Second Fishing Outting of the Year

Marlon has been asking to go fishing for a couple of weeks now, so I figured I'd oblige.  We hit the channel this morning on the low tide and pitched ika strips.  There was no wind so it would have been really hard to flyfish for oio today.

We saw this crab on the way out.

And after seeing a bunch of fish tail our hooks with no takers, I finally got one to play tug.  Clean hook up in the corner of the mouth (easy to remove the hook and minimizes damage).  Nice moana!

I actually lost a bunch of tackle to snags.

Nice way to spend the morning!  It's hard to believe this is only our second time out fishing this year (foiling has officially taken over the free time).   Marlon took all the pictures today.

Veteran's Day Fishing!

I took a nice long nap as a part of celebrating Veteran's Day - but after, I figured I'd go get the groceries (and since I would be in the area, I might as well go fishing).  I decided to just use lures (and not ika strips) since I still had to get groceries afterwards.

I didn't catch anything - but I did get a front row seat watching lightning hit the Waianae mountains (time to go...).

On the way back in I saw two moray eels just hanging out in super shallow water - it was raining when I took the pictures, but you should still be able to see the outline of the eel.

La Spin Fishing

This weekend was a busy regatta weekend for us.  The El Toro State of Hawaii event was on Saturday (Noe got a second in the small sail division) and on Sunday the Bullship event was held.  On Saturday I had to help out to prepare for an upcoming STEM event I'm helping with and La stayed with the other sailing moms.  But on Sunday, I figured I could get some fishing in while waiting and La said she wanted to come along... that never happens...

But she had fun casting and looking at the schools of young fish hanging out by the pier, the big turtles that would come up for air, and the occasional aha charging our lures.  No bites, but a fun way to hang out and spend time together!

No Skunk on a Stormy Saturday

I took Marlon out to the flats this morning. We dismantled our experimental tank and wanted to return the rocks, sand and occupants back to where we borrowed them from, but since we were there... I took a spinning rod and a pocketful of ika (squid cut into strips). I brought this fat hawkfish to hand. I actually had hooked this fish just a few minutes before, but it swung the leader under the reef ledge and cut me off. The second time I hooked it, I got it to hand it still had the other hook and leader in it's mouth!!! Marlon opted to just observe today and armed with a tako box, he did just that. He saw tons of Convict Tangs (manini), baby long spined sea urchins (vana), a type of fish we are still trying to identify, and the prize sighting... an octopus (he'e)!!! I did get another bite later in the session. It took the bait and started a screaming run and kicked up a rooster tail - I stopped to set the hook, but it didn't take and the fish spit the hook... I've said it before and I'll say it again - there is something primal in listening to a reel peeling drag... that sound is awesome!!!! Most likely a barracuda (kaku) - it even shredded my small wire leader a bit. We packed it up when the wind and rain started to come down on us. Great day on the flat!!!

Wet Again -

Alright - I finally brought the family out to the fishing spot!!! I was able to catch a papio shortly after arriving. I then switched to helping the kids use their tenkara rods to try and catch the small sergeant majors. La had a great time snorkeling around, and when she wasn't snorkeling she was using the tako box like a boss ;) And La's quote of the day - "the best pieces of gear we have are these booties (tabi) and the tako boxes" Fun day on the flats!!!

Blue Ringed Exit Port

With the Friday skunking, I defaulted to a Bait Saturday. It worked! I ended up catching a bullethead wrasse, a good sized humuhumunukunukuapua'a and three papio. This was the wrasse. I've seen these guys swimming around, but have not been able to get one on the hook - until Saturday. I used a 'j' hook and bunched the bait into a ball on the tip of the hook. I felt the fish taking bites but waited a hair longer than normal and then set the hook - bam!!! I caught a bunch of these fish on Diego - and true to the genus (and maybe species - I have to go back and carefully check the pictures before I can go and declare this) - their anus are circled in a really vibrant blue ring. Catching these papio is always fun - this is a picture of the last one. The first one was a 10"er - almost dinner sized. Two new species caught on the hook and all fish released to fight another day. Not bad!

Spinning Tally

I got up on Sunday morning and prepared to get some errands done (laundry, haircut, groceries, gas for the truck and dropping off some recycling) before going fishing. The tide was still draining out by the time I got to the flats. I rigged up both the spinning rod and an 8wt fly rod. I figured this being my only real day off, I might as well bring everything. I ended up catching four bluefin trevallys - it's hard to see them on the flats, I think even more so than the bonefish - so all of these were caught on the spinning rod (with cut squid for bait). I also caught one of these moana (red goatfish). And the surprise of the day was this fish. I think it is a species of wrasse, but I'm going to have to look it up. I lost a couple of rigs to the reef and then made a deliberate switch to the flyrod. Next post -

Real Good Day for Numbers

Lots of action out on the Hickam Flats - and I finally caved and fished with bait (cut squid). I caught seven papio - fun little guys, nothing to get an elevated heart rate over (although a bigger fish did test my knot tying skills and took off with a good sized piece of squid and a new lip ring). What do we have here???? Do you see the 'long' piece of the rock hanging out? That's no rock... small moray eel. First of two "Moana" that I caught today Another moray eel. Here is the second Moana. These guys are decent fighters. And the first Weke I have caught out here. This species in particular is said to cause the person that eats it to have hallucinations. I ate one back in DG not knowing the issue (and didn't have any nightmares), but this one was heavier (and I didn't feel like having uncontrolled hallucinations - or hallucinations in general) and I was in C&R mode today. It didn't like the fact that it got caught and was quite the flopper. So the lesson learned today - use bait and catch fish (stop being a lure snob).

Papio Beats a Skunk

Short fishing session before hitting Charlie's to work on the paddle and hand planes. I didn't see any signs of fish. The wind was up from the NE and the water was a bit more turbid than it has been recently. After 40 minutes of nothing, I moved to the quaywall. On the first cast I hooked into this little guy, which makes it better than a skunking!