The 2nd Half

I've never had such good fishing in Okinawa, partly it's down to me knowing my chosen island better after years of trips but the fact that it's been a no commercial fishing zone for a few years is really starting to have an effect. That effect being flats with plenty of fish coming in which meant multiple fish every day. The condidtions certainly helped, I was lucky that the whole ten days were subject to a high pressure system between 2 typhoons which coupled with being on a flat island surrounded with mountainous islands meant there was barely a cloud to be seen and amazing visibility.

Although the big tailless stingray brought me fish every day on the north flat (after a few days on my own I even made a little song about him) there were no more shots at permit. I did eventually find a trigger on the last day. This is pretty unusal for down there, most of the time there seems to be a tailing titan every 50 yards or so on the south shore. Maybe it was just the tide times keeping me mostly on the north and east side flats, whatever the reason for the lack of them, I put the crab too close and spooked the fish. There were loads of shots at brassy and yellowspot trevally and my least productive day was 5 fish to hand, the best was over 10 which is excellent going for an unguided saltwater trip- especially on an island that the guides in the area don't think has good fishing! Thety probably think that because so many of them want to fall back on bream- One of the main reasons I prefer to DIY down there. None of the fish were huge but in the clear, shallow water it doesn't really matter they shots were quick and challenging and the fish had to be read and fed on the retrieve in order to hook up. There's not much I can think of that's better than that.

I eventually got round to trying the monic clear floater I was given. It's a nice smooth casting line, it handles the heat well and didn't seem awflully tangle prone. Unfortunately I found it to be a pretty poor fishing line, perhaps in anothe context it would make sense, but i found it very difficult to judge distance when casting it and put several shots in too short or too long on the day I used it. Of course you can always misjudge distance and not everyshot is going to be perfect, but it was a marked difference and I was aware of the feeling of not knowing if the shot was going to be right. I really didn't like that feeling, beacuse it started to make me think about the shot rather than just putting it in. There's no room for thinking.

I was a bit annoyed with myself at the end because I missed my flight home by a day, having actually booked on a flight the day before the one I thought I was getting. Luckily there were seats on the flight I though I was supposed to get and I could get ticket, but it stung. Hawaiian Dave rationalised it nicely for me once he stopped laughing though. I caught 7 trevally on the last day, and he said if you were paying for the fishing that would cost what I paid for the flight home. It felt a bit better, but still.