Martyn White | Thursday, 11 May 2023
We've just had Golden Week here in Japan, which is a spring holiday with a load of public holidays strung through it, most people take a day or two of leave to get the whole week off. So I didn't fish, I never do because there're just too many people on the rivers and lakes. I climbed a few mountains instead and had some intersting animal encounters with lizards, snakes and a parasitic wasp which was pretty nice.
I also bought a dapping rod, not sure when or where I'll use it, but I'll think of something eventually.Tying the flies put the notion in my head, but essentially I convinced myself when writing last week's FP. I was right too! A dapping rod, 2 spools of dapping floss posted from the UK to Japan for under a hundred quid! I didn't buy a new reel, I've not decided whether to use a fly reel, a centrepin or just a spinning reel. I can pick something up here whichever route I go down.
Fortunately the good weather is continuing, and the problem I'm faced with is choosing what to fish for. If the light is good, I should probably go after carp before the rice fields start getting filled and muddying the rivers, or maybe it should be mullet and snapper in the bay. If it's cloudy/wet and sight fishing seems off i'll maybe risk the float tube or go and target smallies somewhere. Not the worst "problem" to have I suppose.
As well as the dapping flies I've been tying a load of wet mayflies, which are to my eye some of the nicest lough wets. And they certainly work well! Straddle bugs and french partridge mays are some of my favourites and while I was tying for a friend, I couldn't help but stick few in my box too. I really like the form and movement of these patterns. They work all over the place too, even if you don't have big mayfly in an area, fish still eat them.
I'll leave you with one of the weirdest fishing/casting videos I've ever seen. It's very much in keeping with the general madness that is Japanese telly, and while I'm not sure you'll learn much from it, you might be entertained..