Undergunned against the creatures of the deep – catch and cook

Holy smokers, talk about action!  OK, where do I begin?

Frank and I were able to paddle out on a sheet glass day to fish a spot we were eyeing the couple of months. The conditions were so perfect Frank exclaimed that it was “an ono kind of day” because the last time we had such good conditions he caught an ono on a jig, our first legitimate pelagic.  We both had a grab bag of baits we gathered from our freezers. Oama, halalu, opelu and ika.  We hoped we had our bases covered.

The water was so clear I didn’t need my fish finder to tell me there were schools of fish around.  At 40 ft we were followed by at least 30 aha and Frank kept one after it pulled off his frozen oama one too many times.  In about 60 ft of water we could see 7 inch silver fish passing beneath us.  All this activity raised our expectations even further.

A few kayaks and boats were already at the reef almost 2 miles out but the area was so large we had plenty of room to work the shallow bottom fishing grounds.  We started with frozen oama and my initial baits were surgically removed. Was this the work of aha?  Frank trolled up a wahanui, also called fork tailed snapper or small toothed jobfish, a good eating nearshore snapper rarely found on Oahu anymore.  I went deeper to avoid the aha and made sure my oama made it quickly to the bottom. I set the hook on a fish and was surprised to find out an 8 inch FL moana ate its goatfish cousin. Watching this video, I realized I crank up small fish too quickly because I think they’re hage.

Frank topped my efforts by catching a moana on a jig!

We fished the reef and missed a lot of strikes on the frozen oama.  One fish even cut my oama in half and missed the front and back hooks!  I got tired of this and put on a 6 inch frozen halalu which was much larger than an oama.  I didn’t change the small hooks. I just nose hooked the halalu and stuck the back hook near its dorsal fin, midway down the fish.  Dropped it down to the bottom in 80 ft of water and something hit it hard but missed the hooks again and left the head of the halalu.  While it was fun to have so much action, it was frustrating to miss so many bites.

I followed marks on the fish finder in to the 60ft depth but wasn’t getting anything good when Frank radio’d me saying he was on a floating scum line past the reef and missed a “pole benda” on halalu.  That was good enough to get me out to the deep.  As I paddled towards him the depth quickly dropped from 90 ft to 115 ft.  There weren’t a lot of fish marks on this ledge but I had heard that predators hang out at the drop offs.  I put on the front half of a frozen opelu, more than 4 inches in length and 2 inches in diameter.  The two hooks I was using looked really tiny buried in that chunk of bait.  Since the drift was so slow, I could drop down the bait and fish almost straight up and down.  I felt some heavy taps and then something strong pulled drag!  I lifted the rod, the fish was battling for a few seconds and then came off.  Arrggghh. That was a good fish.  I put on my second to the last piece of opelu, dropped down, and felt the thump again. This time I let the fish eat and it took off on a slow steady run. Then it really pulled line off the reel and it looked like it was running straight down but it was following the contour of the bottom and running to deeper water.  I was using my light Trevala S rod and Calcutta 300 TE level wind reel with only a 25lb fluoro leader and had a feeling this wasn’t gonna end well.

Here’s what the fight looked like after I removed all the landmarks.  Sorry about the waterspot on the lens.  When I frantically turned the camera on I must’ve hit the lens with my hand.

That fish felt bigger than the 30lb ulua I caught on the Big Island on a boat, and was definitely the largest fish I hooked on a kayak.  I had one more piece of opelu and Frank was fishing his halalu bait.  I put on a pre-tied leader of 40lb fluoro with slightly larger hooks and hooked the opelu in the nostril and where the front half ended.  A few seconds after it reached the bottom something pulled hard and missed the tiny hooks again.  The opelu skull with some hanging flesh was left on my front hook. I didn’t have larger hooks and didn’t have anymore opelu so I dropped the skull down. Tap, tap… wait…….pull….hookup.  I waited for the line to burn off the reel but this fish wasn’t as large as the previous eaters of the opelu.

This is what is was.  I gave it the bends by cranking it up too quickly.

After so many missed strikes I was stoked to land that uku. We were out of halalu and opelu baits and a bunch of humpbacked whales started breaching way too close to us so we worked our way to the inside to bounce the sand for nabeta. No nabeta found but Frank and I got a moana each.

Frank fried the moana, wahanui and aha and said the wahanui and aha tasted similar, with mild white meat that needed a bit of sauce for flavor and moisture.  His wife liked those fish but he enjoyed the taste of the moana even more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My wife and I are neophyte fish cookers so we got a lot of advice from friends to properly prepare the uku.  I cleaned it more than 24 hrs after catching it and that was the reason it smelled a little fishy when steaming in a colander in a large pot of water.  I had placed ginger slices in slits I cut into the fish and we determined it was cooked by inserting a chopstick into the thickest parts of the fish and pulling it out clean. The fish was then placed on a dish and we drizzled shoyu, hot peanut oil and topped it off with cilantro.  Ponzu sauce was added to our individual portions.  The fish wasn’t fishy at all and tasted really ono despite the simplicity of the  recipe.  Friends told me later that it’s critical to keep the fish as cold as possible on the kayak and keep it cold at home. Ideally, it should be cleaned immediately to stop the bacterial breakdown which causes the fishy smell and taste.

Frank and I were severely undergunned against the size of the fish that would eat a big chunk of bait in the deep.  We’re over hauling our tackle by using large circle hooks, 60 – 100 lb leader and small-medium sized conventional reels with clickers.  Stay tuned for our next nearshore deep water adventure!