Invasions

After my poor week in Okinawa, I made a point of hitting a small river near me that's very reliable as far as getting shots at carp. They're not always cooperative, especially since I've been educating them, but they're there in numbers and the water is generally very clear even after rain.  So I spent a few hours creeping the banks looking for happy fish and making them unhappy before the heat got too much and I was forced to retire to the aircon. It was just the thing I needed, a bit of challenging sight fishing.

 

On Tuesday Chuck and I came to Kawaguchiko for a few days of fishing. Kawaguchiko is one of the 5 lakes that circle Mt.Fuji. It's lovely with clear water and being well above sea level is fairly cool. It's full of bass, barbel, bluegill and carp. Unfortunately it gets an incredible amount of fishing pressure from the bassers, making all the fish pretty finicky. Well not the bluegill they are just as suicidal here as anywhere else. The clear water offers lots of sight fishing as the bass & Co. patrol the boulder fields. It's easy to get a shot off at the bass, but it's very hard to get them to eat. I Managed to get a couple of small ones to eat a bugger, but only managed long stares and agitated fins followed by refusals from the fish I wanted to catch.   It's been very sunny and is supposed to be the same tomorrow too so I'll switch to targeting carp and  barbel. The barbel seem to be looking up and it is terrestrial time so I'm hoping to get a bit of dry fly action. Although the bluegill might be a bit of a problem on that front, and on the carp front. Even if the gills can't get the fly in their mouths they can get in front of the target and put them off the eat.. And there are so many of them!

 

Lastly, my local now has a population of tilapia. I Haven't seen any yet, but a few people have been catching them. Both adults and juveniles, which suggests successful spawning. I'm not sure how this will affect things, but from what I've read they do seem to be pretty noxious as an invasive species became of their prolific breeding.  Not ideal, to say the least.