Hardly worth posting, but I played hookie today to take advantage of a lull in the trades.
I went out today 0400-1600hrs and covered a lot of ground with the nice weather.
Picked up a peanut Mahi at HH bouy b4 dawn and that was it.
Worked a nice Aku pile with bogo Wedgies and 10-15 lb fish with big bait balls for 1.5hrs, with no takers.
No one home anywhere else Waenae pinnacle, Nanakule canyon, lump, 1500, 1000, and 500 fa. Ledges, even ran the 40 for 2 hours. I ran seperate big tuna, small marlin, Aku, and big Wahoo spreads today with no hits.
Guess that's why they call it fishing not catching.
At least I got dinner.
John
John,
Sounds like a great day to me! You were fishing.....maybe not catching..lol!!
But, alot of others were working, not fishing!!!
Glad you were out there trying!
Brett
You've said it all yourself!
I quickly get bored after Ive easily caught a whole pile of fish.
Just enjoy the day.
not much different than my last fishing trip John,
we went fishing from 10am to 7pm,yep and we only got 6 triggerfish that bit at 6pm on our come back to the launch ramp.
maybe post some pictures of your surroundings for us to know a bit more of your terrains
As a result of trolling baits all day when everyone was catching Mahi, and Skipjack but me, I purchased 4-5", and 1-6" lures designed to catch Skipjack and Mahi. Next time I find a big pile of Wedgies and Skipjack feeding on balls of Nehu (Hawaiian Anchovie) I will be able to present them with a more appropriate offering.
As a result of trolling baits all day when everyone was catching Mahi, and Skipjack but me, I purchased 4-5", and 1-6" lures designed to catch Skipjack and Mahi. Next time I find a big pile of Wedgies and Skipjack feeding on balls of Nehu (Hawaiian Anchovie) I will be able to present them with a more appropriate offering.
I like the wings on the skirt lures. I think it was on Yap - the locals used similar palm fronds "wings" on their skirts when the flying fish were around.
Down in Baja, when the dorado(mahi) are keyed on small bait, only the biggest will take even a small mackerel. I will outfish the live bait guys with a 4 inch fly in these circumstances. We have a different type of skipjack here, but they also seem to prefer small stuff when on the surface. When searching for dorado schools, I will troll the same fly on a conventional rod (egg sinker, swivel, 5 foot leader, fly), and will often do better than the folks trolling 6 inch skirts lures like yours.
The guys that mostly troll will sometimes cram a 1/4-3/4 oz egg weight into the bulb head of a smaller Yamashita octopus for these circumstances. A cheap and effective skirt lure, much closer to to the profile of a smaller bait. I suspect these were probably pretty common in Hawaii to back in the day. A once-famous baja combo was a green 6 inch skirt/ egg over a 4 inch pink skirt/egg - called a "green hula skirt with pink panties". I was looking for a link, but the search result was pretty much overwhelmed with what you would expect to find with these keywords...
Might want to think about tossing one of these in your spread when the small bait is around.
-J
J
Good idea!
I actually did tie up a few daisy chain/dropper loop small squid skirts with small hooks (a few w/egg stinkers and a few w/o). This is how we used to catch little tunny, and bonito to use as live bait in Bermuda. I also have 2 locally tied Shibi flies(Mysid Shrimp Imitations), and some small Papio streamer flies. I Think I can fish the flys on my AT special 6/0s loaded w/ 50lb floro.
It is my understanding that the flys really need 2 crewmembers jigging them to be effective though.
John
When you find a bunch of skipjacks I have the lure that will get one on every cast. It is a 3oz Viking jig only made in Staten Island by S&G Tackle. We buy them by the gross here and they are also killers for king macs too. Actually I have caught just about everything here on one.
Quote from: Newell Nut on August 04, 2017, 09:45:40 PM
When you find a bunch of skipjacks I have the lure that will get one on every cast. It is a 3oz Viking jig only made in Staten Island by S&G Tackle. We buy them by the gross here and they are also killers for king macs too. Actually I have caught just about everything here on one.
I believe those would work, especially because they are about the color/size/action of Hawaiian Anchovies. It would be fun to catch them on standup casting gear too. Seems like trolling 4 shorter/smaller jigs or 2 flies continuously through the group might put more meat on the boat though, and be easier to manage. The fish are usually bust bait at the surface for 1-3 minutes, drop down and reappear within 1/3 of a mile or so 5-15minutes later. They can be ranging at anywhere from 2-5nm/hr.
The old-time Aku pole boats eould circle the school sloely throwing out live Anchovies and turn on water sprayers around the boat to bring tue fish to them. Then they used long bamboo poles and barbless lead jigs to fill the hold.
Casting spoons or plugs may be worth considering though.
I usually troll the outskirts looking for bigger query associated with the school rather then trying to catch Aku, but I think I may try to catch some next time. Nothing wrong with 10-30lb Skipjack.
John
Well I made it out again today.
Me and my friend Joe left the dock at 0400hrs and headed to the leeward coast of Oahu. We dropped lines at the first sign of grey light on the 1500fa curve. Trolled a 5 bait 7" spread out to the pinnacle, and all the way up to the CO bouy off of Barber's Point (about 40nm). No knockdowns or signs of life until mid morning outside the CO a few miles, we ran into a big pile of Skipjack Tuna and Wedgies. I quickly deployed my secret weapons. The custom made 5" jigs from POP that were " Guarantee gonna get bit". We chased the tuna for 2.5 hours and only managed to time baits in the pile once. We hooked up a double, but one spit the hook. Landed about a 15lb Skipjack Tuna. We then cruised back along the coast on the inside with Mahi baits. Good looking water full of trash, but no bites. Switched gears to jets for Wahoo along the inner ledge for the last 10 miles. No knockdowns.
Pretty slow fishing, but great to get out. I was pleasantly surprised by the weather that was supposed to be nasty, but turned out to be nice. I burned 40 gals of fuel in 100nm and 11 hours, so we kept moving.
Maybe fresh sashimi and poke, and grill tuna for dinner tonight.
The fishing has to get better sometime.. right?
John
Teriyaki-glazed & grilled Skipjack for dinner. I'll let the sashimi firm-up overnight.
You try fishing live baits at all? I bet those skip jacks would make amazing trolling baits. Bridled right though the nose.
Quote from: FatTuna on August 07, 2017, 04:58:21 AM
You try fishing live baits at all? I bet those skip jacks would make amazing trolling baits. Bridled right though the nose.
I am setup for it. Got my bridges ready to go. I want small (<5lb) Kawakawa, or Aku to bridle and drop down on the downriver and slow troll for a Marlin. This is the month to do it. This fall or winter I want to catch Opelu ( Bigeye Mackerel Scad) to fish at the Fads too.
I have fished bridle Bonita in Bermuda with some success, so I think I am ready to try it here.
John
When we fish for tuna, we usually setup up a drift or anchor up on the ball. Sounds like you guys are way too deep for anchors though. We'll stack live baits at different depths on sinkers and balloons. All bridled on circle hooks. Big baits get 30lb Tuf-line rigging floss. The smaller ones get the rubber rigging bands. Sometimes we use two if the baits are breaking off. Have a plastic 55 gallon drum rigged up with a pump to keep dozens of live baits alive all day.
Are you stretching out your leaders? That's a big thing with tuna fisherman here. All the fluorocarbon stretched out and wiped down with alcohol swabs. We use the swabs every time we check out baits too. The crimps all get colored in with a black paint pen to reduce reflections in the water. We analyze the leaders before fishing for the day. Any kinks get trimmed out. If they are less than 15 feet, they get tossed.
You fish the kite at all? I like the Aftco kite because it has a bridle that can be adjusted for different wind conditions. Also, has both light and medium spars.
Quote from: FatTuna on August 07, 2017, 01:08:00 PM
When we fish for tuna, we usually setup up a drift or anchor up on the ball. Sounds like you guys are way too deep for anchors though. We'll stack live baits at different depths on sinkers and balloons. All bridled on circle hooks. Big baits get 30lb Tuf-line rigging floss. The smaller ones get the rubber rigging bands. Sometimes we use two if the baits are breaking off. Have a plastic 55 gallon drum rigged up with a pump to keep dozens of live baits alive all day.
Are you stretching out your leaders? That's a big thing with tuna fisherman here. All the fluorocarbon stretched out and wiped down with alcohol swabs. We use the swabs every time we check out baits too. The crimps all get colored in with a black paint pen to reduce reflections in the water. We analyze the leaders before fishing for the day. Any kinks get trimmed out. If they are less than 15 feet, they get tossed.
You fish the kite at all? I like the Aftco kite because it has a bridle that can be adjusted for different wind conditions. Also, has both light and medium spars.
That sounds like the way I fished tuna on the shallow banks in Bermuda. We used to anchor in 500', chum, fish live baits, kites, and balloons. Out here most guys wait until winter to fish live bait (squid at night, akule/opelu during the day). I have a 50 gal bait Well, and a floodlights for making bait at night. We use sea anchors/parachutes to control the drift. Some guys deep drop with chum bags, but not too many fly kites here. Greensticking is also popular if your setup for it.
I run short (5-6') floro leaders on my tuna jigs so its easier to deal with the fish boatside when single-handed or on multiple hookups, but you have me thinking a bit on this since I always ran long leaders for tuna, and Marlin when fishing the mainland. I only streth the leaders to remove kinks, but even then I usually just replace.
I have rigging floss and zip tie bristles of various sizes for different sized baits. Next new moon, I may get more serious about procuring some live bait. They are tough to catch on a full moon.
The big tuna have been largely absent from Oahu for the last several weeks. The False Killer, and Pilot Whales likely pushed them on to the islands further south. We could get another pulse of fish any day, but likely won't see any real numbers of big YFT for the remainder of the season. The smaller 20-40lb fish should start showing up in the next 6 weeks though.
Right now we have schools of large Skipjack, increasing numbers of Mahi, and the Blue Marlin are beginning to make their appearance.
Trolling is simple and allows you to cover a lot of ground, but now you have me thinking that downsizing my gear, and setting up to chunk mid morning might be worth a shot. I have a spot in mind, but it is a long run.
Funny how when your not catching, you start questioning your tactics.
Overall it's been a pretty slow season. 2 or 3 weeks of good tuna fishing, a few small pulses of small blue marlin, a smattering of Wahoo,a few Mahi, and some finicky Skipjack. 1 fish days have been the norm.
John
We start off with four fathoms of leader (approximately 24'). We rig them with windon Spro swivels. You can reel right up to the hook. The only catch is that when you get to the sinker, which is rubberbanded on to the topshot, the guy driving the boat needs to come over to quickly snip it off. The rubberband left over does nothing to mess up the line lay.
We typically only fish a couple of lines, three max. I only fish with one guy so anything more just complicates things. If we are camping out overnight, we fish just a single line. Sometimes I put a glow stick in the balloon to see where it is.
We fish live squid too. The system is to jig them up and then put them in a separate bucket first. Then I harass them with a stick for a minute. They shoot their ink into the bucket of water. Then I transfer them to a large garden bucket we leave on deck. I've found that the squid can kill other live fish if put into the general population.
We rarely chum. For one, it brings in the sharks and dogfish which destroy the expensive leaders and steal $3 hooks. Second, it just makes a big mess. There is usually a ton of bait around anyway. We might do a little chumming if we are marking fish. Usually just chum with whole fish.
Stretching the leader can help remove kinks but it also helps keep it straight. If there are coils in the leader, it reflects the light in different directions allowing the fish to see it better. We generally only fish light leader with circle hooks.
Went out for 9hours of trolling yesterday. I picked up 3 little Mahi (2-5lb,1-10lb), and lost a 4th predawn bite at BO bouy. I fished the 1000fa. up to S bouy, and trolled the 500fa. back to R, then Barber's Point. We ran into a big school of Sky outside the 1000 but they only surfaced briefly twice in an hour, and I left the school to beat the increasing winds and call it an early day. My friend lost 2 300lb Blue Marlin fishing the same area, and my other friend had no bites all day. Nice to get out again.
John