Bonefish

[JeffFaulkner]

Stan,
I was walking down the beach in Laie the other and found a bonefish dead on the beach. It was a big one. What would be the best way to target bonefish with out a fly rod? I would love to go catch some, but I only have a small fly rod and am not very good with it.

Thanks for the help.

Jf

[tucmaster]

Hi Jeff. Try using a 9-10 ft. medium to heavy action saltwater spinning outfit with at least 20-25 lb. test line, 3 or 4 oz. sinker, three-way swivel, and strip of squid (cut from squid that you find frozen in a small box in the freezer section of your supermarket). From the beach, throw your bait out as far as you can into the offshore sand pockets or sand channels (the light-colored areas of the bottom), prop up your pole, reel up the slack line. and wait for the strike. Good luck.

[leoric]

I agree with tucmaster as to the setup for catching oio/ bonefish. The best places to catch them are areas where there are lots of white water and sand or reef spots with sandy pockets. if you live close to laie, you can find spots for oio in punaluu, hauula, pounders, temple beach side all the way to kahuku point. i've seen a guy pull out hefty ones in the 8-10 pound range just about two months ago over at hukilau.

for my own oio rig, i use a 12' ugly stik with a penn 8500ss spinning reel loaded with 25-lb test ande. for my leader, i use 2-3 feet of 50 lb test mono, size 3 barrel swivel, size 10-12 circle hooks. i prefer to use pyramid-shaped sinkers rather than the regular tear drop (or bank sinkers) when i go "dunking" just because they hold on to the sand better (it minimizes your rig from being moved by the waves). the leadline should be short, around 6-10 inches from the swivel. squid is the preferred bait but don't rule out other baits like octopus leg, crab (aama) leg, and even sand turtles.

i don't know how to catch oio using fly gear (heck, i don't even know anything about fly fishing). but i remember reading an hfn article about this guy in kailua guiding fly anglers in the sand flats off kailua and kaneohe area. i don't recall the month the article was printed but i know it was from last year's. hopefully somebody knows which article i'm referring to and can be able to help out.

anyways, just my two cents about bonefish.