The big fish are back and I caught a very expensive PB uku!

The opelu, uku and sharks were missing on the South Shore during the Fall, and an early Winter check was due. The wind was down and swell was just slightly lumpy going out. A lot of reef fish showed on my 3 yr old Garmin Echomap 44CV fish finder but nothing bit the damashi. The magic tungsten jig wasn’t touched either.

I headed to my go-to bottom fishing spot and was shocked to see a small boat sitting there! How’d they know about my secret spot? 😉

As the boat drifted inshore I took my place behind it, dropped down and had 4 inches of my 9 inch frozen opelu’s tail bitten off. That was an improvement on the previous trips. I reset my drift, with the help of the Bixpy motor, and dropped another opelu down. Tap, tap, line pulled off the reel, then nothing. I reeled up a bit and felt the resistance of the opelu still on, so I put the Avet SX Raptor back in light drag with clicker on and hoped the fish would come back. 5 seconds later, tap, tap, zzzzzzzzzzz… Fish on! It ran so strongly I thought it was a small shark and was stoked when it stopped and didn’t feel heavy like sharks do. Then I felt the tell tale strum of an uku’s teeth on the leader, but this one felt bigger than any other I had fought. I’ve lost previous good sized uku to sharks so I was trying to land it as quick as possible but also being careful not to pull the hook.

When it surfaced, it was my personal best and I could see that the rear hook was 4 inches deep in its mouth. It did a clockwise spiral and the homemade kage, my partner Frank had made, found its mark.

With the fish still on the kage, I tried clubbing it with a small Promar bat to ensure it wouldn’t squirm when I stuffed it in a fish bag behind my seat. Problem was I had to swing backhand with my right hand and I clipped my fish finder! The screen shattered revealing a hole. In hindsight I should have secured the landed fish with my small gaff, and then move it to an area I could safely subdue it. Arrgggh!

The sad thing is that my extended warranty with West Marine ended last month. Had this happened before my warranty lapsed, I could get credit for a newer version. The fish finder worked for a while and I could see bait balls and a school of big preds under me. Then salt water seeped in the hole in the screen and shorted out the circuitry. With a rolling south swell building it was time to head in.

I put another opelu on, started trolling at about 2.5mph. A shark hit that and pulled me back out a ways before the main line parted.

The uku taped out at 26″, nose to fork, and weighed 9lb 4oz. My previous best was 6lb so this fish was quite a step up for me. It was filled with that waxy, fatty gonad stuff and the flesh was really oily, almost like how hamachi tastes. Perfect timing for some family New Year’s meals.

The distinctive opelu bait marks, uku and shark strikes tell me that the circle of life has returned to the South Shore. I have to buy a new Garmin Echomap before going out again, and will need to re-mark all the spots I lost. Very expensive uku indeed.