Red clouds

The sky turned red yesterday evening, and it was beautiful.

Brompton rear sprocket

We get south westerly in the afternoon around here, and to get river from my house, I have to cycle against wind. It can often get quite windy, and it is not easy for a bike with such small wheels and only 3 choices of gears.

So, I have changed a rear sprocket on my brompton from 13T to 14T. It says that this lowers the gear by 7%. I don't know what that really means in terms of the reality, but I did a test drive the other day, and it felt like it was bit easier to travel into the gusty afternoon wind.

I don't think this is still not enough to go up on hills though. Fortunately there are not many hills around Perth, but if I was taking the bike to a trout fishing trip to NZ or any mountain streams, I would have to deal with hills.

I guess, to turn my bike into a hill climber, I will have to change a front chain ring to a smaller one (50T to 44T), but it costs $80 plus all new tools to do the job. In comparison, the rear sprocket cost me only $5. So for now, I will stick with a cheaper solution.

Christmas surprise

One of my graduating students gave me a new fly reel as a Christmas gift. I told him that I cannot accept it as it is too expensive to be something to give to a teacher (let's face it, I have never given anything to my teachers when I was in school).

He told me that it is from his family (who happen to own a tackle shop), and I should take it and enjoy fishing with it. So, I gratefully accepted his gift, and told him that I will catch big fish with it (it is 7/8 weight reel which I am going to use for Kahawai run in April).

Some people say teaching is a hard non rewarding job these days, but it may not be after all.


このリール、クリスマスプレゼントに今年の卒業生からもらいました。ちなみに、僕が高校生の時は、赤点や夏期講習など、先生からもらう物はあっても、こちらから先生にあげた物なんか一つもありません。

「こんな高い物は受け取れないよ」と言ったのですが、家族のみんなからのプレゼントという事なんで、ありがたく頂戴しました（ちなみに、彼の家族は、釣具屋です）。７／８番のリールですので、これを使って４月にkahawai釣りに行きたいと思います（それまでに７番の竹竿を作らなくてはいけませんが）。

The end of year Walpole trip

I went to Walpole with my friends on the weekend.

We left Perth on Friday lunch time, and after a long drive (actually Mike was a driver), we arrived at Walpole around 5:30. We quickly set up our camp, and went to fish for a hour or so. We were lucky that we got in time for estuary kahawai / Australian salmon making their evening run to chase some bait.

They came in a big school and we had a great time catching them on poppers one after another. They were nice size (for estuary dwelling juveniles) and fought hard. They were also nice to eat as we kept a couple for dinner (actually one got stolen by a big seagull when I left it on the bank while I was chasing other fish).

先週末は、友達とWalpoleへ行って来ました。パースを昼に出て、途中で休憩を入れながら５時間掛けてやっとの事でWalpoleに到着。さっさとテントを張ってキャンプの準備をしたら、竿を持って近くのポイントをチェックしに行きました。

暗くなるまで少しの時間しかありませんでしたが、タイミング良く魚の群れ（Kahawai / Australian Salmon)がベイトを追って岸からキャストできる距離に入って来ました。この魚は、幼魚の時は川の河口や入り江で過ごして、４０cm位になると海へ旅立ちます。このサイズの魚でも、そこは海で鍛え抜かれたボディーです。去年NZで釣ったもっと大きな鱒よりスピードもトルクもあります。

Home sweet home

It gobbled my deer hair popper

The reason we go to Walpole is to catch black bream, so we went on the hunt for them on Saturday as we usually do. However, it turned out to be a very tough quest. We moved around different spots and walked miles on flats, but not only we failed to hook up bream, we didn't seen many in the estuary.

It could be something to do with amount of freshwater flowing into the estuary due to a heavy rainfall they had or it was just a matter of fishing at a wrong time and at a wrong place. Whatever the reason, we were struggling to catch bream, and it was reminding us that even a paradise has a lousy day. I eventually caught a small bream in the late afternoon, and I must say I was very happy to get that fish after a long day of a wild goose chase.


西オーストラリアの南にあるWalpoleは、クロダイをフライフィッシングで狙う釣り人にとっては、最高の場所です。クロダイ自体は、パースの周りで普通に釣れますが、パース近郊には、Walpoleにある様なクロダイをサイトフィッシングができるフラットがありません。

そこで、土曜日は、一日かけてフラットからフラットへとクロダイを探してまわりました。ところが、いつもなら魚が入ってくるポイントも、この日はなぜかクロダイの姿がありませんでした。魚がいたとしても、数匹の魚がいる程度で、キャストしてもフライが着水した時点でスプーク。まったく釣れる感じがしませんでした。

数日前の大雨で湾内のコンディションが急に変わったせいなのか、ただ単に潮周りが悪い時間帯に釣っていたのか分かりませんが、他の魚は飽きる程釣れるのにクロダイだけはまったく駄目。午後に行った場所でやっと一匹小さいクロダイが釣れた程度でした。

Our morning visitor


Looking for fish






Lot of tea stained fresh water was coming out of the Deep River.


The whole western shore of the estuary was red.

In the evening, we went out to see if those kahawai would come back to chase bait again, but instead, a big school of herring showed up. As a night before, we were hooking fish after fish for a half hour so, then as sun went down, they disappeared.

土曜の夕方は、前の日にKahawaiが釣れた場所に早めに行って群れが入って来るのを待つ事にしましたが、この日は、Kahawaiの群れは来ませんでした。代わりにherringの群れが来て、目の前はボイルの連続。ポッパーでもストリーマーでも投げれば釣れる状態が３０分程あって、その後はパタリとアタリが無くなりました。

We were supposed to leave around lunch time, so we had a half day to fish on Sunday. Our friend kindly put us onto his lovely boat, and we went to check a flat on the other side of the estuary where we can't get to on foot.

As we were arriving on the beach, we saw a school of bream taking off. We thought it was a good sign, but we didn't see any bream after that unfortunately.

帰る日の日曜日は、釣りは午前中まで。家族旅行に来ていた友達が、朝早くボートで湾の反対側のフラットへボートで連れて行ってくれました。ボートが浅瀬に近づく時にクロダイの群れが散って行くのが見えたのですが、クロダイを見たのはこれだけ。フラットに残ったのは、少々のキスとボラの群れだけでした。

On the way back I got dropped off at a point where I caught bream a day before. I was hoping that there would be more bream in the same area. Although the sky turned into grey and rain came down hard, it turned out that next one hour was the best session of the trip. I not only caught many herring and a couple of small skippy (silver travelley), I hooked up a few breams including one nice fish at the end.

The fish wasn't a monster by any stretch of the imagination, but under the condition where everyone was struggling to catch bream, it was a good catch. As I saw fish swam back to the drop off, I felt content. So I cut my fly off, reeled line in, and started walking back to the camp.

キャンプ場に戻る前に後一つポイントをチェックするという事になり、その前の日に、謎の魚にティペットを切られたポイントへ移動。ポイントに着くと目の前でherringとkahawaiのボイルがありました。そこで、友達二人は、ボートから釣って、僕は、岸からウェーディングして狙う事に。本当の所は、前の日にクロダイを釣った場所をもう一度チェックしたかったからです。

運が味方したのか、ここからの１時間程が、今回の旅行のベストセッションとなりました。雨が降ってきた事が理由か分かりませんが、herringが６匹、クロダイが５匹、それから、オマケの小さいシマアジが２匹釣れました。特に最後に釣れたクロダイは、今回のベストフィッシュ。と言っても、普段の釣りなら驚くサイズの魚では決してありません。ただクロダイが殆ど釣れていない状況、または釣れたとしても手のひらサイズのコンディションの中で、唯一リールを逆回転させる事ができたサイズの魚でした。写真を撮ってリリースした後、もうそれ以上釣る気はしなく、ラインを巻いてキャンプ場に帰りました。

It became cold and wet suddenly.


My fish of the trip

A nice day to wet my pants

It was hot today, and for the second time in this summer, I was wading wet.

Fishing was slow at start, but I started getting hits in the afternoon. I think I got 5 fish with one break off at the end. I didn't think it was a big fish. It could be tailor biting off my tippet or just having a bad knot. After that, the wind and tide sifted, and fish were gone.

It was a nice wet wading weather today.


I don't know how the fish hit a fly to get the fly stuck like that.


Friday sky. It was beautiful but no fish.

Brompton folding bicycle

My fishing friend told me that fish were biting around lunch time last week, so I was curious to find out how it would be like this weekend. However, by the time we finished a coffee break around 11:00, it was already getting too hot.

So I stayed home to work on my new bicycle this afternoon instead.　It is a neat folding bike from England, and I am thinking to use it for my next fishing trip.

今朝は、久々に釣りに行ったのですが、一釣りして、コーヒーブレイクを終えた頃になると、暑くなりだしたので、さっさと帰って新しい自転車をいじる事にしました。

ブロンプトンと言うイギリスのフォールディング・バイクです。折り畳むと、とても小さくなります。

フィッシングトリップ仕様に金曜日に買って来たオプションの荷台を付ける事にしました。チャリンコ屋のおじさんは、「２時間の作業だ」と言っていましたが、なんの事はない、１時間で完了です。

Canon EF 24mm f2.8

Long time no fish

The end of year is always busy for teachers. Marking assignments, doing various paperwork, etc. So, I haven't been fishing for the past two weeks. For a person who fishes as regularly as those local pelicans, it is a fairy long time.

Actually I went out for an hour on Wednesday evening, but fishing was as unexciting as marking a test paper for a kid getting D grade.

Anyway, I got time this morning and the tide looked OK, so I went to fish with my friend, Trevor for a couple of hours. It was nice to be back on the water and to get something on the end of my line.

Speaking of a come back, my Canon D10 came to life again. It stopped working about a month ago for some reason. I left it for while, and when I turned on, it started working again. Lucky me.