Stalking the Humu

We're closing on our house this coming week. Between the meetings, moving out of my current studio, and keeping up with work, I figured I'd better some fishing in before the time slips away. I broke out the Orvis Helios, RIO Bonefish Quickshooter line and the Hatch 7+ for some fly fishing at Hickam Flats. After two hours of blind casting to papio and oio that weren't there, I down shifted and started casting into the potholes. I managed to put a hook in this piggie!!! Quick fight, but it was struggling to get itself inside the pukas in the pothole and that wrestling match was a ton of fun! Way better than getting skunked for sure. Patience is a virtue and a requirement when trying to get one of these fish to take a fly (they'll trip over themselves to eat bait though). So now I bet you're asking yourself "what is a pothole doing on a reef flat?" - the pictures above show the potholes. Fish tend to congregate in these depressions, especially the ambush predators. When the sun is up and the water is calm (so all the fish on the flat see you coming from a mile away) these potholes are always worth a shot. I also saw several of these boxfish swimming around. I've seen a few out towards the section of the flat closest to the Pearl Harbor Channel, but never as many as I saw today. I'll have to tie up a minuscule shrimp fly to try and coax a wrestling match out of one of these guys...