Bream weather

I went fishing on Wednesday evening. I was interested to see what the river was like after another stormy weather.

The water was high as I thought. Even it was on the last stage of the outgoing tide, reeds and tussocks were under the water.

Fishing was slow for while. The sky was covered with dark clouds, and the wind was cold, so I was thinking to go home. Then, the tide picked up bit of pace, and I hooked up three fish all of sudden. The tide got slack again soon later, and everything became quiet.

On Friday, the water level was normal again. The sky was blue and I was watching a pelican cruising peacefully. The river looked beautiful but there was no sign of fish.

It feels to me that fishing gets better on a bad weather on the river from time to time. Perhaps, bream feel much safer to come to shallow water to feed when all birds and people are hiding from the rain and wind.

The river looked dark and miserable on Wednesday


I dropped other two fish. One of them felt to be a good one.


The river looked peaceful on Friday. It's shame I didn't get fish though

The power of the moon

It still amazes me that the moon can move such a massive amount of water. I don't know how many gigaliter of water is moving in and out on the river on each day, and how that affects all living things in the river from a tiny shrimp to an ever elusive leviathan hiding deep.

I was watching a documentary on super computers the other day, and those scientists and engineers were saying that with super computers like IBM's Sequoia and Fujitsu's K computer, it will be possible to tell answers to all big questions in future.

Well, that might be good for them to find answers to many things in the universe or find a solution to the world's problems like the global warming. When it comes to fishing though, I hope things to be left unanswered. I think fishing is only fun if there is an element of mystery. If a super computer finds out when to go and where to fish exactly, it will be boring.

月の力であれだけの水が動くのは、本当に驚きだ。毎日いったいどれくらいの量の水が川から出たり入ったりしているのかは、想像もつかないし、それが川に住む小さなエビやどこかに隠れている大きな獲物にどの様な影響があるのかもはっきりとは分からない。

この前見たNHKのスーパーコンピューターに関するドキュメンタリーでは、いずれは世の中の色々な問題に対する答えが膨大のデータの中から分かる様になると、エンジニアや科学者が力説していた。そうなれば、世の中にプラスになる事はとても多い。ただ、答えが分かると、それだけ不思議な事が世の中から減っていくように感じもする。月に、ウサギがいると思っている人と、そうでないと分かってしまった人とでは、どちらの方が月は美しく見えるのだろうか。

結局の所、釣りは、結果が分からないから面白いのだと思う。何か起きるかもしれないという期待とミステリー性があるかから、竿を持って川へ行く。いつ、どこに行けば魚が釣れるかがスーパーコンピューターを使って１００％分かってしまったら、釣りは、今と同じ様に面白いのだろうか。

Gone with storm

Since the last week's severe storm which brought down many trees and caused an extensive black out around the metro area, I haven't had much luck of finding fish. Only a couple of fish so far, and they were small ones.

It seems there aren't many bait fish around at moment. Perhaps they all got washed down to the ocean, and bream went with them too. I am hoping they will come back soon.

A long weekend in June

As today was a public holiday in Western Australia (used to be called Foundation Day but it is apparently called Western Australia Day now), I had a thought of going away for the weekend. I then realised that there was a soccer match that I wanted to see on TV on Sunday night (Japan VS Oman), so I decided to stay and fish locally.

On Saturday, we went out in the late afternoon, and we saw a school of tailor (bluefish) chasing some bait at the mouth of the Canning River. I had one hook up, but the fish bit off my tippet. Then, a group of other fishermen showed up and started casting big sinkers in front of us, so we left the place. We drove upstream hoping the school would show up, but it didn't.

月曜の今日は、州の祭日でした。３連休なので、テント泊でどこかへ行こうかとも考えたのですが、日曜の夜に日本対オマーンの試合をテレビで見たかったので、遠出をせずにいつも通りに近場で釣りをする事にしました。それにしても、インターネットで日本のテレビが見れるなんて、すごい時代になったもんです。

土曜日は、午後にちょいと釣りに行って来ましたが、ベイトを追って小型のTailor（アメリカではbluefishと呼ばれています）が河口まで入ってきましたが、一度フッキングをしたものの、魚の鋭い歯で３xのティペットをあっさり切られてしまいました。無くしたフライを交換していると、他の釣り人たちがやってきて、目の前にドボン、ドボンと投げ始めましたので、場所を移動しましたが、魚の群れは、それっきりやって来ませんでした。

ちなみに、前に０xなら切られないだろうとtailorを狙ったのですが、これも簡単に切られました。ピラニアみたいな歯をしているので、運良く口の先っちょや蝶番に掛かっていないと、すぐに切られます。

"Mike, I don't think tailor would show up today"

It was very windy on Sunday morning and the water was very high and wasn't moving. We tried here and there, but we didn't find fish, so we went home thinking fishing would get better in the afternoon. Fishing was still slow in the afternoon, but I picked up one small bream and one nice size bream. I hooked up a good size flathead as well.

日曜の朝は、早くに出動したのですが、北東の風が強く（経験からすると、この風の場合は、いつも釣っている場所だとあまり釣れません）、潮も殆ど動いていない状況。数カ所試しましたが、アタリの一つもありません。さっさとあきらめて、夕方に出直しましたが、今度は、小さいクロダイと良い型のクロダイが一匹ずつと、４０cmオーバーのコチが釣れて、３−０で勝った日本のサッカーと合わせて、まずまずの結果。

My catch of the day on Saturday


Bye bye fish

The stiff North Easter was still blowing today, so we moved around to find sheltered areas to fish, but we didn't find much other than big schools of over size blowfish.

We had enough by then and went to get a late lunch. I think a nice sandwich we had lifted our spirit, so we decided to have another session.

The tide was moving bit more than it was a few hours ago, and we picked up a couple of fish each at the end. They were only small fish, but I was happy to get any bream on the end of line on a slow day like this.

今日も昨日と同じ様に、潮は、日中は、殆ど動いていない状態。１１時過ぎに家を出て、２時位まで数カ所試しましたが、まったくのボウズ。遅いお昼を食べて、もう一度トライすると、潮がちょっと動き出したかなあと思った時間帯にアタリが来て、結果は小さいサイズのが２匹。やはり、釣果は、潮の流れに大きく左右されると再認識した一日でした。

The jetty was surprisingly gone under the water

River Snapper

I hooked up a nice fish on Friday.

On its first run, I lost all of my fly line, and it came clear to me that the fish was heading towards a sunken timber. I was lucky that I could turn the fish around just before it got to the cover.

It then started to swim upstream. The fish passed in front of me, and headed for another snag. It was getting too dark to see what was going on, and again I was lucky to be able to steer the fish away from the snag. When the fish turned, I could barely see a swirl and it was right next to a branch sticking out of water.

The fish made its last attempt for freedom by swimming along the tussock to see anywhere to hide. Again luck was on my side. The water was too low for the fish to find away into reed, and I had an advantage of standing deeper water to pull fish towards me. As the fish was running away in the ankle deep water, the only thing I could see was a black dorsal fin moving along the bank.

I took time to bring the fish to the surface and into the net as I have lost many good fish by being too hasty. It was a fat and strong fish, and it was clearly passing 40cm mark which is a very good size to land these days at least around Perth metro water. Its body was very high and if it was pink, people would say I caught snapper.

金曜日の夕方、仕事帰りに釣りましたが、良いサイズのクロダイが釣れました。４０センチオーバーで、サイズ的には、パース近郊で釣れるクロダイで言うと、万歳と両手をあげて喜んで良いサイズ。

ヒットからの最初のランで、フライラインを全部引き出し、倒れて沈んだ木に向かって一直線。運良く手前でターンしたものの、今度は、自分の前を通過して、 そのまま上流にあるもう一つの沈み木に向かってダッシュ。周りは暗くて、魚がどの位の距離にいるのかが良く分かりませんでしたが、ヤバいと思いリールを パーミングでロックさせて、魚を反転させると、魚のキックで出来た水の渦は、半分沈んでいる木の枝の直ぐ手前でした。

魚は、アシの中かに入り込もうと最後の抵抗を見せましたが、運良く潮が引いていて、アシ際は、魚が入れる深さではありませんでした。

ようやくネットに入って魚は、まるまる太っていて、体高があり、これでピンクなら鯛の様。黒鯛とは、良く言ったものです。