I was hoping to catch fish to give for New Year’s. Was too windy anywhere else, and school was still out, making the drive manageable, so Westside was the only viable option. Westside surprisingly provided tasty goats on the previous trip so I was cautiously optimistic.

Friends told me to go deeper forlarger weke nono, and further south for jig action so that was the plan but I stopped at a pretty reliable 170ft spot on the way out and a yellow spot papio, less than 2lb, came up on the damashi rig with Completely Hooked Lures (CHL) soft plastics.

On the next drop I hooked an even stronger papio but this one had brighter blue fins so I released it. I left biting fish to keep going south and deep.

A few spots later, a 1.5lb weke nono hit the CHL Arrow. Then things really slowed for the next hour as I checked the 240ft depth, then kept going south.

I finally stumbled on some nabeta. The first was small, but the small ones are the best eating because their meat is soft, and they deep fry nicely without requiring a lot of oil. The 2nd was a fairly thick one.

Only caught and released another omilu on the south end of this trip, and made my way back. Another 1.5 weke nono was caught, and as I was getting close to the launch I checked that first 170ft spot as the rain and wind picked up. Something that felt like an omilu slammed the damashi rig but I was stoked to see a good sized yellow spot come up.

Though the fish were on the small side, Westside provided again, for 3 different families. What’s interesting is that there aren’t the small, pesky fish that slow me down on the Windward side. Maybe I need to use larger soft plastics on the Windward side to deter those moana, taape, small puffers, lizardfish, etc? And I still need to find the larger weke nono that reside in Westside deeper water.