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In the River TAKAHARA  --Vol.87--
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Mr. Shohei Katoh walked down to the pool like a tiny pond and went downstream.

A Tiny Pond

Early in August, 1987, I took my second fishing tour to the River Nagatou. I chose almost the same day as my first tour in the previous year. I should have come earlier if I had only considered the fish conditions but I had to wait until low-water season to pass safely over that bottleneck. I also worried that we would have had no way to escape from the valley bottom surrounded by precipices if we had been hit by a sudden shower during our going upstream. Learning from those first year’s experiences, I decided to wait for mild weather and low water after the rainy season.

Mr. Shohei Katoh and I were walking down to the valley bottom to go to the sluice gate as the previous year. The water level seemed to be the same as before. Probably there was no difficulty going upstream. Looking at the stream, somehow I wanted to know how the lower reaches of the sluice gate was. Saying so to him, I walked downstream on my own.

Water barely flowed at the lower reaches of the sluice gate. As I just wanted to know the valley conditions, I never cast the fly. I walked along the waterside on purpose. When I turned the first curve, a black shadow ran at my feet. A char is here in such scarce water!

Several ten metres downstream, the bank disappeared in front of me. Probably the valley turned into a waterfall. I walked carefully to the falling part and looked at the scenery of the lower reaches.

There was a spacious tiny pond 3m downwards. A little bit of water was falling down on its surface. It would be a beautiful raging waterfall if there were no sluice gate upstream!
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All char in the pool were 30cm long and their shapes looked alike.

The bank side of the tiny pond was in the shadow due to the narrower space between the both banks. But the sunshine reached the central part and I could see through the bottom. Standing on the rock, I saw through the tiny pond carefully.

Soon I found a char just down the falling part. It was 30cm long. Then I turned my eyes to every corner of the pool and found another 3 char as far as I could see through the water. They were all the same size.

Sitting on the rock on the falling part, I took Speckled Sedge from the hook keeper. Then I lowered the rod tip so that the fly hanging from the rod tip could settle on the surface right below me.

The moment the fly settled on the surface, a shock seemed to run down the char on the bottom. It directly broke the surface, showing its white hemming of the fin more clearly. It was what I had expected. I had settled the fly off the straight line between the char and me.
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A char made a rise at the lower reaches and bit the fly.

In short, I wanted the char not to see my face behind the fly when it rose from the bottom, looking at the fly. I learned that from my several bitter experiences.

When we find a staying fish in the water we want to cast the fly between the fish and us because we can see both the fish and the fly at the same time.

But the fish feels our eyes behind the fly when it directly rises to the fly. Just before it attacks the fly, it catches our eyes and turns around to go back. I had such experiences several times.

Pole-and-Line Fishing

Probably because the fly settled on the very good spot the char did not hesitate to break up to the fly and swallowed it with its mouth widely open. I handled it carefully so that it could not either run far or struggle on the surface. At good timing I raised it from the surface.

It was like pole-and-line fishing of a bonito. Then I aimed at another char near the falling part and pulled it up from the tiny pond to the rock shelf in the same way. There are another two! I expected even more unfounded ones. What fun! I almost burst into laugh.

Feeling somebody nearby, I turned around to find Mr. Shohei Katoh very near to me. Worrying about my long absence, he came to see me. Learning the situation, he said

“Hey, don’t be too greedy. It’s my turn.”

He sat by me, laughing. I took a step back and leant against the rock wall to look at his performance.

Soon he pulled up the 3rd char from the tiny pond. But not 4th. I wondered but soon realized why. We caught 3 char, one after another, in this tiny pond. Well done and don’t expect too much.

When we half gave up more fish, we found a ripple spreading on the surface at the lower reaches of the tiny pond. Although we could not see through the glistening surface, it was sure that there was a fish.

"Shohei, a fish over there!"
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A beautiful char with white hemming.

Walking down the Waterfall

There was rather long distance to the rise spot. To make the matter worse, as the left cliff was pinched in, it was difficult to cast the fly properly. I tried several times in vain. Shohei peeped into the river bottom and looked at the rock surface. Then he said,

“Let me go there.”

Leaving his rod with me, he walked down the waterfall along the rocks.
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The char never ran away probably because it had never seen any angler.

The water was too transparent to measure the exact depth of the falling part but it was deeper than his height, as we had worried. He had to swim for several metres to a big rock in the water. I tossed his rod to him and he started walking downstream along the bank side.

His plan was to walk near to the fish in the very still pool from upstream. Definitely the fish will run away! Many years ago when I went fishing deep in the mountains in Hokkaido, I nearly trod on a char while I was crossing the river. Then I caught the char that never ran away at my feet. That really happened to me but now our place was not a mountain stream untrodden by men.

Standing on the rock, I saw an unbelievable scene. Another ripple spread only a few metres ahead of Shohei, who was walking in the water. I was very surprised and absolutely he, too.

More unbelievable scene was that the fish of ripple-maker bit his fly without hesitation. In addition, it was a wonder that all char we caught in that pool were the same size and looked alike.

Unexpectedly we enjoyed fishing that tiny pond. Then we went upstream and enjoyed fishing there like the previous year. The only trouble was that we spent too much time in fishing that tiny pond and called it a day too late.

When we came back to the woodland path, evening already drew near. We had to give up fishing evening rise at another spot. In addition we had to run away from a big swarm of horseflies before we got to our car.


-- To be continued --
2004/10/03  KEN SAWADA
Tranlated into English by Miyoko Ohtake