…but most are the smaller variety (10″ – 12″ fork length) and they’re much pickier than they were a month ago. They want live natural baits, or you have to venture further out to find the less picky ones. Find the source of food for them, throw a natural bait out, and they’ll still bite.
Check out the shoreline areas that received the benefit of last week’s rain. Limu and crustacean colonies may have restarted, bringing the baitfish and predators back in.
Lemme know how you guys do!
First off. Thank You! for this blog. I just began fishing again after a 12 year hiatus. I stopped fishing because I believed that the saying “Oahu no more fish” was true. I had a friend with whom I used to fish with come back home to Oahu and he wanted to go to our old fishing spot. I reluctantly said yes and luckily I landed 4 fat omilu that day all about 9″. It took all of my willpower not to take these babies home to eat (cause 12 years ago they were legal). After feeling the tug tug tug, hearing the drag zing and seeing the blue flash in the surge I was hooked again and started fishing frequently. I quickly became disappointed because unlike the first time back I wasn’t catching anything!?!? I decided instead of quitting I should do some research. Thanks to your blog, Youtube and talking story with some other local fisherman I changed my mentality and methods. I don’t always catch fish but I do hookup and land a lot more fish now than I did 12 years ago. Anyways back to my comment. Yes there are some papio around. My last session yielded 5 keepers 2 whites 12″ and 13″ and 3 omilus all about 10.5″. It was a minus tide on the flats and we were casting grubs over the ledge with no luck. While I was retying my rig I noticed a flock of night herons standing in the shallows nailing a school of sardines. They had the school right next to the ledge and I noticed the water boiling right in front of them. I ran over and after about ten minutes of chasing the sardines around I scoop netted enough bait to start fishing. We cast the fresh sardines and slowly retrieved them towards the ledge where the hungry papio’s were waiting to ambush any sardine that went over the ledge. Good Fun, Good Times and Good Fishing. Happy Holidays!
Great to hear from you Andy. Your experience so closely mirrors mine: starting to fish Oahu again and initially thinking it was all fished out. Discovering the productive areas and conditions and finding out how effective live bait can be.
Crazy you were able to scoop net the free swimming sardines! You tell a very compelling story, maybe you should guest post some time!
thanks,
scott
Thanks again Scott, I hope in the near future I may have some good fishing tales to share. I look forward to many more of yours.
Aloha,
Andy