Domo-kun

We are looking after a Japanese exchange student over the weekend at our house. His name is Domo.

He is a shy Japanese boy

Testing a new fly

I spent my last day of school holiday at my fly tying desk today to come up with some goby imitations.

Why? Because I often see these solitary bottom dwelling creatures even in the middle of winter when other bait fish are gone. I thought they could be on bream's winter menu along with shrimps.

I went to the river to test a new pattern in the afternoon, but it turned out be rubbish after all. It was looking good on the vise, but it was miserable in the water.

I only needed a couple of minutes to give up on my new creation. I put back my trusty fly and got a few fish including a small flathead.

Fishing on the Moore River

I fished the Moore River today with Albert and Mike.

It was a nice day to be out there with a clear sky and no wind. It would have been better, if fishing was as good as the weather though.

Got a few fish at the end, but all were tiny.

It's good to see that these signs are posted around the river now.

Do breams dream of plastic shrimp?

I learned fly fishing through books and videos because there weren't many people fly fishing around me those days. No casting instructor to see or friends could show me what to do.

So those books and videos were my sources of information to lean to fish and tie flies. (By the way, I believe some classics like Doug Swisher and Carl Richards' "Fly Fishing Strategy" are still wonderful fly fishing texts today).

Anyway, one of my texts was Gary Borger's fishing video, and I remember he was saying that good fish are to be found where they can collect the largest amount of food while they are getting the maximum protection and expending the least amount of the energy.

It is a sound presumption indeed. Why should fish risk their life just to get one tiny bug or minnow? It isn't worth it. It is waste of energy for fish to hold in a fast current when there isn't much food drifting by either. I don't know how much reasoning power fish have, but their behaviour is very rational, I think.

While we were on the river on the last weekend, we found an area where crowds of shrimps were drifting along drop offs. There were millions of shrimps, and with some shrimp imitations, we had a good time.

Where foods are, fish will be. It is logic.



先週末、川で釣りをしていると、ペリカンやカモメなどの鳥たちが浅瀬で何かを夢中 に食べていました。近くまでウェーディングすると、無数のエビが集まっていました。落ち込みに沿ってエビのパターンを流すと引ったくる様なクロダイのアタ リが来ました。魚がいる所で、魚が食べている物に合ったフライを投れば、やっぱり魚は釣れます

確かフライフィッシングを始めた当初に買ったギャリー・ボーガーのビデオで、魚が付く一番のポイントは、エサが多くとれ、危険と消費するエネルギーの一番少ない場所だと言っていたのを覚えています。

エサがいない所には魚はいないし、一匹の虫や小魚を捕まえるのに高いエネルギーを消費するような事も、魚はしません。クロダイなどの警戒心の高い魚は、エサが多くても簡単に天敵から狙われる様な場所には、そうそうフラフラと出て来ません。

人間は、論理的に考える能力はあっても論理的に行動するとは限りません。お金ほしさに、危ないのが分かっていても未だに原発を動かすし、川や海も汚します。住む所や食べる物が無くなれば、お金なんて役に立たないのに。魚にどれだけの思考能力があるのかは分かりませんが、人間と比べると、魚の行動は至って論理的です。

Scouting around on the Murray River

I jumped on Captain Albert's boat to fish on the Murray River yesterday.

Murray is deep and the river bank is heavily covered with trees, so people say it is the best to fish from a boat at least for those who are interested in fly fishing.

That was my reason why I haven't paid much attention to the Murray until now. Besides, the river always looks bit brown and grubby to me and I haven't been inspired to fish there.

昨日は、友達のアルバートの船で、パースから南に一時間の所にあるMurray Riverを釣りました。川が深くて、岸は、ブッシュだらけなのでウェーディングからの釣りは難しく、フライフィッシングをするには、ボートから釣る事になります。

この川を釣るのは、昨日が初めてでした。ボートを持っていない事もありますが、そもそもこの川は、いつもなんとなく濁っていてあまり魅力を感じないので、今までは、スルーしていました。

We dropped the boat upstream of Ravens Wood, and we went down stream. The river was silty as I thought it would be, but the clarity improved when we were getting closer to the river mouth. The last section actually looked to be an interesting place to fish as there are big snags and deep holes.

In terms of fishing, it was very quiet yesterday. I only pulled out one fish around a jetty, and Albert landed a few, but fish were small. We only saw a handful of small bait and the river didn't look alive at all.

Perhaps bream were staying deep and not feeding much. I was getting hits here and there, and it felt me that they were hitting flies out of their curiosity. After all these were all small baby fish. Probably bigger and wiser fish were hiding among snags and sleeping.

Anyway putting a slow fishing aside, it was a beautiful day to be on a boat.


ボートで河口から１０キロ位のところを出発して、釣りながら下流へ向かって行きましたが、予想した通り、川の水は、濁っていましたが、河口から２キロ位の所からは、濁りも取れて良さそうな感じでした。

釣りの方は、さっぱりの結果でした。倒木や橋桁などを攻めて行ったのですが、殆ど反応無し。河口の方で、やっとこ小さいのが釣れただけでした。小さなアタリはチラホラとあったのですが、小さい魚のリアクションバイトの様な感じでした。

釣りとは逆に、天気の方は、晴れ晴れとしてボートに乗ってユラユラと川を行くには良い一日でした。


Going through the Sandy Cove canal to go to a coffee shop




This baby is my only catch

Shrimp pattern and cold winter weather

It is cold out to be on the river these days, and fishing has been slow.

I can tell you that bait fish are gone with bitter winter wash out, and I have been only getting odd fish here and there on my normally dependable bait fish patterns for the past few outings.

So I decided to put minnow patterns away this afternoon, and went to fish armed with a few shrimp patterns I tied yesterday.

Shrimps are found in the river all the time, but I have had some good results on shrimp patterns in winter for some reason.

Here are my results (I would landed more, if I wasn't missing a few more takes and didn't drop one OK size fish).

この所、川には、ベイトとなる小魚の姿がありません。冬の雨と一緒に海へ流されていってしまったようです。

いつもなら結果を出すベイトパターンも、あまり釣れません。

そういう事で、小魚パターンは見切って、エビのパターンの出番です。冬になると３センチ位の半透明のベビが沢山出て来ます。それを主食にしているのかどうなのか、寒い時期は、魚の反応もエビのパターンの方が良い様です。

Can you see shrimp's antennas coming out of its mouth?


This fish took a shrimp fly, and kept swimming as if it ate a real thing.

Winter holiday

Lucky me, it's time for another school holiday, and today, I caught up with my friends, and we fished around Maylands.

We checked a place where they caught some fish on the last weekend. I didn't get anything apart from a couple of small hits, but other people got some fish including one good bream.

We then moved down the river little bit to try a different spot, and I got one grunter and one bream at the end.

Selectivity, and matching the size of bait fish

We went to hit ocean for change this weekend. I was keen to explore surf around Mandurah, but as we had a late start, we didn't have much time to move around, so we went down to a small bay where we had a few good sessions before.

We walked around for a half hour or so, but we didn't see anything. We were almost giving up and walking back to our car. Then herring started chasing bait fish in front of us.





Herring is not known to be choosy for what they chase. They normally hit anything they move. People even catch them on a bare hook sometime.

However the fish that we were trying to catch in that bay were as selective as brown trout feeding on #20 mayflies on the Mataura River in NZ. In fact, the fish were feeding on something just below surface, much like trout rising to emergers. Slow yet deliberate.

Every time we saw a rise or swirl, we cast at it, but we were having a hard time to fool those fish. We eventually managed to get a few fish after a couple hours of struggle. I felt that it was more of fish making a mistake rather than us outsmarting the fish. Anyway I decided to keep them. Not only I wanted them for dinner, but I was keen to find out what they were feeding.

Well, they were feeding on tiny fish looked like miniature sardine. These were sightly over 20 mm long, and our flies were too big to match. Also, the shape of our flies were different from the actual bait fish. These bait fish were short and stocky like an almond whereas our flies were looking like a torpedo.

Although I didn't get many fish, I was happy with our new finding that even fish like herring gets selective from time to time. It reminds me that selecting a right fly is important for any fish we chase whether I am fishing for trout rising quietly to a mayfly spinner or big saltwater fish smashing bait as if there is no tomorrow.

The pelican armada flying pass


An old biplane flying pass


Finally this cool looking thing was flying over




Our dinner (before)


Our dinner (after)