The day started off with calm winds and Frank, Robert and I met on the water. Robert was on the maiden voyage of his Solo Skiff and working out the kinks. Frank, on his Hobie Revo 13, was initially trying to catch opelu, but when we all struck out, turned to bottom fishing, then trolling. The tide was falling to a slack tide, not the best conditions for pelagics. I quickly dropped the GoPro down twice from my Trident Ultra 4.3, in deeper water (between 100 and 130 ft) than the previous two times and trolled a fresh opelu to my first bottom fishing spot.
Something bit it behind the head and missed the 2 hooks. Better to bottom fish where I can watch the rod tip and feed the fish some line.
Wind chop picked up mid-morning and bounced us around a bit but not before I missed what felt like 2 uku that couldn’t quite swallow the head or tail and get hooked. During this time, Frank had a big strike on his trolled dead, fresh opelu that broke his wire leader! The weather conditions were getting worse but I was determined to land at least one fish.
Frank started to make the long pedal back in, and Robert made loops around me with his motorized skiff, as I finally hooked a good sized fish that ran for about 10 seconds, parallel to shore, before shredding the braid main line. That’s never happened to me before. Usually sharks take their time as the head to deeper water, and uku run hard initially but then tire out.
I tied on a swivel to my braid, then a 5 ft – 40lb fluoro leader to the swivel and dropped another fresh opelu down. Got another pick up after a lot of taps and this fish ran for about 5 seconds and cut the leader between the two hooks! I radio’d the guys that I lost two fish to cut line but I don’t think they believed me.
Rigged up again, dropped another fresh opelu down and hooked something strong and fast that took at least 200yds of line because I initially had the reel in freespool to ensure the fish could get hooked without feeling much pressure. With most of the line out, I tightened down the drag and the fish pumped against the pressure and broke the braid main line. This fish was on another level compared to shark battles I’ve had so I assumed it was ulua. At this point I was getting really frustrated with all the gear lost and hooks left in fish (they’ll eventually rust out) and still hadn’t even seen what was biting.
Then I realized we were fishing the slack bottom tide when the lazy sharks and ulua come out to look for an easy meal. I dropped the GoPro down once, hoping a shark or ulua won’t take a swipe at it and resumed bottom fishing with fresh opelu. A shark hit the bait, ran the way sharks do and shredded the braid again. I began to suspect that my braid had been pulled through the reef by the first fish and was now weakened.
The wind and chop were getting hard to combat so I let the current push me into towards shore and had my remaining baits pulled off. Nothing to show for it except for pics of mauled opelu. Or so I thought.
Look what showed up on the deep drop videos. I had to look at the videos frame by frame and then extract a still and optimize it. Felt like a fish detective.
The bigger fish in the back is following two other fish. What do you think they are?
On the last camera drop where all the action was, this uku swam up to the GoPro with the blinking red light and turned away slowly. I think this is circumstantial proof that small uku and papio are taking my opelu and missing the hooks!
For extra credit, what is this fish which was down in 100ft? Hint: Look at the shape of the fish closely.
Black fish looks like a papio, dunno what those other two are. The shape looks like it might be nenue or broomfish maybe? But dunno. Pretty exciting you finally got the Uku on camera. The last fish looks like it might be some kind of box puffer or toby. Get those line breakers next time!
You got good fish ID skills Matt! A lot of us initially thought the last fish was a juvenile mu but the body shape and eye structure give it away as a Toby.
And watching the video of the papio following those two fish leads me to believe (and hope) the papio was following moana kali! The papio was lit up and very visible but the other two fish were sort of blending in.
-scott
What spot is this? … HAHA
A spot you can join me at one a calm day KellydaBoy.
Too bad about all the missed fish, but action is better than no action. With that kind of bite you’re bound to find one that sticks.
First photo looks to me like a large papio and two uku, second looks like a puffer of some kind.
You know your fish Jason! I’m not sure what kind of papio was following those two other fish, but think they were goats judging from how low they swam to the sand. And yeah, you weren’t fooled into thinking the last fish was a baby mu. It is a toby.