First Fishing in Awhile

The weekend is here - Marlon and I checked the tides and the surf report - then decided it was probably best to go fishing.  We were at the flats with spinning gear just a little bit after dawn.

I was using the TFO Mangrove rod that I recently rewrapped - everything is back to normal with this rod!

And after a long period of seeing fish (lai, kaku, and others) either just following the bait, or even stealing rigging (the kaku), I finally got one to take and fight!

Small is better than none!!!  This guy was released to fight again another day (when he gets bigger).  Fun day!

Using Bait to Break the No Catching Streak

I took Marlon out this morning to get some fishing in.  I saw a bunch of tailing bonefish on the way out to the channel (I should have turned around and grabbed the flyrod...) - but the mission was to catch fish and not just fish.  Ika strips and spinning gear = catching!!!

Marlon caught the first fish - a good sized po'opa'a (po - o - pah - ah).

And I got my first fish in quite some time - a "just too small to eat - because these should grow and spawn first" papio

The next fish I hooked up to was a coronet fish - this one was barely hooked (I think it just really wanted to the eat the squid).

And I even picked up a third - another papio!

Next time I'm going to bring my light game St Croix Triumph rod.  We called it after this fish and pressed our luck at the harbor side.  We tried flyfishing for the humuhumunukunukuapua'a but the tide had filled in and the wind picked up substantially.  Well - we at least got to catch a few!!!

Pattie's on Taco Tuesday

We went to the Patagonia shop up in Haleiwa tonight to check out a book tour stop Dylan Tomine was making. His book is a series of stories over the course of a year in his family's lives - with a focus on how he brings his kids outdoors and gets them excited about finding their own sources of food. I actually thought it was a fly fishing movie premiere - but a book reading is cool too. Grab a copy and enjoy the stories (fishing!!!) Anyways - I got to take a closer look at the store decorations and came to the realization that we actually have stuff that is cooler than the stuff at the shop... with the exception of this really cool old map: It has the commonly found reef fishes on the bottom and their names in Hawaiian. Oh - I forgot to mention that since we were in area, we decided to just have pupus at Cholos for dinner. I used to eat breakfast post North Shore dawn patrol all the time, but I hadn't been back in years. I used to love this place - primarily because the island was a little skinny on mexican restaurants - but several wonderful burrito shops have opened up since those old days... Since moving back here and bringing the family out, it has been really fun taking La and the kids to the places I used to hang out at. It is the coolest surfing with them all though - time has flown but I'm hoping these fun times in the water and enjoying life on an island are the things they remember.

Fishing Report 9/10/2014

I took the kids fishing again this afternoon - why not, it's only a 2 minute bike ride away! We caught two new species again - a true blenny, bottom turned mouth and eyes high atop the head are the telltales, more so than the other fish we've been catching that we've called a blenny (mostly because of the appendages a top their heads - and a Spot Tail Pinfish. Today I also taught the kids how to turn over rocks and find some bait. The fish really turned on when we started using crab sections on the hooks. It really doesn't get much better than this!