| Kiyo came back in September
for another crack at those bass in my local lake. He had recently
returned from a trip to his home in Japan. There he picked
up some of his regular tackle, including a fly rod and some poppers.
Now he had an assortment of
his trusted lures from MegaBass, Yozuri, etc. as well as soft plastics
from Gary Yamamoto. |
Fly-rod sunny
|
| Saturday September 22 was
a beautiful late summer day with temperatures in the low seventies.
Kiyo was determined to teach me how to flyfish, something that I've wanted
to try for a long time. |
 |
First we started off with
some good old spinning tackle. This was the first bass, a nice fish
that had its lower jaw broken right in the middle, a victim of poor handling
from a previous angler. |
My first cast with a fly rod,
boy did I feel clumsy. I was using too much wrist. It takes
some coordination with both the left hand handling the line and the right
arm creating the right stroke.
|
My
first fly-caught fish, a cooperative bluegill. Insects were hatching
so there was plenty of surface activity available. I need to improve
my false-cast-to-real-cast ratio.
|
Back to the spinning tackle
for me, and back to the meat eaters and away from the bug eaters.
Kiyo was determined to catch a bass on the fly gear.
|
Another bass with good
old weighted lures and monofilament, while Kiyo continued to flog away
with fly gear. He caught a lot of rising sunnies, but no bass.
|
| Fly fishing is a lot of fun,
and it would be a lot more enjoyable with some practice. With an
active insect hatch, fly rodding can be a blast. Now there's another
realm of tackle I have to invest in!
The weather turned 180 degrees
on us, as during the night rain clouds moved in and provided a steady flow
of wetness throughout Sunday morning. So we went to Galyan's and
browsed through the tackle selection. Kiyo noted that float tubes
can be purchased for far less here than in Japan. By early afternoon,
the rain settled down enough for us to venture out. |
The first bass - hey,
it counts!
|
The second bass, also
a modest one.
|
Bass by the bridge
|
Note the healed wound
across the back, probably a close call from it's juvenile days.
|
| With lightning flashing off
in the distance, we decided to pack it in, as we still had a small hike
to get back inside. Carbon is also an excellent conductor of electricity,
so we didn't want to take any chances, ending our weekend of fishing.
While Kiyo was in Japan, he
searched for a couple of things for me, including an "Ultraman" lure by
Ryobi, and an English-subtitled video or DVD of the "Tsuribaka" series
of movies. He couldn't find either, but he did pick up these other
cool lures for me.. |
Pigmon
|
Pigmon - one of Ultraman's
enemies. The lure was designed as a surface twitch-bait. By
Ryobi. |
Alien Valtan
|
Alien Valtan - another of
Ultraman's enemies. This is a diving crankbait with trailing claws
like a crayfish. This one is also packed in a cool diplay tin with
a foam bottom - it aint gonna come out of there <^o^>. Also by
Ryobi. |
Suzuki-san
|
Mr. Suzuki - Hamachan's boss
and fishing partner from the "Fishing Crazy Diaries"
series of movies from Japan. This design was modeled after the original
Manga version, before the popular movies came out. The lure is designed
to perform as a surface chugger. By Shogakukan. |
| Kiyo also helped translating
a Japanese version of this website.
My thanks to Kiyo for the cool gifts and providing some fun fishing memories.
Check out his visit from July 2001 here.
Jim
|
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