Tweaking My New Hobie Oasis for Kayak Fishing

My story on "Changing My Ride to the Hobie Oasis" shared my evolution of kayak models for kayak fishing. After several test runs in the last 30 days, I finally have enough on-the-water experience to gossip about my new 2011 Hobie Oasis. Let me start off by saying that my last ride was fantastic. My only complaint about the Hobie Revolution was the fish storage when boating 25 to 50 pound pelagic. With that said, the main reason I chose the Oasis was to solve the fish storage problem. Did I give up a great ride (Hobie Revolution) to settle on a tandem kayak in which the majority of my time kayak fishing will be soloing? YES!  Is my fish storage problem resolved? YES! Does the Oasis pass all my kayak fishing expectations? Yes and No... so let me share with you why.

NNE Winds and Playing It Safe Today

As I was driving down the coast to fish with Reggie on Wednesday, I saw most of the boats driving north on the Queens Highway pass Honokohau Harbor. Why were they not launching in Kona I asked myself?  Arriving at Honaunau 30 minutes later, Reggie and I headed out and for 3 solid hours and we did not to have a solid strike. My bait went untouched and Reggie just kept getting stick fish bites that mangled his opelu. With no boats in sight all morning... the bite was definetly not on on the south side of the Big Island. So we called it a day and  I made a plan to head north the following day based on the boat sightings on the highway.

On Thursday, my plan was to lauch Kawaihae, but I changed my mind based on the mild winds and drove up the Kohala coast to take a peek at Mahukona, a great fishing area but also dangerous for its winds. If the winds were mild, I would launch,  if any indications of strong gusts, I would head back down to Kawaihae and play it safe. 

Well the winds looked pretty good and I proceeded to setup the Oasis without using the amas. When ever you launch at Mahukona, you have to slide your kayak off the old sugar cane loading dock. You also have to be very careful of the surf surge coming in and sweeping you into the rocks. After a sucessuful launch and heading to 30 fathoms, I dropped my bait and started trolling. I notice an abundance of malolo fish (flying fish) being chased out of the water by their predators. I was thinking that it could possibly turn out to be a great day. The three fishing boats in the area were staying around which is a good indication that a bite was on. Three bird piles were happening close by and within five minutes of trolling, my line went zzzzzzzzz.

Then the wind started to pick up as white caps formed. If you ever fished Mahukona before, the weather can change in minutes from great to bad which could leave you in a scary situation. With bad weather on my mind, I said to myself that there is never a fish worth keeping on the line if it puts me in danger. I could feel the current pushing against the rudder making it harder to control the steering. The new 2011 Hobie Oasis rudder is very loose and it will take a few times out to dial in the settings.  When you are in a perpendicular angle that allows waves to crash on the 2011 Oasis rudder sideways, the waves move the rudder out of position which makes it hard to steer... a problem that I did not have with the Hobie Revolution.

The battle with the mahi took several minutes to bring her close to the kayak and with a kage shot to the head, I was able to boat her. The boats around me started to head out as the white caps got bigger. I dropped a second baited line out and started to head back towards my launch. I was 60 fathoms out at this time and I kept thinking that if I took a second strike, It could be possible to be blown out farther. So I changed my mind and brought the baited line back in and called it a day. It took about 20 minutes to reach shore as the wind started to change directions from the northeast to the southwest which made it tempting to go back out... but  I stayed with my thought on safety first. Until next time! Aloha. {mos_fb_discuss:5}