First Peacock

[Stan Wright]

Hit the Ala Wai early for Barracuda... nothing, ( needs to be
a HIGH tide for there ) so we headed to the lake.

In short order, Bobby hit this little Peacock... his first ever...
also his first of several throughout the afternoon.


He got some great pictures. His camera is amazing... (when I
took pictures with it, It would go off like a machine gun then
you touched the shutter button) I would try to take ONE picture
and end up taking 8 or 10. Great for action photos though.

Here, Bobby takes a photo ( or 12 ) of Jason and his Red Devil.
Look how close you can get with a 16mm lens.


Jordan with another nice Bluegill.

[Rfong]

Stan,
I've been curious about trying to catch Barracuda on a fly in the Ala Wai.

Any tips? Does time of day matter, or is it tide dependent? Which flies work? Bait swimming streamers stripped fast? How about Poppers? Do you cast to the bank or try to sight fish?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Ron

[Stan Wright]

I've made 2 trips in the last month and have not seen one barracuda. Earnie told me that this is not the best time for barracuda fishing... after to bolo head trips I'm incline to believe him... He says summer is the time to go.

Now, about the Ala Wai... HIGH TIDE. If you look at the tide chart for this month the high is around midnight. The little bump of a tide around mid day isn't enough... we didn't see a thing.

When the barracuda are feeding they will hit anything... a popping bug is the most fun... but they will hit anything flashy. Yes, fast is good. Lots of time we would be casting to fish we see.

[Ca_Bass]

I caught a couple barracuda on the hickam flats with pink streamers that had epoxy heads, pink craft fur for the body and crystal flash for the tail. Pretty easy to make, juste used the 5 min epoxy you can get at walmart. They were inteded to be little shrimp looking flies for bonefish but the barracuda and papio liked em more.

But like Stan said the poppers would be more fun.

After some trial and error started planning my trips to hickam flats on the tides. The times during the "spring" tieds were best best. They draw more water flow than normal but you generally only have 1 high and 1 low per day. But there is also less slack tide between the two so there should always be current flowing which turns the fish on. For wading I would go about 1 hour before the low tide. That way I could work my way to the edge of the flat where it drops off when the tide was at it's lowest point. This was good for two reasons, 1 I think the fish move to the drop during the low tide and 2 it was pretty much the only time I could get to the drop without being up to my sholders.

Hopes this helps some!

[Ken]

Thanks Ca_Bass. Good to know since I'd like to spend a couple of days fishing at Hickam Flats next time.

Spring tides...got it.

Maybe I'll rent a tandem kayak and bring Ahnko with me to throw the fairy wand around for o'io, papio and kaku.

Even better if I can bribe Stan with some lunch

[Ca_Bass]

Defintiely reccomend having orange woolybuggers in a few different weights/sizes. I would start out with a lighter fly, as you enter the water it's shallower. I'd usually change sizes 3 times and usually by my third change I was towrds the edge of the of the reef where it drops off and I needed a heavier fly to get down on the bottom. I would do a little sight fishing but mostly blind casting in the little channels of the reef and just over the drop off. Main thing was too keep the fly just ticking the bottom. My buddy who got me into it almost always outfished me out there because he was a much better fly caster and distance did matter. The farther your cast the better. The bonefish were usually stacked up on the drop off but you had to have the spring tide to be able to fish it if you were wading. One thing that was super helpful was having a milk crate to stand on. We tied rope to it and made a stap, put it over our shoulders when moving then we set it down stand on it and fan cast the area.

From what I've heard hickam doesn't have the numbers of bonefish as other places but has better size. My first bonefish on the fly (and biggest) was about 6 or 7lbs didn't have a scale or anything just guessing.

Orange was definitely the best color. Pretty sure it's because of all the mantis shrimp over there and they were all a bright orange to reddish color. If you wade the flats you will likely see quite a few of them scurry into the rocks as you're walking around.

[Ken]

Thanks! I'm going to keep all that in mind.

Last time I tied up a number of pink, tan, orange, rust coloured small streamers to imitate small shrimp and such...but I didn't end up having a chance to fish Hickam.

Sending you a PM.