Sure, there are rivers from the mountains that run through the major cities, but by the time they flow a couple of kilometers through an urban area, they are pretty much polluted beyond what is acceptable for trout. Carp are everywhere, but they aren’t the prize I want.
So it was that Ryoko’s (soon to be Mrs. Fishboy) sister and brother-in-law, who have a car, offered to take us to “a fly fishing area.†For the uninitiated, that means private waters stocked with trout. Driving to the location took about 1.5 hours – fast relative to traffic in Japan. The auto-route was clear, the twisty mountain roads, normally bumper to bumper, were almost traffic free. We arrived in what I considered to be record time.
The drive was made more interesting by the fact that Ryoko’s sister has 2 Shibuya dogs, a breed that resembles a rust-colored miniature husky. The dogs are a mother and daughter. The mother doesn’t like her daughter and the daughter appears oblivious to that fact. The mother also has severe allergies (who knew dogs got hay fever?) and from the back of the car one heard the wheezes and sniffles of this wretched beast for the entire trip.
The place we went to is called “Riverspot Hayato†www.hayatogawa.com and it is a half kilometer series of man-made pools along the Hayato river. The river comes directly from the mountains, so the water is cold and gin clear. It holds natural trout in its upper sections, however, getting to those sections calls for extreme hiking and wilderness camping – regrettably, I am just not equipped for camping here. The river empties into a reservoir which supplies Kanagawa, my prefecture here in Yokohama, with all its drinking water. Good to know the water is so pure from the start!
Riverspot Hayato is stocked with rainbows, browns and three species of native Japanese trout – Iwana (a char), Yamamei (similar to a rainbow), and Sakura or “Cherry†trout (also resembling a rainbow). They claim to have stocked browns as well, but I didn’t spot any.
Fees are \3000/person if you begin fishing after 12 pm. It’s \4000/person in the morning based on the logic that fishing is better in the morning. What one sees upon arrival is a phalanx of anglers at every pool. Most were chucking lures of various kinds at the fish and a few souls beat the water fly rods. The scene reminded me of photos I’ve seen of opening day on some Great Lakes tributaries. Anyway, I paid for Ryoko & I, geared up – me with the 4-wt and her with the 6-wt, bid farewell until 4 PM to the future in-laws (they went to a local shopping area), and looked for a spot to fish.
The fish in Hayato have seen every lure and fly in existence at least a million times over. I reckon many have suffered concussions inflicted from the constant hail of fishing tackle nailing their fishy noggins from above. As you can guess, fly selection became something of a problem. A series of tried and true nymphs failed to attract any interest. My trusty old deer hair popper got lots of “look-sees†and a few hits, but only one taker, a 12†rainbow.
Ryoko, who is a neophyte fly fisher, was doing very well casting, but the fish weren’t at all interested in her fly. I offered her other patterns, but she stuck with her popper. It’s interesting how well she casts given that I taught her all she knows about fly fishing. Ryoko doesn’t go too far back on the back stroke and she can lay out 25 feet of line relatively well. Really, I’m just pleased she enjoys the experience.
I noticed that many people appeared to be expecting sub-zero temperatures. So many people wore parkas, winter hats, gloves or mittens, a few even wore ski pants. The air temperature on this virtually wind-still day was a frosty 12 degrees. This kind of over-dressing is pretty normal here and it is quite common to see people wearing ski jackets when the mercury dips below 15 degrees. Of course, had this been Toronto, the military would have been on standby…..
Back to the fishing…..it was becoming increasingly obvious that these trout were not going to cooperate unless the fly and the presentation were just right. Not being a regular stream angler, it took a while for me to figure out that a caddis, if dead drifted, would do the trick. (OK, I really just looked in the brochure and saw that elk hair caddis was a fish favorite.) I tied on the a caddis pattern, applied a little floatant, checked the knot, and dropped the fly about 30 feet down along the current seam. The fly drifted right over a school of trout that were bunched up along the seam. A couple of sniffers, two hitters, and fish on! I brought a 14†rainbow to hand.
This caddis thing has potential, I thought. I repeated the process and within a few casts another rainbow was on and released. About 5 more fish took the fly but none was better than the 14†specimen. That is until I saw a big swirl take my fly. This was a really nice 18 to 20†fish and it decided to do a few aerobatics while I played it, making sure that the 6X tippet didn’t snap. After about 1 minutes of fun the fish slowly came in to me and as a leaned down to net it….. I guess I allowed just enough slack in the line because it got off about 12†from the net. Nice fish, though.
Ryoko and I continued fishing for about 4 hours in total. I managed 10 rainbows and put 3 flies in the trees hanging over the river on the steep side. Sorry, no hero shots. I only had my cell camera and I’m not that adept at taking photos while bringing in fish. Ryoko was too preoccupied to do the honor, too.
So that’s my first trout fishing experience in Japan and my first fish catching experience. Would I go again? In the absence of an alternative, sure. However, I can’t wait to go back to Akita in the summer to try some of the stream and rivers that flow out of the mountains there.
Some pics.......
Typical angler at a typical pool.
The view along part of the river.
One of the service buildings. They will cook your fish for you if you'd like. You can also rent BBQ to set up on the banks of the river.
At the top centre of the picture is a rather sickly looking bow...I saw mre than a few like this. Many fish were in spawning mode and there were several that looked like they weren't long for this world even if they escaped anglers.
