Oahu West Side Trip

[Tightlines667]

Currents, moon, weather looked good, (temp chart, not so much). Finished up some needed work on the boat at O-dark-thirty last night, and put together a rag tag group of coworkers for a Sunday trip to the west side.

Had to ice/fuel up this am, so we left the dock late at 0600hrs. Threw 2-9" Ono jets out and ran at 12.5 knots towards BO. Took a solid strike at 3nm out, and brought a 20# Ono to gaff. Turned around, ran back through, and took another quick hit and a miss on the same bait (Pink over white jetted bullet), but he missed the random hooks.

Continued to BO, switched to 4-7" Ahi bullets, and a 5" Ninja, and ran into a big group of Short-fin Pilot whales. Then worked the 1500 fa to Nankule. Found a current line, and worked it towards Pinnacle. Found a pallet, and picked up a small Mahi on the ninja first pass. Made another pass, no bites. Stopped, and threw palu, and jigged for 20minutes, no more life. Worked the pinnacle, then into the S bouy, then on to the 40 fa. Switched to planners and ballyhoo, and worked all the way back to Pearl Harbor with no bites, though there was signs of life along south shore.

Nice day to be on the water.

It was great to get out again.

John

[Swami805]

Nice trip,got a few and scored a few points with the co-workers. Beat the heck out of my day.
From your reports it's mostly troll fishing. Anything else work consistently there? Ever set up in a likely area and fish with chunks or anything?
Thanks for the report

[Tightlines667]

Nice trip,got a few and scored a few points with the co-workers. Beat the heck out of my day.
From your reports it's mostly troll fishing. Anything else work consistently there? Ever set up in a likely area and fish with chunks or anything?
Thanks for the report

I spend more then 90% of my time on the troll.  There is a lot of deep relatively structureless water to cover, and very few key/static hotspots to concentrate on when targeting pelagic around Oahu.  The exception is when the current and bait are just right on the nearshore 40fa ledge, the Penguin Bank, or if fish are camped out on a fixed FAD bouy, or floating piece of marine debris.  In these cases it can pay to stop there and try alternative methods.  These include chunking, deep dropping with chum bags, live baiting, and jigging.  Some guys also fish Iki-shibi in the night time hours (esp. In wintertime) where lights are used to attack squid, live squid are caught and dropped below the squid to target bigete and albacore tuna.  When I stumble across a good piece of marine debris or fish on a FAD, (like the pallet yesterday), I like to pull the gear, stop by it and set up a chum line, while deep verticle jigging to see if I can get a party started.  So far these alternative methods have been largely unproductive for me here, though they were often go-to in the GOM and Bermuda.

Deep drop bottomfishing is also popular in the winter months. 

I have a parachute set up, and will certainly try chunking, deep drop, live baiting, and jigging some in the future, when I think a given area is holding fish.  Often times fish activity pops up for short periods in a given place, then disappears, or the fish are on the move, and are covering miles, so mobility is needed to get the bites. 

This last year has been below average fishing around Oahu.  The previous 2 years were above average.  The wide scale oceanographic patterns which drive local fish abundance, vary from year-to-year.  Strong El Nino conditions typically lead to better fishing here, last year and this year we are looking at La Nina, which drives much of the life hundreds of miles from the main Hawaiian islands.  We still get pulses of fish, and life but it is tougher going these days.  I am averaging 1 bite fir every 7 hours of effort, and it's not far off from the typical average.  The last 2 weekends we had nearly 40-60 boats fishing around the island each day, and only a handful of fish were caught.  In theory, things will pick up this month, and next.

We will see.

John

[Swami805]

Thanks John. We have the continental shelf so different opportunities which I'm sure you're aware, even the far offshore islands will have assorted high spots and off shore banks. There it drops off to the abiss realitivily quickly, just a different ball game. But like most places time spent on the water up your odds no matter where you are
Thanks for the explanation
Sherian