Whipping dead oama works, who knew?!

I had a few fresh, dead oama that I wanted to use instead of freezing them for later.  My last board fishing outing was outstanding but it was much too windy for that today.  Hmm… since trolling fresh, dead oama worked, what if I could somehow cast them out and retrieve them?  Stands to reason that the papio would whack ’em right?

I had never done this before and don’t know of anyone who regularly whips oama since dunking live oama is so effective.  Somehow I had to be able to cast the oama far enough in the wind to reach the areas holding fish.  I decided to use my trusty level wind Calcutta 200TE bait caster that had been sitting idle during the Waxing and trolling expeditions.  I waded out on the low tide but had issues with the Jim Rizutto sliding double hook setup slipping and causing the oama to bend.  I ended up having to hook both hooks in the oama’s head and hope that something would hit head first.  The bait caster, doing what it was meant to do, cast bait, worked marvelously.

Using the wind, I was able to reach the surf zone, and hooked a 10″ white papio on the first cast!  I let it go, and put on another fresh, dead oama.  That one got hammered by a 11″ white.  I missed some hits and ended up with mangled oama but the next 2 oama got hit also.  Then I hooked a fish that pulled drag and brought in a 13.5″ (head to tail) white that went into my fish bag.  I couldn’t believe the action I was getting on the dead oama so I moved spots slightly and the bite slowed dramatically.  Eventually my remaining baits were hit by 8″ – 10″ whites and omilus.  I put on a blue sardine Waxwing to see if I could fool the papio so attuned to oama and came up empty.

Who would’ve thunk that whipping dead oama would be more effective than trolling them inshore?  It’s a really strange season due to the early, extra hot water and humidity shutting down the bite, followed by strong trades and cooler water causing the papio to make up for lost time.  I don’t think whipping dead oama would’ve been as effective last year when the papio could get their fill of free swimming oama.

I’m still refining my dead oama whipping setup to increase casting distance and hookup ratio.  Stay tuned for more oama whipping catch reports.

P.S.  Look what was in the white papio’s stomach! A slightly digested tang and a completely intact baby mantis shrimp.  The white was stuffed and still went after the dead oama.