Martyn White | Thursday, 6 March 2025
The Maruta are here, which is good. Hawaiian Dace caught a couple on Sunday. On Monday I was snowed off by a late unseasonable turn in the weather, we snapped back down to around zero overnight.
I should have stayed home based on the forecast, but instead I went out and suffered for a while before going home. With the March snow and depressing temperature, I decided to book a wee trip down to Okinawa for some trevally action and sun, end of March is a bit early in the year, but temperatures are good and I've seen pictures of a couple of brassies and yellow spots turning up already. After that I spent the afternoon going through my gear and tying crabs.
After my last trip I'm moving away from hard carapace crabs. If you're a long term reader you might remember I had a disaster with 2 permit eating for zero hook ups. What happened was the velcro crab getting crushed and the hook twisting inside the body and getting caught in the carapace rather than the permits' mouth. It never seems to happen with the trevally, but I suspect that's probably a factor of them liking a fly moving a bit faster. Whatever the reason, I couldn't bear to miss out on another permit for the same reason. They don't come along often and they eat even less often than they turn up.
So I've decided to go for flexo parachutes and maybe I'some with stacked fibres that will move out of the way should the fly make it to the crushers. Essentially I'm aiming for only a few patterns but in a couple of different weights and colours. A fleeing crab & a sitter both in brown, tan and olive. A few each in, 2.5 & 3 grams with maybe a couple of 3.5s in there for the reef side when the current is strong. Still got a few to do, but it won't take me long. Just a couple of weeks to get through till I can crack out the flip flops.