Return to home, Kauai ~ 5/16 - 5/21 (pic heavy)

...*sigh*...

home....home is where the heart is, and will always be. kauai is my home, and it beckons me everyday to return to her. its been 2 years since i last was there, and i was due to go back. living here in the mainland has made me, restless. impatient, unkind, and just downright grumpy, i had forgotten what the spirit of aloha was. my little fishing adventures out here has always reminded me of home. just the good times hanging out and fishing with friends and family in the beauty of the islands. so when my friend from college invited me to his wedding, noting especially to me that it was on kauai, i jumped at the excuse, no chance, at leaving work and the hustle and bustle of city life.

one good thing about kauai, it hardly ever changes; the two lane roads with a max speed limit of 50mph, no ones ever in a rush to go anywhere. or the toyota pickup trucks, with their poles and boards in the bed, ready for an pre/after work fishing or surfing sesh. and the frequent, "howzit bradah", and *shaka*, from friends and strangers alike. *sigh*...oh how i've missed you.

but i digress, on to the fishing adventures...

i already had a packed schedule, being that i was the only local of our group going to the wedding, and they wanted me to show them around to the "local" spots. i had planned my fishing adventures around the days activities; in hopes of hitting the surf, ocean, and the fresh. i was going to make it a point, to take out time to fish AND catch a fish at all locales.

upon arrival into kauai, i had a quick opportunity to fish a jetty while waiting for my parents to finish work. i packed my 2 symetre reels; 1 spooled with 20lb braid with a 15lb floro leader, and my other reel spooled with 6lb mono. i knew the typical setups used in hawaii, c-rigs with a curly tail grub used for "whipping", but i wanted to test some ideas that i had after fishing here in cali. so, i started off by tossing the big hammer swimbait. doing sort of a jigging motion in hopes of enticing some willing fish. and what do you know! hooked up to my first fish of the trip.

cornet fish on the big hammer.

haha! i figured these swimbaits would work, as they mimic baitfish out there really well. it just took me sometime to figure out the motion at which the fish wanted them. i got slammed a couple other times, that took me on some good runs, but that was the only fish i pulled out of the water. a good 30 min sesh, and day 1 of fishing came to a close.

on my second day, i woke up bright and early and went to the south side of the islands. i wanted to fish some cliffs/rocks for some papios and omilus, but the island had other ideas. a south swell was starting, so the waves were quite huge. dangerous to the point where i decided on fishing a small little boat harbor, protected from the swell. again, tied on the big hammer swimbait to see what was willing.

looks relatively flat, but when the sets came in, they were crashing on the rocks!

another cornetfish!

got into a pretty good bite once again on the bh, jigging it kind of like "whipping". caught a good 10 of those cornetfish (trumpet?). also lost some bh lead heads to the reefs. p.s. next time i come back, bring more lead heads (3/8 oz) and more swimbaits. they were getting trashed and i had only brought a limited supply, and the fishing stores here do not sell them. didn't see the papios, and my time was up for fishing that day. off to show my friends around.

took my friends to one of my favorite beaches on the island. secret beach.

day 3 was wedding day. no fishing planned, no fishing had.

na aina kai. wedding locale.

some pupus being served before dinner!

man, i wish i brought my pole to the wedding!

bright and early on day 4. back to fishing. wanted to change up my presentation so decided on throwing the mark white lure in oama color, 1/2 oz.

beautiful morning sunrise.

started tossing out the mw lure, with a fast retrieve for a bit. got a couple hits, and finally hooked up!

kaku!

had a couple other missed strikes, but the rains came and cut my morning session short. my phone also took a dunk in the water, so the following few photos were taken with my work phone. boo to bringing work on vacay...

spent the rest of the day showing my friends around the island again. once that was over, and on my way home, i decided to go fish some streams behind my house.

the locale.

tied on a worm with no luck. then started throwing the weightless fluke. as im working the bait, i see a flash! bam, fish on! then, he throws the hook. boo...i cast again, same place, and again he bites! but this time my lures tail is gone, and the bite stops. i call it a day with a stripe in the fresh. i'll be back, i told myself. i'll get you soon enough.

day 5 was ocean day. i hit up my buddy before leaving cali, and asked if he could take me out on his boat. he was more than obliging. took a late morning start, but man, was it a beautiful day.

shot of us leaving the harbor.

made it out about 10 miles off the coast to a buoy, and started trolling our jig lines. many birds out crashing on baitfish.

made a bunch of passes near the birds and started hooking up left and right on aku! ended the day with 24 aku (skipjack tuna) and 2 koshibi (yellowfin tuna).

twas a good day!

brought home 2 aku and 1 koshibi for the fam to sashimi and whatnot.

aku poke!

koshibi sashimi!

all in all, a damn good day if you ask me! awesome time out in the water, and some ono'lecious grindz!

my last day in hawaii, i had to leave at 1pm. i had one more thing to do. finish and check off my freshwater fish that i missed. returned back to the same spot, and rigged with a small curly tail grub. hooked up to a good size fish, but lost him again. then moved to another spot.

2nd locale, quite murky.

starting tossing out the grub in the stained water, and thought i had snagged the bottom. then, i see the line moving! hana'pa!!! fought the fish for a bit, and brought her up.

good size for hawaii standards!

last item checked off my list, satisfied and well fished out, i headed off to the airport. as i looked back on my trip back to kauai, my home, i can't believe i left her. but, she always welcomes me back with open arms. life in hawaii is the good life. saw some friends and family, ate some good food, and did some fishing. man, i can't wait to go back home again...

hanapa'a!!!

SD Lake Lunker - 5/10

welp, decided to change things up and fish the fresh, so hit up one of the  inland lakes in sd county. made it out at around 1:00 pm, arrived to very little wind conditions, and many a jumping fish! threw the entire tacklebox at them. swimbaits, jerkbaits, lipless crankbaits, worms, jigs, everything. did hook up to a nice bass on the lipless crank, early on, but still had many fish jumping around.

then, my buddy goes back to what he had tied on when we arrived. big hammer swimbait. someone told me that those wouldn't work in the fresh, but he was immediately on some fish! nice crappies to boot!

so i decided to tie my salt stuff back on and gave it a whirl. got a few taps, so remade with the mini big hammer. still getting taps but no takers, as my buddy hooks into his 3rd crappie on the swimmie. i then toss to a point, and get immediately slammed! fish is taking some crazy drag. pull her in as she comes to color, my personal best largemouth!

she was quite the lunker, and my forearms hurt after that. bass on the bh swimbait? i know, didn't believe it myself. after that i finally got into some crappie with the same bait.

my very first crappie!

crappie are like the surfperch of the freshwater. fun suckers on light tackle. ended the session with 2 bass and multiple crappies. all in all, good day on the fresh!

hanapa'a!

3/13-14 Mission bay - foggy foggy bass

3/13
5:30-8PM incoming low to high tide.

with all this warm weather, decided to wet a line. upon arrival to my first spot, weather seemed nice, but i could see the marine layer slowing creeping in. tossed out my swimmy for some takers before getting sawed off, twice. damn cudas.

off to spot #2. by this time, the fog had fully rolled in. it was very eery. yet, it was still kinda light outside. started tossing out another swimmy (brown grunion) for a steady pick of sbb.

first of the day

saw a bunch of these fellas everywhere

pickings were steady throughout, maybe 1 every 3 casts. then as the sun set, i switched over to the black widow bh. the bite was almost every cast!

chunky fella right here

greedy guy!

1 sandbass for the sesh

ended that nights sesh with a whoopping 22 sbb! they were hugging the shoreline real tight. and they were hungry! it was literally, back to back to back fish.  awesome. night.

3/14
5-7pm
foggy conditions

decided to hit my first spot again to get into some cudas. upon arrival, water was flat, no life. tossed out a brown grunion swimbait for nada. after about an 1hr of casting practice, an explosion of baitfish just erupted around me! fat cudas were jumping, trashing, and chasing the baitfish. and the schools of baitfish were everywhere! literal explosions of them.

some baitfish

i tossed everythign at them. swimbait, hardbait, poppers all for nada. some taps here and there, but it looked like too much real bait to go for the lures.

all in all, pretty good 2 days. i had some questions for you guys as well. i have a baitcaster set up, usually with 1 brake on and whatnot. my distance however seems to decrease over the course of my sometimes 4 hour sessions, wherein i just turn off all my brakes and then im fine until it starts to decrease again. does this happen to anyone else? if i start with all brakes off, i bird nest liek crazy. doesn't sound gritty or anything, my spool just seems to spin slower after fishign for a while.

Night Time Variety

this report is going to look a little different than my usual format. more of a lessons/observations learned and/or questions answered for the newer folks.

place:  sd bay
time:  5:30 PM to 8:00 PM

observation 1:  hardbaits - $15 vs <$5

i've got a few lc's, which run in the $15-$20 range. some people ask about alternatives, and if they catch just as well as the lc's.  well, from my experience, i've caught more fish on a less than $5 hardbait than the lc.  i picked it up on a closeout sale at sport chalet (there might be some left). apparently, this hardbait caught me a few bass, a nice short halibut, and a couple smelt. retrieval was a very slow crank.

if it looks fishy, its worth a buy and try.

observation 2:  halibut at night?

yes.

this was literally my 3rd halibut at night. they're definitely on the chew at night, just gotta be at the right place at the right time.

observation 3:   beans at night?

alright. this one caught me by surprise. literally. caught him really close in shore as i was pretty much done with my retrieval. caught him at night, and on a swimmy. whouda thunk? btw, this guy had some meat to it! pulled my tightened down drag i had for bass!

still had some life, thats why he's so sandy...

all in all, had a blast in sd bay. as they say, variety is the spice of life, and sd bay tops mbay for that very reason. thanks for looking!

bonus pic:

PB Hali!!!

haven't gone fishing since spring, as I don't usually enjoy fishing when the crowds are out during summer.  now that its winter, less crowds, and the hot sbb bite returns!

decided to hit the minus tide (-1.6ft) yesterday in the jungle at mission bay with a friend of mine. drizzling on and off, wind was sporadic, and just downright cold. but, we already made the trek out, so decided to still give it a go.

armed with my clarus/symetre 2500/15lb braid setup and t-rigged razor clam t&c lure, we went on the hunt. tide was still going down when we arrived, and took quite a while to get any action. i got struck first with a pretty nice lunker! man i've missed fishing!

then, nothing, for quite some time. no bites, nothing. just windy, wet, and cold. we contemplated packing it in early, but we saw something that i've never thought i'd witness...a hali jumping out of the water! luckily my friend also saw the same thing, and we both were energized to continue fishing.

we continued fishing into the low tide and had only caught 1 other sbb. so much for the negative tides in this weather. headed back to the truck and kept tossing the swimbait. then...BAM!! hooked up to another fish. i wasnt quite sure what it was in the beginning as it made some headshakes like an sbb, yet it felt heavy like it was caught on some grass, or maybe even the flat kind. dare i say it was what i was hoping, but pushed that out of my mind for fear of bad luck. it took some time to reel it closer to shore, and we still couldn't make out what it was. we saw a flash of white, and my friend goes "ray, no wait, shovelnose!". then he goes, "holy sh*t! its a huge halibut!!!"

right then and there, it takes off on some long runs. im fighting this fish, hoping that all my knots are tied properly, and the hook will stay in and not break. just praying that i get to see it beached! after a good 4 attempts at landing this fish, my friend finally was able to tail grab it and throw it to shore. this was my first beast...some pics for proof.

measured out to 33", besting my pb of 22" by almost a foot! it was heavy too! so pumped, and glad i stuck it out during that wet/cold weather. happy to be back fishing!!!


hanapa'a!

mb 4/19-20 FINALLY!!!

i've gone out everyday since sunday. usually right after work. if you've seen my earlier posts, i've been catching mostly sbb's, with a few hali's in between. the weather's been on a warming trend, and i knew more hali's would be cruising into the bay.

always strapped with my 7'6" MF clarus 15lb pp slick 8, and 7'6" ML compre 8lb pline mono both on symetre 2500s, i got to work again yeserday.

4/19
went to an old place where its always looked fishy, but i haven't pulled out more than 2 sbb. worked the shoreline with my new sasuke 75 shad, casting into boils looking for the silver kind. instead was rewarded with a few halis. 6 to be exact.

first of the day.

another one bites the sasuke.

ended the day with just my 6 halis, all under or about 12". not bad, considering i've never caught that much hali's in one outing.

4/20
i was hoping yesterdays 'catching' were good signs that more hali's were gonna be cruising by. so, decided to try again at the same spot. casted out the sasuke once again, but only managed to pull out 1 sbb. things weren't lookin good, and the sun was already setting. moved to 2 other spots for nada. then hit up 1 more spot before runnin home. man, good thing i did.

got to my 3rd spot, saw some small signs of life so decided to try much luck once again with my trusty sasuke. ive read around before what it feel like when a hali bites and how it fights. its like youve snagged some kelp, and its just like pulling in some salad. but once it see's shore, it'll take off back into the open. well, this time was no different.

.
.
.
.
.
.

FINALLY!!!

another look at her.

yes! finally, my 1st legal hali! she fought like a champ, making a few runs before i coaxed her onto the bank. took a few quick snaps, then revived her and sent her back on her way. what an awesome night of fishing! looks like tomorrows gonna be a nice day as well, and i'll be back on the prowl!

hanapa'a!

sd bay nite bite

went out this weekend to try out a new lure. hit up the bay for some night time fun, armed with my new lcfm 95mr Tennessee shad. tossed out a few casts while sitting on some rocks for some good lookin fellas!

first cuda for me! loosened my drag to avoid shake offs.

next couple casts yielded me what has eluded me for quite some time.

biggest one of the night. ~15"

had a fun time with 2 new species. all caught on the lcfm.

tally of the night:
1 cuda
3 vina's

hanapa'a!