Martyn White | Thursday, 6 July 2023
Disappointingly rainy season seemes to be having a last hurrah here, just around my days off too it's been glorious when I've had to work. I'm not exceptionally put out though, much as I wanted to fish I haven't been very good at getting ready for next week's trip to Hamamatsu for tripletail.
Aside from the weather I've been really busy, aside from work, I just joined Fulling Mill and I'm having to tie a load of sample flies for copying and and approval. On top of that there's not a huge amount of information around on tripletail and they seem to be somewhat overshadowed by other more desireable species, for fly anglers anyway. Floridian conventional anglers seem to rate them highly! The guide hasn't got a huge amount of detail to share either as it's a relatively young fishery here, maybe climate change has brought them further north and/or increased the number of them found in Japan. Apparently they used to be essentially an Okinawa only target andnot a particularly prolific one either. Anywhere, they're further north now, seemingly more numerous and more accessible.
We'll probably be starting at near-shore buoys and crabtrap markers before moving further off-shore hitting buoys and going in search of floating detritus and other structure. Obviously this is exactly the scenario where you can encounter mahimahi, so Dave and I are throwing tens and twelves in the bag too. Mahi might not be the aim of the trip, but they're my favourite gamefish and there's now way we can pass them up if we find them.
So I spent my days off tying flies, making leaders and checking gear. My offshore box is good to go, but I'm inexplicably short on crab and shrimp patterns for the tripletail fishing. along with what I've tied I had to raid a couple of boxes for suitable merkins and fleering crabs, I won't need many but I want to have a good range of colours and weights to suit conditions. I've still to tie a few shrimpy things, probably Popovics ultra shrimps and Grasset minnows (I'm sure they imitate shrimp better than baitfish), but I can do that while "working from home". The only serious prep I've been doing is casting practise in the rain, I needed to get my distance down pat with short leaders. It's been so long since I've fished shorter than 16-20 feet that I'm sure I'd be leaving the fly short with an 8-9ft job. My first casting practise showed that to be the issue, so I'm glad I spent the time getting that worked out in the park rather than on the trip.
I'm really looking forward to this trip, it's been ages since Hawaiian Dave and I have been fishing and a new species is always exciting. With a bit of luck, next week's FP will be a reoprt of a successful trip!