Something Different

This is the busy season for guiding here on Oahu, and the past week featured some light winds and cool weather. So rather than crowd ourselves onto the flats with the guides busting their butts trying to find a happy bonefish in the chilly water, we headed outside the reef to do something else, namely light tackle butterfly jigging. This is not fly fishing. If you only wanted to see pictures of bonefish on flies, please check back next time. If you want to see some different fish and stupid fun on light tackle, keep scrolling.

On the first Sunday of the new year ET took Brandon, Chris, and me outside the flats of Hawaii Kai to the place where humpback whales play.

My first fish of the new year was a fatty uku (green jobfish).

Everybody got in the action with more uku, papios, moana kali and weke ula (goatfishes).

A few days later Chris took me to his secret spot out in Kaneohe bay. We caught a few different fish, including kagami (african pompano), moana kali (goatfish), and kawakawa (bonito).

The next day we headed back out again and started off the day with a few more kagamis.

Kagamis are such pretty fish that I had to put mine back even though it was definitely keeper sized and good eating.

Then after lunch and a few other small fish we went to the "real good spot."

Kahala (amberjack) and GTs made for crazy action. The kahala "kick like a mule with its balls wrapped in duct tape!"

Doubled up! This happened multiple times, but using a camera timer with angry fish in a small bass boat makes life interesting. We limped home with broken hooks and almost no jigs left, but that's what happens when you mess with the bull.

Two days later on Sunday, ET took Andrew out to the east side to see if more uku and goats were around. They found a few fish in a cooperative mood.

Back in Kaneohe, Brandon recovered from his cold and went out with me and Chris for one last session in the bay before he flew back to CA.

More uku and kahala made the day a memorable one.

Hagasu tuna were also around and put up a nice fight on the light tackle.

A lot of people have never heard of or seen such a fish. I hadn't until just last year. I guess they're not that common a catch. Some people mistakenly refer to them as dogtooth tuna. I wish they were, but they're not. In Japan they call this fish a "hagatsuo." "Ha" in Japanese means "tooth" and kastuo is the Japanese name of our aku or skipjack. Thus, the hagasu is an aku with teeth. See, you learned something today.

The finishing touch was Chris' mom steamed up an uku and moana kali for us in black bean sauce. Such a great way to end an epic week of fishing. This all sounds easy enough, drive outside the reef edge, drop a jig, and crank. But without Chris and ET's intimate knowledge of their home waters, we probably wouldn't have even caught a trumpet fish. Big mahalos guys! My next project is figuring out how to get into the kahala bite on my fly rod. Hello Airflo Depthfinder...Aloha