First iwana fishing

[Satoshi]

Though we had a very cold spring this year, trees finally became much greener in the middle of May, and people began harvesting tea leaves around here.

We have a series of holidays in the first week of May, which people call the "Golden Week". After the golden week, fishing becomes slow in this region. One reason is that the temperature goes high and trout (amago) don't feed in midday, though they are still active in evenings or on rainy days. I live in a rather warm region and streams in this area are marginal habitat for trout. I always wonder how trout survive hot summer days. The other reason is that many trout are taken away by bait fishers during the golden week holidays. I usually don't go fishing in the golden week, because the streams are very crowded. After the golden week, I start thinking about fishing iwana (the Japanese char) in high mountain streams in the central mountain area. Fortunately, the early May is still too early for fishing iwana in high mountain streams where snow run-off remains until mid May and fish are not active. This helps trout avoid the hooks of fishermen during the Golden Week.
As usual, a friend of mine gave me an e-mail, asking me to go fishing to the central mountain area with him. This year, we planned the trip in the weekend in the middle of May. This is 2 weeks earlier than usual for us, but it was the only timing his schedule permitted. Every year we fish the same area. It takes 4 and a half hour drive from my town to the place. The friend lives in a big city close to Tokyo, and it also takes 4 or 5 hour drive for him to go there.

We met at a stream, at 5:00 AM in the Friday morning (we took day offs). Unfortunately, a very cold weather had come, and the temperature dropped below the freezing point in that morning.


The altitude of this place is about 1100m (3600ft). There was no insect activity on the water, and we started fishing with nymphs. The water temperature was 5 degrees C (41 degrees F). For more than three hours, we didn’t have even a hint of fish.


When the sun went up high, we finally caught one fish for each of us.


This stream usually produces very well, but we gave up the stream this time and decided to go another place.


This stream (or should I call it a river?) flows through one of the most famous sightseeing destinations in this country. The water temperature of this stream is always high, due to the influx of hot water from hot springs in the upriver.


We soon started catching fish with nymphs. As you see, iwana in this river is very pale. This is because the river bottom is filled with fine granite sand.


Can you guess what this trout is?
Yes, this is brown trout, also very silvery. They were stocked decades ago. Since then, browns have not been stocked officially. Now this river is famous for its wild browns, but I wonder if this one is a stocked fish because the edge of its tail fin is round.


This is my fish of the day; 13 inch iwana.


My friend working a pool. Later in the afternoon, some insects appeared and he changed to dry flies. He is very good at dry fly fishing using a long leader-tippet.


He caught a lot of fish with dry flies including this chrome-colored 14-inch wild brown. I didn’t change my rig. It was so cold and my hands were so numb that I couldn’t even use the clipper to cut the tippet.


On that night, we stayed in this small lodge. (I took this picture in the next morning.)
The owner of the lodge, Nahuji-san, is a serious fly fisher and most of the guests are also fly fishers during the season; somewhat similar to Kubota Lodge, which I always stay in when I go fishing to the northern part of Japan’s main island. Nahuji-san first named his lodge "Rise". He once closed his lodge because of his family matter, but requests by many repeater guests made him open the lodge again and he named his lodge "Re-rise" now.


From the lodge, you can see some of the snow covered mountains of the “Japan Alps.”
It was much warmer on the second day, and Nahuji-san took us to a stream, which lies in a lower altitude.


He drove along a rough dirt road which parallels the stream more than one hour, avoiding other parking cars that were apparently other fishermen’s. He finally parked the car at a place where there seemed to be no other fishermen within a few kilos.


A small pool of snowmelt water on the road was filled with clusters of frog eggs.


When we were preparing for fishing, we saw iwana rising in the middle of this pool from the road, which seemed to guarantee a good fishing for the day.
Because we were three people, we parted into two; I walked downstream along the road and fished up to the car, and the other two fished upstream from the car.


Fishing was excellent, indeed. I caught this fish from the first pool I fished. Like this one, some fish were still very thin.


This is the first pool. The fish rose to the fly at the upper right corner, under the rock, where bubbles are floating. Though that is a typical iwana spot, there was no response from the main water flow on the left side of the pool. Iwana also feed in a fast flowing water in the high season.


In many places, I saw fish rising. Some fish readily took the fly, but other rising fish refused my flies.


The stream is mostly composed of staircase-like holes, and each fish holding water is clearly distinguishable; typical of the Japanese mountain streams.


A very good fish. This one was also rising. This fish may be smaller than you think (just over 12 inches), because my hand and fingers are very thin even in the Japanese standard.


Smaller fish had very clear spots on their body. This fish took a fly that is a modified version of my favorite thorax pattern so that it looks a bit like ausable wulff.


Though fishing was great, it seemed still a bit too early for the full season. When these streamside trees become much greener, the fish will be in a better condition and much stronger.


I spent too much time for rising trout, and I fished less than a half of the stretch up to the car. Still, I caught many fish and I really enjoyed it. I fished only dry flies, including bomber, which BrkTrt gave me. All worked well as I had expected.
The other two people told fishing was also excellent upstream. They also caught some nice ones larger than 12 inches.

Now my friend and I are talking about returning to the stream again this summer.

Satoshi

[greyfox]

Very nice post, you have some sweet streams over there, I always enjoy your post, very dicriptive.

[ksbioteacher]

Spectacular---my heart rate slowed as I went through each photo. The trout are special but the crystal clear streams framed with trees just leafing out make for very special images. By the time I got to the end I felt as if I knew this place and these fish. Thanks for taking me on a journey.

[troutrageous1]

Thank you for that post. The pictures were beautiful - even though it might have been a bit on the early side, it still looks like a very productive outing. I'm envious of those waters.

[rayfound]

Satoshi... Simply a stellar report. I don't think the one small brown was stocked, just that his tail fin was folded a bit - fan it out and I am sure it would have been square corners.

[Jax]

Thanks for a lovely trip on your stream and river Satoshi. The photos are great and show just how good the Browns are at adapting their colouration to their suroundings.

I hope there will be more trips for me share in the future. It was fun. Thank you. Jax

[Satoshi]

Thank you very much for your comments.
I'm happy to know you enjoyed my post.

rayfound,
Yes, perhaps you are right. Besides, a round fin does not necessarily mean the fish is a stocked one.

Satoshi

[Wallyran]

Great report and great pics!

Those silvery browns were a special treat.

[greendrake]

Satoshi,
Beautiful sreams,great pictures and a very nice report.Days like that make the long drive worthwhile.

I recently sold a Uslan Penta to a gentleman from Japan and hope that he is enjoying it in places like this :D
Will

[WJG]

Thanx for the photo tour. Beautiful water. I don't have such fast running water here. (no moutains) Those little step pools look like great fun to work through.
You were right in another post, your iwana look alot like the early season brook trout here.