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Satoshi
04-30-2010, 08:41 AM
Happy days

Since the fishing on March 22, which I posted here, we have been suffering from very cold weather. It even snowed in Tokyo on April 17. Whether it is because of this or not, I don’t know, but fishing was very slow in three weekends in a row (I caught either only one fish or no fish). It may be because I went to places where fish just happened to be very scarce in this season.
http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/1.jpg
The season is progressing nevertheless, and now, people began planting rice seedlings in our town.

Finally, we had rather warm days lately, and I did a fairly good fishing fortunately. So I report the fishing on the last Sunday and Thursday, which was a national holiday.

My home stream is formed by two creeks in its headwaters. I usually go fishing to one of the creeks and had never fished the other. Though a logging road parallels the creek, the stream is on the bottom of a steep canyon and the access is not very easy. This also makes the stocking fish into the creek difficult, and I had figured the fishing would not be good there.
On the last Sunday, however, I decided to explore the creek and headed there earlier than usual.

I parked the car at the gate which blocks the logging road. There was no other car around.
http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/2.jpg
This is the view from the gate.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/3.jpg
Looking down from the logging road, you cannot see the bottom of the canyon, but descending to the stream was not so hard as I had expected.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/4-4.jpg
The stream was very beautiful. The weather was rather cool as for this season, but it was very comfortable.
We had cold rain in the middle of the week, and the water was extremely cold. I started fishing with tandem wet flies at around 9:30, but I caught first fish around 10:30.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/5-1.jpg
The first amago looked still dark, but chunky.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/6-2.jpg
Other trout seemed to be in good condition.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/7-9.jpg
The stream was so beautiful that I couldn’t help taking pictures frequently.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/8-7.jpg
Though fish were not plentiful, I had responses enough to entertain me.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/9-3.jpg
A very nice looking pool, but no response from trout.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/10-3.jpg
A beauty. When food is plenty, amago grows rapidly and the size of the head becomes relatively small to its body as this one. On the other hand, it means that the number of fish is rather small.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/11-2.jpg
http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/12-1.jpg
Snakes also seemed to come out for sunshine. These are not poisonous kind.

On Thursday, I took a friend to my home water. As I said, there are 2 creeks there and we fished lower stretches of both of them. Though we had a rather heavy rain on Tuesday and water was high, the weather was fine on Thursday and fish came to the surface in the middle of the day. Usually at this time of year, fishing is becoming slow in midday, but the season seems to be prolonged this year, which is very nice.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/13-1.jpg
This is just below the confluence of the two creeks. The stream looks very open here, because there is a dam filled with sand just below. It is rather surprising that this shallow water always holds some good fish, though it is not good holding water. I think it’s because bait fishermen are not very good at fishing these very shallow runs, and they cannot take out fish from these places.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/14-3.jpg
We caught several fish among us.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/15-3.jpg
Because the stream is narrow in most of the stretch, we took turns. It is not a good idea to go upstream passing your friend, because amago is so sensitive that if you walk along by a holding water, or if you just stand on the head of a pool, the fish in the water will be spooked and never come to a fly for a while. (I think this is also true for other trout species.)
The rule was that either of the following happens, the person stops fishing and the other start fishing.
(1)Trout rises to the fly, no matter whether you catch it or not.
(2)Stuck in trouble, like snagged on the bottom, or tree branch, your tipped got entangled etc...

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/162-1.jpg
Luckily, it was my turn when we came to a pool that held this extremely good fish.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/17-2.jpg
He is much younger than me and not very experienced, but he also caught some nice fish.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/18-4.jpg
The overall size of the fish was larger than usual on this day. This may be because the water was high.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1004%20upload/19.jpg
Food for the evening of the happy Thursday; Brk Trt style.
OK, I admit they don’t look so delicious as those by Brk Trt. Is it because I took the photo in the middle of the meal….?
But please believe me, they were good. ;)

CM_Stewart
04-30-2010, 09:10 AM
What beautiful little stream. Thank you for posting that.

Fly Chef
04-30-2010, 09:53 AM
Beautiful stream and fish. I love the trout you have over there, really cool fish.

Keith

BrkTrt
04-30-2010, 10:16 AM
Satoshi,

Well done.
Your mountain streams are beautiful, with crystal waters.
The fish speak for themselves.

And your meal is very tempting.

Thanks for the enjoyable post and photos.


Brk Trt

soupmix
04-30-2010, 10:46 AM
Excellent post as usual Satoshi. Thank you for sharing.

adam
04-30-2010, 09:11 PM
Nice.

I get to travel every time you post.

Thank you.

ksbioteacher
04-30-2010, 09:35 PM
Truly, happy days. Thanks for taking us along on your trip. I really like those mountain streams and the colors, hmmmmmmm.

BW

rayfound
05-01-2010, 12:11 AM
Satoshi, your posts are routinely my favorites. From the water to the gorgeous fish, that just looks like a place I want to fish someday.

Thank You.

Danny S
05-01-2010, 02:31 AM
I have never visited Japan (but would love to; hoping work may take me there one day), but was impressed with the initial pictures of the valley, in addition to the stream and fish pictures. I had always wondered what Japan's mountain and valley areas might look like. Now I have a better idea thanks to you, Satoshi. THANKS!

ofuros
05-01-2010, 03:16 AM
Very very envious....that you have such beautiful streams
so close to your home.
Nice post.

Satoshi
05-01-2010, 05:06 AM
Thank you very much for your warm comments, guys.
These were truely lucky days for me, and these were rather exceptional, unfortunately. As I said,I have many unlucky days.
It's a matter of possibility. You have to go fishing as frequently as possible, so that the possibility that you hit a lucky day would increase. :)

Satoshi

Danny S
05-01-2010, 06:59 AM
You have to go fishing as frequently as possible, so that the possibility that you hit a lucky day would increase. :) Satoshi

And you, my friend, have written a good fishing proverb. I will hopefully remember this, word for word, and use it at an appropriate time.

Zac Sexton
05-02-2010, 09:04 PM
Satoshi: Like everyone, I very much enjoyed your report! I like the details on water flow and weather, and how they relate to the day's fishing. A lot of what you experience seems to be similar to a lot of what I experience on my travels in the US. Right now, we are waiting for the water to come up on our Rock Creek, hopefully bringing the larger fish from the Clark Fork--the main river in the valley. So far, just little guys in our little stream... Those are beautiful fish and great streams. The "recently explored" stream near the logging road, looks like you could take one step and fall to the bottom of that steep valley :o ! Awesome! Oh, and the food looks wonderful -- much better than the "greasy spoon" crap we have to eat coming back from most trips, here!!! What did you eat? I'll have to look up the recipe and maybe fix a little somethin'-somethin' up next time I keep a fish :bigthumb:

greyfox
05-03-2010, 03:39 AM
Very nice Satoshi, I always enjoy your post you do a nice job of photographing your landscape, makes you really appreciate mountain streams that much more.

Brooktrout
05-03-2010, 02:42 PM
beautiful stream and fish. nice pics.

Wallyran
05-03-2010, 05:55 PM
You have to go fishing as frequently as possible, so that the possibility that you hit a lucky day would increase. :) Satoshi

And you, my friend, have written a good fishing proverb. I will hopefully remember this, word for word, and use it at an appropriate time.

Well said, Danny.

It is the days of futility and maybe even frustration that make the good days taste sooo sweet.

Wonderful post, lovely water and fish.

Walt

Satoshi
05-04-2010, 09:00 PM
Thank you guys. I'm very happy to know you liked the post.


What did you eat?
Zac, as you can guess, those are mainly vegetables. There is small amount of pork in the dish of bottom right. The upper left is root of a plant. Upper right is spinach.
The yellow stuff in the bottom two dishes is bamboo shoot. It is the season when new bamboo grows from their rhizome now. We have many bamboo forests in and around the town (though I don't think they are the kind for bamboo rods.) , and people have to take unnecessary shoot to keep forest in good shape, and they give them people around. So, the town is temporarily flooded with bamboo shoot, and I (my family) have eating bamboo shoot every day for almost 2 weeks. :eh: :)