Luke arrived on the island where I live in Okinawa last Tuesday. He experimented with some fishing from my kayak as well as some shore fishing, but didn't have any luck landing any GTs.
We took the ferry back to the mainland Friday night, where we met up with a Japanese friend of mine who fishes for GTs a lot. His friend, who has a local fishing show, was also there.
The four of us went out Saturday with a charter out of the North (not Maeda-san, who guided the 70kg GT earlier this season in my island chain - unfortunately he was already booked). I hooked - and thankfully lost - a shark at our first spot. At our second spot Luke hooked - and unfortunately didn't lose - the bottom. That was the excitement until I failed to set the hook on monster mahi mid-day. It swam under the boat and Luke estimated it to be near 30kg. One small GT was hooked briefly late in the day by one of the Japanese guys, but that was it. It was a hot day.
[Luke hooks the big one]
Sunday we went with a different guy who is a rep for Shell Shaping. The boxes of SS lures he had inside the cabin would make any of us drool. Since we hadn't had any action the previous day we decided to head around the northern cape of the main Okinawan island. The weather didn't cooperate, though, with just wisps of wind and hot temperatures. I had two unknown hits early on an SS Kachibe and Glans then Luke had a ~15kg GT roll at his Full Scale popper around mid-day. Later in the afternoon provided the highlight of the two days for me. Luke spotted two mahi swim under the bow and out off the starboard. I cast towards them, urging him to hurry and set up his light pole to get his Ocea lure out in front of the mahi. The smaller mahi trailed my lure back for two retrieves before Luke was ready. While he was preparing I asked him how confident he was he could catch the mahi. He said "I guarantee it. No question. If he's still around when I cast this lure I'll catch him." When Luke finished setting up the pole I pointed him in the directiont the mahi had last been. Luke cast and when his lure hit the water he said "If he's still out there.... oh, there he is!" And the mahi was hooked.
Overall it was a pretty disappointing couple of days fishing-wise. It was nice for me to finally meet Luke. This was actually the first time I have fished alongside another GT fisherman so there was plenty to be learned from all three of the other guys, but Luke was especially generous in answering the many questions I had. We also were able to meet last night with an Okinawan lure-maker. He has some very nice stickbaits he's producing, but I'll keep you in suspense on that until December.
It was also fun for me to introduce a tiny bit of Japanese culture to Luke. It's been awhile since I was 'new to Japan' so I forget about some of the novelties and quirks here, like Chocolate Melon bread and Pocari Sweat.
