Reel Repair by Alan Tani

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.