Flyfishing on Saturday 8/29/2015

The low tide was around 10 am so I decided to get a later start than normal. Sleeping in on the weekends is a luxury that I have forgotten about. I decided to stick to fly fishing for o'io and lined up the Orvis Helios 8wt with a RIO Bonefish Quickshooter 8wt and tied on a lightly weighted "Spam and Eggs" fly. I got two bones to dig for my fly, but I tried to strip set to soon and ended up empty handed. There is nothing like that split second when you've got a big fish trying to eat your fly and you have to determine when to set the hook. I still have the shivers.... After that I tried to see if the papio would take on a yellow on white clouser I tied up. No takers. I called it after that as I had to spend some time at work. On the way in I checked the spots where I've seen the o'ama schooling up. Sure enough they were there in force. The water was not as clear as it usually is - with all the rain and runoff, it had a distinct 'brown' shading to it. That definitely shortened up the sight fishing - I couldn't see the fish so far out, and they couldn't see me up close either. Too bad I couldn't connect the dots... I also noticed the water has been getting a lot warmer - this coral head looks like it is expelling it's zoothanthelle... Nice day on the flat!

Not a Fluke - Site Fished Bonefish 8/2/2015

For Sunday, I decided to head back to the Ewa side of the flat and see if I could coax some of those snobby bonefish into a game of tug. I had tied up an Orange Nom Nom Mantis fly using lead dumbbell weight and rusty dubbing to simulate the mantis shrimp I've seen while wading on calm wind days. I also tied up a tan version with a striped rabbit fur tail and tan maribou to cover the white leather on the underside of the rabbit strip. I had the tan one on the line to start with, and I got lots of interest from the first few bones I saw, but none sealed the deal. I brought out the Helios and the Hatch 7+ that I had used last time. I ended up seeing some really big milkfish and a medium sized blacktip shark cruising around, but they didn't show interest in the tan nom nom fly. At that point I figured I should change out the tan fly for the Orange Nom Nom - if you ain't catching, you need to change it up. With that fly swap, everything changed. This first one was hooked out at 35' - I saw it change direction and hover over the place where I thought the fly was, strip set and it took off like a funny car at the gun. This one went back and forth three times well into the backing before calling it quits. The hook was set in it's tongue. Nice fish and I was stoked to the core! After that I went out to the drop off figuring I'd try my luck with this fly on some papio. Nothing - so I started back towards the mangrove stand (I wanted to see if there were any oama - baby goatfish - hanging around). I ended up seeing a bunch more bonefish hanging around drifting with the current, so I thought 'what the heck - might as well keep swinging the fly". I'm glad I did. I had seen a fish moving towards me, so I cast out 15 degrees over from it a well forward - maybe a 25' cast. I striped in all the slack line and made the fly move just a bit to get the fish to notice it. Before I could do anything else, a second fish I did not see before had pounced on the fly and was wrestling to keep it from the first fish. I did a slight strip set and I felt the weight of the fish. It didn't know it was hooked until I started moving - it saw me and took off. On the third run it had found a rock sticking out of the water and was trying to wrap the line around it to get a leverage point to break off. I managed to get the line out from under the rock and the fish tired out shortly after. I was close enough to an old piece of debris to place the gopro on for some in fight shots. I saw several more o'io but never lined up nicely for a clean shot. I'll stick with the two solid fish I was privileged to have hooked up with and call it one of the better days I've had out on this side of the flat. Even though I've caught three o'io now in a relatively short period of time, I do not consider myself a guru on the topic. This is just the beginning of the next chapter in trying to better understand this fishery.

FINALLY!!!!!

It only took me seven months to do it, but I finally brought a Hawaiian Bonefish to hand!!!!!! I used a mantis shrimp fly I tied a while back and blind casted at another part of the Hickam Flat. The bonefish inhaled the fly - I had to use forceps to pull the fly out! It made three runs - the first two taking me into the backing. This fish totally reminded me that I love catching bonefish on the fly!!! I can honestly say this was the best day of fishing I've had out here! I also had a papio, but it shook off the Enrico Puglisi micro crab fly. And I caught a humuhumunukunukuapuaa using the same mantis fly that the oio (bonefish) took. I have been telling myself that once I caught an oio on the fly, that I would be free to start fishing other spots. I do think I'll still fish Hickam a lot - I need to make sure this was not a fluke. GREAT DAY!!!

Sometimes All It Takes Is One

I've been working some really long hours lately trying to finish up a proposal. I figured I should decompress a bit and decided I've been cheating for too long on the fishing front (spinning gear with bait). Don't get me wrong - I love catching and the best way to do that is using bait and spinning gear (if you are hitting it from shore). Thursday evening I decided to use the flyrod. I broke out the Orvis Helios and used the RIO Bonefish line spooled up on the Hatch 7+. I tied on an Enrico Puglisi micro crab and waded out around 6pm. I had intended on using this setup to hook into a bonefish, but in the late afternoon light, it is nearly impossible to see those fish. I saw a few tailing, but by the time I made it over to them, I had lost track of their position. The neat thing about the EP micro crab fly is it closely resembles the flats crabs I keep finding in the bellies of the papio I harvest (and I only take ones that get mortally wounded when they get hooked which is rare for me). After a few casts where I increased my stripping speed, I had one on!!! The class of papio I have been catching are all roughly the same size - likely because they were all born the same year. I spoke with some fishermen and read some blogs and people are saying last year there were a ton more papio when compared to the several years before. They attributed that to some changes in the offshore currents and that brought more fish back from their larval/planktonic stage. I'm just glad they're here. Since I've been back on Oahu, I've caught so many of these fish and they've just about doubled in size. The weird thing is they are all the same class - I haven't seen the next group of smaller fish coming through, and it's rare to see bigger ones out here because those are the legal size fish that folks can take, but also those fish start to swim and forage in deeper waters. It'll interesting to see what fish are being caught in the January time frame to see if there is a generation coming up behind these current fish. This fish was the first fish I've caught on the fly out here that took my line all the way out of the stripping basket and I got to bring it in on the reel! Great catch and glad to see it swim off strong! That turned out to be the only fish I caught, but I found myself really trying to cast out well formed loops with more consistency. That's whats awesome about flyfishing - even if you are catching on every cast, you are still casting which in itself can be even more rewarding than bringing in a fish. I won't say I'll only bring out flyrods to go fishing, especially since I do enjoy fishing with spinning gear - but what I will say is everything has it's time and place. Yesterday evening was definitely a fly fishing evening. Also of note, yesterday was the first time I got to use the stripping basket I got to replace the bucket shooter that got stolen with my truck. I got it from the same company that made the bucket shooter - Sea Level Fly Fishing. This one is the Belly Bucket and you can see it is curved to fit the hip. I love the way it kept the line from knotting up. It is a solid piece of gear and the bottom doesn't come out like the bucket shooter's did - so it is a little less portable if you are flying to fishing spots. It does a really great job of helping to manage flyline.

Positive Results on the Rock Resistant Measures

I didn't catch anything with the flies I just tied, but none of them (with the 40# mono twin post weed guards) got hung up on the gravel or the bottom. Weighted with bead chain eyes, the flies did still make a 'plop' when entering the water. The plop was greatly diminished, but still there. It'll be interesting to find out if the reduction is enough to stop spooking the bones. The simple fly without eyes had tons of motion, even when stripped slowly. Crosscut rabbit and marabou... I hope to nail some papio with this fly... Despite the positive results, it still sucks not catching anything. Skunked!!!!