Stream revisited

[Satoshi]

The other day, I put up a post about some nice fat trout on this forum. I went to the same stretch a week later and caught only 3 amago then. Two weeks later, I went again, and caught no trout but a small dace like fish. Last week, I decided to go further upstream of the river.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1105%20upload/trailthroughtherockywall.jpg
To go to the headwater of the river, you have to walk along a trail, which parallels the stream all the way up to the top of a mountain. The trailhead lies on the upper end of the backwater of a reservoir. For the first 500 meters from the start, the trail is made by cutting a rock face that you can see in the right side of the stream in this picture (looking upstream). There is a waterfall at a few hundred upstream of this picture and you cannot go over the fall through the stream.
As I wrote before, this river was heavily damaged by a strong typhoon in 2004, and the trail was also washed away in many places. It had been closed since then, but in October last year, after the trout season ended, the first 3 or 4 km from the trail head was reopened. This is enough for me, because further up, the stream is filled with huge rocks and fishing is difficult and dangerous. Anyway, I hadn’t been there for more than 10 years, and the place was virtually new to me. There were two other cars at the trailhead, but fortunately, they seem to belong to workers at the power plant, not to fishermen.

After clearing the waterfall, I found no water on the riverbed, which was filled with sand and stones. I had to walk further along the trail for a while until water appeared. We have had little rain this season. Besides, there is another dam upstream where the water is taken for a hydroelectric power plant.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1105%20upload/firstpool.jpg
At the first nice looking pool (shown in this picture), I came down to the stream and started fishing. In the riffle at the head of this pool, the first amago of the day took my fly. It seemed it was going to be a good day.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1105%20upload/surprisedlook.jpg
Look at the surprised look. This amago didn’t seem to understand what had happened to him.
"Don’t worry; you’re safe. Grow big and see you again."

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1105%20upload/smallamago.jpg
Amago took my fly in every good looking water. There were no foot prints around. Perhaps, few people have fished this water in this season (hence, since 2004).

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1105%20upload/riffle.jpg
Two nice fish responded in this riffle and I brought one of them to my hand.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1105%20upload/amagoinsunlight.jpg
What a lovely day! The sun is up and bright. The mountains are covered with new green. Fish are plentiful. And the whole stream is mine!
I fished very slowly, taking time for each plunge pool and for each good riffle. There was no reason to hurry.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1105%20upload/nicepool.jpg
This pool also yielded a nice amago as expected.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1105%20upload/fishoftheday.jpg
The body color of some amago in this stream is dark brown like this one. Such fish may be truly native to this stream.

http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo282/fdrwd421/1105%20upload/pretty.jpg
Amago kept rising to my dry fly, but as the sun hid behind a tall mountain, fish stopped responding to my fly.
I ended the fishing, being fully contented.

[ksbioteacher]

Beautiful and inspirational. Clearing the waterfall opened a whole universe of possibilities--something I think we all seek on the stream and in life.

[flickfly]

Great Photos and post Satoshi !

[Jax]

I really enjoyed reading this post and the photos are excellent.

I am struck by the very clear markings of the Amogos almost as though they have been hand painted by a Master. Thank you Satoshi.

[martin_b]

Nice report! "[...] further up, the stream is filled with huge rocks and fishing is difficult and dangerous." - that sounds like enough information to go there next time. Maybe that's where the really big fish are! ;)

Martin

[ofuros]

Like so many things in life....places & people, if we stay away to long, we hardly recognise them on our return.
As always, nice photo's & words, Satoshi

Ofuros

[jw_sartini]

so beautiful. wonderful report!

[Satoshi]

Guys,
Thank you very much for your comments.

Martin,
You are right indeed. To seek big fish, some people venture into those upper stretches, where amago around 40 cm have been caught. But they are rarity, of course.

[edeltrouts]

Its a kind of small stream paradise. Isn't it?
Beautiful stream with wonderful fishes!

Thanks for sharing
Thomas

[BrkTrt]

Wonderful post, with great photography.

Thanks,

Brk Trt

[Honda450]

Great Photo,s, Details are sharp, makes me wonder do i need a new camera, like the shots of the trout in the net. What camera are you using??

Thanks

[Westcountry]

Beautiful, as your posts always are :)

Andy

[Satoshi]

Thank you for your replies, guys. I'm really happy to know you have enjoyed my post.

Honda,
I'm glad you are interested in my camera, because this is the first post with photos taken by my new camera, which I bought recently. I had not been satisfied by the quality of photos by my old compact camera (Ricoh R10), so I bought:
Lens; Panasonic Lumix G 20mm (This corresponds 40mm of 35mm film camera). I have heard a lot of good things about this lens. This is a very fast lens with F1.7. This is a fixed focal lens but I didn't want my camera+lens too big by using a zoom lens to use them during fishing.
Body; Olympus Pen E-PL1s. Olympus and Panasonic share the same “micro four/thirds (MFT)” system in their mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, so you can use a Panasonic MFT lens with an Olympus MFT camera body or vice versa. These cameras are considerably smaller than SLR cameras but image quality taken by these cameras is close to SLR cameras, though they are still bigger than compact cameras. I didn’t buy a Panasonic camera body (GF2) because it doesn’t have an image stabilizer in it.

Satoshi