What a difference a few days of trade winds make. The humidity dropped considerably and the inshore water cooled off. I took the longboard out in the morning and the water was almost cold. The first fresh dead oama didn’t get touched until I was almost to the surfline, and what touched it just pulled the bait off. My next live oama brought up an 8 inch C&R omilu so I alternated live and fresh dead oama for either more small omilus or yanked baits.
pliers in the background are 11 inches long
The trade winds had exceeded 20 mph and the SSW swell made for a bouncy, choppy outing. I put the largest, strongest oama out and it got hammered and killed but not taken off the tandem hooks. The poor oama looked pretty bad, with raked sides, tattered fins and a washed out coloring. Disappointed with the size of pesky predators, I left the battered bait on and paddled over a bouldery section so shallow my hand hit while paddling. When the ratchet went off I thought the bait was snagged on the rocks but the orange floater moved between the boulders. After a brief fight a 15 inch omilu was landed. This season’s omilus I’ve caught on my board have all been skinny and weak. The omilus of the same length last year were much thicker and fought much harder. Are the omilus not able to catch enough bait fish to fatten up this season? Maybe the unusually hot water makes them weary like we would be if we had to run a marathon in hot, humid weather.
When I cleaned the omilu, I found a parasitic worm that looked like a long udon noodle in its intestinal wall and absolutely nothing in the omilu’s stomach. Other than being thin, the fish looked healthy.
Nice one! Are the oama still in? I missed the early part of the season and going to see if I can make up by catching some of the ones that stayed late. If they are still here, anyway.
It varies spot by spot. The extra hot water and all the rain really messed with the inshore fishery but some spots seem to be recovering. Best to just wade out and check. Good luck!
-scott
Thanks for the observation of the skinnier omilus. Iʻve noticed this summer a scarcity of reef fish, that leads me to believe that somehow the two stories are linked.
Hi Kelly,
Your observation is really helpful. I didn’t think of asking divers about the state of the reef fish this summer. So with less reef fish, the reef dwelling omilu doesn’t have much to eat this summer/fall. Very interesting.
thanks,
scott