Weekend excursion

As the weather has been warming up, we went down to Rockingham and Mandurah with hope that we could catch some herring on poppers today. To prepare for our excursion, I tied a couple of deer hair popper last night.

I got a patch of deer hair from Japan which is made by the company called Nature's Spirit (the Nature's Spirit is US company, I think). The hair is in a nice bright chartreuse colour, and in my opinion, the quality and colour of materials from the company is one of the best in the market.

Well, an irony was, we didn't find any fish willing to smash poppers today. I still caught a handful of herring, but they were not interested in poppers at all.

大分暖かくなって来た事だし、久々にポッパーでherringを狙いに行って来ました。昨日の夜寝る前に、この間日本から取り寄せたた、ネイチャーズ・スピリットのシャートリューズのディア・ヘアーで毛針を巻いたので準備は万端。ところが、今日は、魚はポッパーには全く見向きもせず、ヒットがあったのは深く沈めたストリーマのみ。



We didn't find many salmon either. We only hooked up a couple when the tide swung around 3:00. Then rain came, so we packed up and went home.

I took some underwater test shots of salmon with my new Canon D10. Compared to my old Pentax Optio WP, the focusing speed is much faster which helped a lot. Holding fish in one hand, and taking a shot in another hand was difficult, and again having an image stabilizer helped me a great deal, I think.

As I said before, D10 is not going to match a DSLR in anyway in terms of picture quality whether on land or under water. Having said that, it is light and small, so I can still fish with it. A big camera surely can take great pictures, but I don't think I can enjoy fishing while carrying such a heavy gear. A camera, a housing, and all the rest of it.

Australian Salmonは、全く姿が見えませんでしたが、３時頃に潮が引き始めてやっと一匹釣れました。新しく買った防水カメラで試しに水中写真を何枚か撮って見ました。今まで使っていたペンタックスに比べると、フォーカスのスピードが速く正確なので、ピントが合うのを待っている間に魚が暴れてしまう様な事が無くて断然使い安いです。

Canon D10

Cat food must be very tasty

My friend told me that people net big schools of Australian salmon in south when they run. They pile up fish on the shore, load them on to trucks with a bulldozer, and send them to a factory to make cat food. Killing fish weighing 5kg each for cat food sounds very much wasting, and I am thinking there must be a better alternative like European perch or carp for that.

Anyway, I kept one estuary salmon last week which got hooked up too deep to go back water alive. I took it home and asked my wife to cook it for dinner. I told her that people only use it for cat food, so not to expect much from it. To our surprise, it turned out to be quite tasty. No way it is something only cats eat, we thought.

We went out today and it looked like schools are still hanging around the estuary. They say fish will head to the ocean once they reach a certain size. It looks like fish are somewhere between 30 to 35 cm, and few getting quite close to 40cm now. I am wondering how big they can get and how long they will stay in a river before they disappear.

鮭とはまったく血縁関係の無いオーストラリアン・サーモンですが、食用としてはあまり人気が無いようです。しかしネコの餌にかなりの数の魚が網で獲られるそうです。それにしても、メータークラスの魚をネコの餌だけに獲るのは、なんとももったいない話です。

ところで、先週、針の掛かり所が悪くてやもなくリリースせずにキープした一匹。ネコの餌にしかならないと言われているこの魚、煮付けとなって食卓に上がったのですが、結構いけました。ネコに食わすにはもったいないです。

今日も、仕事の後に行ってきましたが、魚はまだ河口にいる様です。河口で釣れるのは４０ｃｍ位までで、そこまで成長すると、海に出て行くそうです。

Canon D10

Canon D10 test shots part 2

My wife and I went down to Fremantle for lunch today, and I took my Canon D10 for more test shots.

All images are changed into 3:2 aspect ratio, and I have done some post processing work (i.e. changing exposure, increasing contrast, and saturation). I also adjusted a setting on the camera to increase sharpness.

For snap shots, I think it performs fine, and being water and shock proof, it is a good field / travel camera to go on a jangle cruise, a fishing trip, or a journey to the center of the earth.

I quite like how blue came out.




A barrel distortion is very noticeable here.


Here is another example of barrel distortions.








At ISO 800, the image is very grainy and sharpness has bee lost.

Canon D10

My Canon EF 50mm macro lens got broken for the second time last month. The first one had a problem of the focusing motor, and it looks like the second copy has developed the same problem. At least I can still use a manual focus, but it is pretty much stuffed now (by the way, my first copy lost both auto and manual focus).



I love 50mm macro as it is a sharp and light weight lens, but I now think it is not built for fishing. Unlike other Canon's macro lenses, 50mm macro doesn't have an internal focus, so the lens barrel extends or retracts when it is focusing. I am guessing this allows moisture and dust get inside especially when the lens is used on a river with wet hands, and eventually the motor or the focusing mechanism will get damaged.

It looks like it is too expensive to fix the lens in Australia as I was told the cost of the repair is $350, whereas a new lens only costs $400. I have decided that I will get it fixed in Japan when I get a chance as it will be lot cheaper. In a mean time, instead of paying $350 to get my lens repaired, I bought a new camera.

先月、お気に入りだったキャノンの５０mmマクロレンズが壊れてしまいました。このレンズ、壊れたのはこれで２回目です。最初の一台は、モターのギアが壊れて、オートフォーカスはおろか、マニュアルフォーカスもできなくなり、二台目も、同じ様な症状でオートフォーカスがま作動しなくなりましたが、今回はかろうじてマニュアルでは使えます。

軽くて良く写るレンズですが、インターナルフォーカスでは無く、フォーカス時にはレンズが伸び縮みしますので、もしかしたらそれが原因で水やホコリが中に入ってしまったのかもしれません。釣りで使う以上、気をつけてても濡れた手で使ったり、水滴が着いたりしますので、レンズを新しくしてもまた同じ箇所が壊れそうな気がします。

修理の見積もりは、なんと３５０ドル。新品が４００ドルで買える事を考えるとぼったくりの値段です。なんでレンズは今度日本に行った時にキャノンのサービスセンターで見てもらう事に決めました。それで今回修理に３５０ドル払ったと考えて、新しいカメラを買いました。

It is Canon D10 waterproof camera, so I am no longer need to worry about taking my camera out in the storm or using it with my hands covered with fish slime and seaweed.

When the model came out last year, I instantly fell in love with its submarine look which reminded me of Jules Verne's novel and all those gadgets and sea creatures in the story. It was my favourite book when I was little. Unfortunately it was bit overpriced and I gave up an idea of buying it. The price however has dropped quite bit since , so I have decided to get one (although the retail price in Australia is still way too high I think).

キャノンのウォータープルーフカメラ。これで雨の中で使っても魚を掴んだヌルヌルの手で使っても全然平気です。去年発売された時には、潜水艦に似たその外見に惚れ込んだのですが、値段が高過ぎで諦めていましたが、値段もちょっと下がってきたし、たまたま家族が日本旅行へ行っていたので、ちょうど良い機会だったので買って来てもらいました。

I have been using the camera on a river for the past two days, and it looks like it is a good fishing camera. It obviously can't be compared against my DSLR for sharpness, colour, noise level, focusing speed, etc, but for a waterproof point and shoot, it takes some fine pictures, I think.

Here are some sample shots that I took on a river. I found the focusing is reasonably fast and accurate, but it seems to me that images are quite grainy when they are taken under the low light condition with a longer exposure. I think this is where my Canon DSLR has a clear edge against D10.





Although being based on a few shots, D10 appears to come quite close to my big camera for taking fish shots at least for using for a blog and for small size prints. I am even guessing that the deeper depth of field of a compact camera could be a good thing for taking shots of fish.

Anyway someone told me that a bad picture that you took is still better than something to be a good picture but you didn't actually take. There were many occasions in the past where I didn't pull out my DSLR because it was raining or simply I was being too lazy to get it out of my waterproof roll up bag. Although the bag has been saving my camera well, it is a pain in the neck to open and close, and I can't be bothered some time.

D10 sits in a pocket of my vest or hang around my chest with its special harness. It is ready to go, and rain, wind, snow, they will not stop me now. I can take shots in any weather and for any fishing situations with D10. All I need now is money to go to those exotic fishing destinations.

さすがに一眼レフに比べると、イメージは、シャプネスに欠けるし、ノイズも多いですが、やっぱり使う場所や天候を選ばないのは良いです。どんなに良い機材を使っていても写真を撮らなければ何も意味がありません。D１０ならニュージーランドの豪雨だろうとエクスマスの強風だろうとタスマニアの大雪だろうと平気です。まさに向かう所、敵無しです。

Not to get too deep

There are plenty of estuary salmon in a river right now.

Although they are not huge unlike ones we were catching in the ocean a few month ago, but they can still go hard on a light rod. I hooked up one good fish yesterday, and it took out nearly entire fly line as it went down stream with current.

I was having a great time yesterday hooking up those fish, but there was one problem. I was having too many fish taking a fly too deep in their mouth or throat. It was not only a pain for me to get a fly out, but it was potentially lethal to fish as well.

Fish were hitting my flies on a dead drift, and when I felt takes, it was too late as fish already got my fly way too deep. One fish unfortunately got caught in a gill, and I had to feed it to a pelican at the end as I could not revive the fish.

Anyway, I tied this bendback streamer last night hoping this will reduce the chance of fatal hook up around gills. I have been thinking that having a hook point up, it will get stuck into the upper part of fish's mouth instead of the bottom part where gills are closely located.

I went down to the river again this afternoon to test it. Unfortunately I only got two fish on this pattern, and one of which even got off. So I couldn't tell if the fly was working as I intended at this stage.

Interestingly, I was watching Roger kept hooking fish after fish using a much bigger fly with very fast retrieves, but one fish still manged to swallow the fly, got caught on a gill, and ended up as a free meal for a pelican. I begin to think, salmon likes to swallow baits unlike bream which will try to nibble or crash their food first.

I don't mind the whole thing, if I was keeping fish, but not for catching and release. Hopefully a upside down hook could be a solution to save some fish from deep hook ups. Although, I am not a big fun of Clouser Minnow, Crazy Charlie or other patterns with a hook point facing up. I don't think they swim well, but I am happy to use them for salmon if they can reduce the chance of hooking too deep.

Breaking a spell

Fishing turned out to be quite good on the week end.

I got a couple of nice fish which put a good fight, and I got broken off once with another good fish. I hooked up a few small ones and lost a few as well.

It felt like my flies haven't been working well for the past couple of weeks, and I have been working hard to find a fly to catch bream. I think it is my winter dry spell which I get every year around this time for a couple of weeks.

Looks like my flies got power back and I have broken the spell off. My confidence is up now for the next weekend, and hopefully I will hook up those big ones which I come across in winter from time to time.



バラシが数回、そしてラインブレイクが二度程とミスが連発しましたが、この週末は久々に良い釣りができました。

黒鯛に関して言えば、この２週間程はあまり良い釣果は無かったので、久々にリールが逆回転する音が聞けて満足です。自信が回復した事で、また来週末が楽しみです。

Pentax Optio WPi

Wet and cold

Sky was grey, and my wader was leaking.

Being wet and cold from top to bottom.

It was still better than not fishing.

空には雨雲、ウェーダーは水漏れ。上も下も水浸し。
それでも釣りをしないよりはよっぽど良い。魚が釣れればもっと良い。




The weather was crap, but fish were still there.


Roger wading deep to find fish


Pentax Optio WPi

Power of fish god?

My wife gave me this fish curving as a souvenir from her trip to Hokkaido (North Island of Japan). "Kamuy-chep" is a Ainu word for salmon and they are regarded as fish of god among Ainu people.

It was a rather difficult day today at work, and I was glad that I had my fishing gear in my car, so that I could go to a river to have a moment of sanity. Anyway, fishing started slow, and I wasn't hooking up anything for while. A crap day at work, and a crap day on a river, I thought.

I then remembered my fish curving around my neck. I grabed it and called for a fish spirit, and suddenly I started getting connections. I ended up hooking 5 esturary salmon and 1 herring. There was a few people around me fishing with bait, and they were not catching much apart from blowies.

Is it just coincident or it is a power of fish god?



先日、北海道旅行に行って来たうちの相方から、お土産に鮭の木彫りのキーホルダーを貰いました。キーホルダーとしては使いづらそうだったので、革紐を付けて首から下げるようにしました。鮭はアイヌの言葉でカムイチェップ、神の魚、釣りのお守りに良さそうです。

仕事帰りに、ちょっと釣りをしましたが、まったく魚が掛からず、ひたすら向かい風の中キャストを続けていると、ふと首に掛かっている魚の事を思い出しました。そこで、ぎゅっと握って念じると、なぜかそこからアタリの連続。バラシた魚と糸を切られたのを入れると、数キャストで６匹のまずまずの結果。たまたま目の前をちょうど群れが通過しただけなのか、それとも魚の神様の力なのか？不思議です。

Pentax Optio WPi