’ve been putting saltwater hooks on. Look at what it attracted in the past.

This kaku hit an hr before dark. I pinch down the barbs of the hooks so I can tag and release the fish with minimal harm.

And this kaku kept missing my hooks but was hooked by Clay’s lure. Clay employs a much faster retrieve that gets the kaku to commit. I’ve been trying to learn that retrieve. The last time out I walked my lure back quickly and when I was about to lift the lure out of the water a white papio took a swipe and missed the hooks.

Mores misses than hookups but a very exciting way to fish.

Top water action: cold to hot and back

More misses than hookups on the Top Water lures