Erik and I fished one of our test grounds during the middle of the day, on the last 1/3 of the big rising tide. We didn’t expect a lot of action because of increased visibility and choppy conditions but hoped for the best.
I started with lure #2 in the picture above. Erik used a more traditional, rounder popper. Our poppers didn’t generate any follows for either of us so I changed to the narrow faced top water lure (#4). The pattern I used kind of looks like a narrow faced raccoon, in a fishy kind of way. It’s such a unique looking lure with a unique swimming action. It dips and bobs like a bait fish flipping and diving in the water. I threw it past a shallow reef shelf and when I retrieved it onto the shelf it looked like a patch of white sand was stirred up. The patch followed the lure as it dipped and squirted, and I realized it was a huge white colored fish! White ulua? But it was long and cylindrical. Turned out to be the largest oio I had ever seen free swimming and it was very interested in the lure. It then bumped the lure, realized it wasn’t edible and swam off disappointed. So was I.
I told Erik what happened and he put on a soft sided lure that resembled a large nehu or a slim sardine. On my next cast a 3/4 lb omilu came over the reef shelf to follow my lure but turned away. The fish were getting too good a look at our fake offerings.
We worked our way down the beach and Erik’s nehu lure attracted the attention of kaku and aha. We both missed fish so I changed to the Waxwing Boy (lure #5) that I could retrieve faster, and hopefully give the fish less opportunity to scrutinize it. Eventually I hooked a good size kaku that was followed by two others. It shook the hook off before I could land it.
Erik changed to a narrow stick bait that looked like a small mullet, and got follows and a blowup but no hookup. I put the narrow racoon-faced top water back on and got a lot of kaku follows but no hits until I paused to let it sit and a kaku jumped out of the water to hit it but missed the hook!
In short, we got a lot of follows and hits but didn’t land a single fish. Curse of the mid-day sun?
Gotta be the mid-day curse. We’re too good to miss that many fish! hahahaha. Nah, was fun to at least watch a lot of follows. Wish I would’ve gotten a glimpse of that o’io.
Can you imagine if we fished a more optimal time and all those fish and more actually hooked up?! We gotta do it again under better conditions!
Now, that would’ve been a blast. We’d have had a few tags swimming around right now I’m sure. That spot is awesome. We’ll definitely do it again.
Where can I buy the top left one that looks like a black bar with a silver tail stump? … haha
That’s a rare, custom edition.