Sunday Afternoon Catching - Six Pack

I went fishing this afternoon and ended up catching six. Three papio, a nunu (coronetfish), a moana (goatfish), and a manini (convict tang). FUN DAY CATCHING!!!

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.

Marina Jet-Dock Fishing

I attended a wedding reception yesterday - a few guys were fishing at the O'Club Beach within view of where I was sitting. They were pulling in some good sized bonefish on a regular basis. It made it really hard to sit still. I eventually was able to "tastefully" bow out and Mike, Sonny (new guy) and I made a break for the Marina Dock.

We were initially throwing topwater pencil minnow lures. We got hits from small barracuda. Mike landed two of them, the one in the first picture is the larger of the two. My hit resulted in a cut leader. Nice, quick and intense fights!!!

I took a close look at the teeth and now will use a homemade dehooking device to reduce risk to fingers (and hopefully improve mortality rate - especially of the snapper that sometimes get gut hooked).

For today (Sunday) -

We went back this morning and fished for four hours.

Mike got a small trevally early on.

I brought the fly rod and my light spinning pole.

I hooked up with two larger tangs (Yellowfin Surgeon or Pencilled Surgeon - I didn't pull them up so I couldn't tell) that ended up winning the tug of war game (and are now carrying around some Bonefish Biter flies).

I then started using the spinning pole with squid and got three nice sized pompano.

A big school of mullet moved in (despite there being two rather large Blue Trevally patrolling the area) so I tied up an "algae" fly. The mullet were not showing any love for the fly so I started targeting the manini (convict tangs) that were grazing off the pier. I site casted and nailed one! At least I took one on the fly today - didn't mentally make up for the loss of the two flies, but it was a legitimate fly land.

I ended the session with two hits off the spinning gear - the first was most likely a bonefish and it spit the hook after a good fight. The second was definitely hooked - it was pulling line off the reel and was making me walk up the dock. It was eventually able to undo the leader knot. After cussing up a storm, I conceded a 'tie' to the finned warriors.

I'll try to get another session in later today - it's raining solidly