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In the River TAKAHARA  --Vol.83--
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There was a bridge at the junction of the creek and the mainstream of the River Takahara.

A Golden Char

A creek flowed from the right bank into the River Takahara 5km down the junction of its two tributaries, the River Gamata and the River Hirayu. This creek had only a little water on the bank where large and small rocks were piled up. But it flowed deep into the mountain as far as Mt. Kasagatake, 2900m high. So the tributary was named Kasadani.

The tributary Kasadani had scarce water like a dried-up river because a sluice gate was built just on the upper reaches of its junction. Fortunately, farther upstream it had rich water, forming a variety of attractive scenery of the valley which gave us pleasure of fishing.

My first fishing trip to Kasadani was taken in a hot day in August, 1985. After breakfast I headed for the heart of the valley with Mr. Shohei Katoh, with whom I had often gone fishing together since those days. We planned to make our way through the forest by bike to the point where we thought that we got to the upper reaches of the sluice gate and then to go down to the valley.

According to the map, the path through the forest ran along the river. But the deep valley was the obstacle to seeing the water or listening to its sound from the road. It means that we had to guess where to go down from the shape of the mountain. There was no footstep on the surface of the mountain. Clinging to the tree trunks, we descended the steep slope.
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On the bank near the junction scarce water was flowing because of the nearby sluice gate.

The valley was much deeper than we had expected. I worried: what will happen if we descend on the cliff? Even if we descend safely, can we climb on our way back? Those worries came across my mind but finally we could see the bank through trees. Thank God. It was not a steep rocky place.

Who Comes Earlier?

Walking down on the bank, we saw two large raspberry trees on the slope on the upper reaches of the river. We knew at a glance that a lot of nice orange-coloured berries were hanging from the branches. We seldom had such a lucky chance to be treated by natural fruit. Basking in the heat of the burning sun, we ate handfuls of berries.

Then we moved to the other tree and found one of the branches broken. Somebody must come here! Under a burning sun in mid-summer raspberries were equal to the oasis in the desert. Surely he found them, too.

After relieving our thirst with sour-sweet juice, we cast the fly to the current in front of us. When we have no idea whether the river has fish or not, we first cast the large dry fly never to lose sight of. It is called a pilot fly. Now I chose size 10 Mase Orange.
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Fish in a sunny area have bright colours. Together with SUPER DRIFT POWER-SPEY completed in 1985.

I cast the fly. I saw something flowing to me on the bottom at the same speed as the fly on the surface. I saw white spots on the side. It was a char.
“Shohei, here is a char.”
“Yes, I know.” He found the shadow, too.

I cast the fly again. The char came to swim under the fly but showed no sign of breaking the surface. I did not know why. I had no feeling of catch. We gave up more casting and decided to go ahead.

Catch is not evenly spread across a river, even if the river is full of fish and provides anglers over 100 fish a day. Some spots or ranges provide a lot of fish and others do not. The appearances never teach us how to tell the former from the latter. But fish know well the difference between good and poor residential areas.

Probably we descended to the latter spot. It was the best way to hurry to the good spot, so we thought.
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Size 10 Mase Orange was used many times as a pilot fly or for evening rise.

We cast the fly in another 2 pools. Then the river curved much to the right. When I walked along the half of the curve I looked at the lower reaches of the river. Very ordinary scenery spread there. There was no noticeable rock or no big tree. If we hurry to come back in the dusk later, we will miss our descending point. I wanted to make a sign for our safety.

I picked a 1m-long leafy branch from a tree on the riverside and intended to plant it in the middle of the bank where we would pass on our way back.

I walked to the suitable flat spot for the sign branch and found something like footsteps on the sand. The tracks were somehow different from human walk. Whose tracks? When I gathered some stones to support the branch, my eyes were fixed on the large dung on the stone. It was not old. It must belong to the raspberry eater who came before us!
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As the bottom stones became blackish, the colour of char also changed.

I stood up quietly. I watched around the bank and the surface of the mountain as far as possible but there was no black shadow. I told Shohei, who was walking ahead of me, what I had found. We talked that we would have to be careful not to rush out at the obstructed viewpoint. Then we went upstream.

We totally fished 2 km upstream at a high pace. The situation did not change. Attractive current and deep pool spread on the light bank, one after another. Every time I cast the fly, my expectation became higher. But it was always betrayed.
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The mainstream near the junction with Kasadani. There was not much water even at the lower reaches because the water was often taken from the river.

I did not say that there was no fish. There was some response from good-looking points. But there was not enough number of fish for the size of the point but not few enough to give up fishing. It was an unsatisfactory valley that spread beautifully.

It is true that a beautiful valley does not necessarily keep a lot of fish, whereas a river without a spectacular view often provides anglers a lot of fish.

A Nest of Char

Then the valley became deep in the mountain and the banks suddenly became narrow. We ate our lunch boxes. It looked dark farther upstream and the visual field seemed to be narrower. We wanted to take lunch at the place with a fine view to avoid meeting some animal residents in the valley.

The river made almost a right-angled turn to the left and the scenery changed dramatically. Waterfalls like a playground slide appeared, one by one. The stones on the bottom became blackish. When we passed two of those waterfalls, fish suddenly appeared. Char of 25cm long broke the surface at almost all points and swallowed the fly without hesitation.
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A yamame trout in the mainstream ate different food from char, judging from its body shape.

Generally speaking, when light plain scenery changes into dark sloping one, fish suddenly disappear. But now the opposite thing happened. Were there many anglers who fished from the lower reaches to the spot of changing scenery and had caught a lot of fish although I did not notice? Or did the undesirable water for fish spring around here and flow downstream, judging from the change of the rock surface?

Anyway, as there was no bank to walk, one had to follow the other’s footsteps. A good-looking point appeared, one after another, which Shohei and I fished in turn. Each of us caught about 10 char. Then a bigger sliding waterfall appeared in front of us. Its basin was narrow but the water ran down obliquely to form a deep channel.

All those things told me that there would be char there. I expected bigger ones. I cast the newly-put fly and it drifted on the dark green channel.

-- To be continued --
2004/06/06  KEN SAWADA
Tranlated into English by Miyoko Ohtake