Monday, June 29, 2015

Life on the Flats on a Dropping Tide

I went fishing Sunday morning out at Hickam Flats. Lots to see if you looked for the small things. Life is tough on all of the Earth's inhabitants. If you're in the food chain, someone is always trying to make a meal out of you - and in between dodging predators, you have to make improvements to your abode, find a mate, eat your own food and survive to rigors of the environment around you. During the spring tides, huge sections of this flat go dry for three hours at a time. During this low water periods, you can see a lot of life that usually hides under a lot of water. These crabs were dead when I saw them (not sure why). On the walk out to the edge of the flat, I saw a Hawaiian Feather Duster. This guy was coming out of the ground - normally they have tube structures they live in (this one is mostly likely still in a tube, but formed it in a hole left by something else). These mangrove roots provide a great place for juvenile fish to grow. If you look at the image closely, you'll see small Sergeant Majors and Convict Tangs (Manini). I ended up fyfishing first. I had a school of papio chasing one of the rabbit fur flies I tied up, but they didn't hit the fly - they only chased it as fast as I could strip it. Here is a picture of a used Abel Super 8 reel I recently picked up (great deal on this capable reel). As the tide turned and started to fill in again, I decided to switch to spinning gear. After a whole lot of casting and zero catching, I decided to move in to shallower water and see if the bonefish, goatfish and papio had moved in to the murky water zone. I'm glad I did - this lone papio hit a 1/12 ounce silver kastmaster and prevented a skunking. I definitely catch more using bait - but this time was more about seeing than catching.

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