Whipping dead oama got even better!

Well, I guess I didn’t discover a whole new way to present an oama to hungry predators. It appears that others have been whipping oama, live and dead, for ages.  What’s cool though is that I’m now able to cast a dead one much further than I would try with a live one, and can reach the spots the predators are prowling. On days like today where the wind is gusting higher than 20 mph, it’s a nice option to be able to heave an oama with the wind and not worry about getting blown around on a surfboard.

Dean and I waded out on the 0.3 ft low tide today but because it wasn’t lower we had to stop 50 yds from the surf line.  Our initial casts of fresh dead and frozen oama were hit by small omilus but as I ventured further out and braved the occasional dunking, the hits got bigger.  I dropped a fresh dead oama into a deep sand pocket and something hit heavily then chewed through the line.  Arrgh, had to re-tie line as the waves smacked into me.  The next cast yielded an omilu half and inch short of legal.  Loading up with a frozen oama, I walked further out into the wind and wave maelstrom and lobbed into the tail end of the white wash.  As I picked up the retrieve, something tugged then ran between the coral heads against the almost locked down drag.  My 7′ 11″ medium action G Loomis swimbait rod arched nicely, keeping the tension on the fish with power to spare.  The fish pulled drag and ran back and forth through the canyons of the boulders but never got more than 50 yds away.  I was more afraid of getting cut off than by getting spooled.  After a few mins I could see that beautiful iridescent flash of blue and brought the lit up omilu close.  It was too pooped to resist me grabbing its tail as I walked it back to Dean.

I was stoked holding the biggest omilu I have caught in years, maybe ever, but Dean wasn’t too impressed since he catches larger ones dunking.  I fumbled around trying to hold my rod under my arm, open my sling bag to take out my catch bag, and not lose the fish that I let swim around at my feet.  I never really expect to catch fish when I’m not on my board, so I’m always ill prepared to bag them.  The fins and scutes sliced my hands up pretty good but I guess I’m willing to put up with a little pain to land such a beautiful fish.

Dean and I walked back out to the deeper spot that now had bigger waves coming through.  As I was hunting around for another frozen oama, Dean hooked a screamer on his 6.5 ft light action spinning rod. His rod keeled over and bounced up and down as he cupped the reel to slow the fish down.  The fish was diagonally heading out to sea, unlike mine that did figure 8s around the boulders.  The fish was still running but Dean could feel the line rubbing on the rocks and eventually the line stuck.  Dean slacked off the line and tried to coax the fish into swimming back in but it didn’t fall for his tactics.  2/3 of his line was gone and when he tried to wade out to loosen the snag, it became apparent that the snag was in water too deep to reach.  Sadly Dean popped the line and retied.

We started casting our frozen oama again but nothing bit. It was as if Dean’s fish was the bull of the reef and scared the lesser fish into fleeing.  We headed in with our last baits on. Mine got hit by a large aha that I had snagged in the side and it grey hounded at a much higher speed than papio run but eventually tired out.

Based on the fight of his fish, Dean estimated it was about 5 lbs.  When he saw mine on land, he estimated 3.8 lbs.  Turns out it weighed between 3.8 – 4.2 lb on my inaccurate scales at home.  The man knows his fish sizes.  I’ll go with 4lbs!

I’m still perfecting my oama whipping rig but like what I’m seeing so far. I can cast a dead oama as far as any lure and the hookup ratio is really good.  I was snagging the reef early on today but made some changes to minimize that.  Hopefully I’ll have a few more test runs before the season ends.

love the small but powerful Calcutta 200TE

Note: Per request here’s the omilu next to a tape measure.