What Lure — Chapter 1
I fish in the surf, specifically targeting the big white Ulua and Omilu that come in from the deep to feed. This blog that I’ve created to share my experiences.
My friend Aaron has used the same whipping setup for forever, and it always gets a good laugh.
His “go-to” is rig is a simple, large bubble floater, half filled with water, dragging a 2” squid skirt a few feet behind it. He whips this rig out, then rips, plops and bounces this floater across the surface, which seems to attract every papio in the area. Since the papio can’t see the clear plastic floater splashing across on the surface, they’re drawn to bright red blur that’s swimming after this commotion, and attack it every time. Most of Aaron’s hits happen in and around some whitewater, specifically, where the white water dissipates into clear water, where the papio go to look for breakfast.
Aaron’s $3 rig, looking like it just got pulled from a Walmart’s discount bin, consistently outfishes me and everyone else that’s using the latest bombs, lures, flys, grubs, baits, strips whatever else is popular on instagram. Everyone always gets a good laugh at el-cheapo Aaron’s setup, but Aaron’s usually the last one laughing.
Ulua develop their hijacking tactics as the younger ‘papios’ that attack Aaron’s lightweight rig, then execute them violently against large reef fish weighing several pounds. These ulua grow well beyond 100# in Hawaii’s waters, and don’t fear anything inshore, including divers and fishermen. They are the specific reason the very reason that reef fish are reef fish, since any weke, hinalea, mamo, nenue would have a very short life expectancy if they picked up a habit of straying too far from the shelter of the reef.
Our bluefin and white trevallies have adapted their tactics to counter the skittish behavior our reef fish by actively hunting them in the murky conditions of the surf, muddy water, and darkness, where they grab a prey that would otherwise see them and dart into cover in clear water.
And they’re not finicky eaters. If it’s alive, and can fit in it’s mouth, it’ll get eaten — hinalea, nenue, weke, eels, crabs, octopus, birds, squid, you name it. Some guys on Youtube even posted a video white ulua launching themselves out of the water and snatching birds as they flew above.
While I refuse to copy Aaron’s papio set-up, out of pride, I use the same strategy to lure their strike, with large lures, or ‘plugs’. I like to cast and retrieve these plugs, each running between three and ten inches long, and between one and six ounces in weight, quickly through the surf to create the commotion of a reef fish or similar critter caught in the open water.
I believe that Ulua are ‘Contrast Hunters”, in the surf, similar to the T-Rex in the first Jurrasic Park.. If you’ve swam through the surf, you’ll know that it’s physically demanding, loud and visually chaotic. Ulua like to swim a just beneath, or around the perimeter of this churn, watching for anything caught up in it.
In my experience, plugs attract the attention of Ulua via three types of contrast..
Poppers, which are Flat or concave faced lures, will chug and splash when I rip them across the surface of the ocean, similar to Aaron’s half-filled bubble floater, creating a huge commotion which attracts Ulua, while using the cavitation of this churn to conceal their true identity from its attackers. These plugs push a lot of water forward, and the good ones create deep bubble trails that get noticed by predators ten or fifteen yards beneath the surface.
Swimming plugs, or ‘Swimmers’, are the only lures that truly resemble fish, when retrieved they’ll squirm, dive, dart and swim through the water just like Aaron’s squid skirt. These lures are either designed to swim at or near the surface of the water.
Or are built with a ‘lip’ that allow you to have the swim at a predetermined depth when retrieved. As an aside, I typically don’t use lipped lures when casting plugs in the surf, because they’ll inevitably snag the underlying rocks after the first two or three casts.
Skippers, are designed to quickly skip over the top of the water, alternately bouncing from its front to back, or side to side rails, similar to a fish trying to flee it’s attacker by skipping atop the water. These lures sink, and are usually back-weighted, to allow for ultra-long casts. They’re are often rigged with a single tail hook, to allow them to skip for freely on the water. While I love to use these lures, because they’ll allow me to cast 100+ yards, out into the surf, the key problem is that, when they self hook (the tail hook will wrap forward and snag the leader), they’ll dive quickly when retrieved, causing them to snag on the rocks. I’d caught my first Ulua on a GT Ice Cream lure, but have found it too expensive to use them when across submerged reef structures.
Then there’s combination plugs that do all three. These are long, streamlined plugs with flat faces. That will pop, dive, swim and skip the water, often in this order. Since they’re multi-movement plugs, they don’t perform any one movement, swimming, popping or skipping, very well, and take a bit more practice to use. Kaku Lure’s Papa Joe and Aunty Sharon plugs are below.
There’s a ton of videos on Youtube showing fishermen catching Ulua on all of these types of plugs, in all types of conditions, and every fisherman has their theories on what plug works in particular conditions. I’ll discuss my theories in a second piece. However, the pure poppers, swimmers and skippers are specialized plugs seem to only perform one motion well. Swimmers are great at swimming, but can’t be popped, and so on. So, if I had to take just one plug with me into the surf, it would be the combination plug. They seem to be the jack of all trades, lures that can be worked differently in different conditions, to achieve different results..
Aloha and happy fishing, 12MM