Mantis Shrimp

Really fascinating creatures, mantis shrimps are.

Their eyes are more sophisticated and light sensitive than human eyes. They apparently live long, and have the same partner for years in some cases.

They move very fast, and hunt their pray with a pair of deadly weapons. Mantis shrimps, as the name suggests, have pincers which can zip out as fast as a bullet shot out from a pistol. 

Even heavily armoured crabs won't stand a chance against these sea monsters. Mantis shrimps can smash those crabs in half as the blow of a mantis shrimp is said to be strong enough to break a fish tank.

A google search shows you so many colourful mantis shrimps which look like aliens from other planets. The ocean if full of mysterious creatures, I think.

I don't know if fish like black bream eats mantis shrimps. They might be scared of getting a lethal punch. I know I would, but then, bream has its muscle crushing jaws too. Anyway, here are pictures of my mantis shrimp imitation I tied yesterday.

寿司ネタで有名なシャコですが、フライフィッシングでは、珊瑚礁のフラットで釣れるボーンフィッシュやトリガーフィッシュなどの魚を釣るのに使われているそうです。

パース近郊の釣りの場合だとエビやカニのパターンと比べると影が薄く、僕は、今まで意識していませんでした。でも最近、イカやゴカイなど、フライボックスの中の脇役を増やして行く流れで、シャコの事をちょっと調べてみると、とても興味深い生き物だという事が分かりました。

魚を釣る事だけで考えれば実績のある定番の毛針が数種類あれば事が足りるのですが、そんな結果重視のアプローチでは遊び心がありません。

フライフィッシングの面白さは、色々と試行錯誤して作り出したフライで魚を釣る、そのプロセスにあると思います。そういう意味では、むしろフライボックスの中のマイナーなフライ、もしかしたら的なフライや最終兵器的なフライの存在は、釣りを面白くするという意味では大切かと思います。

色々とマテリアルをゴミ箱行きにしましたが、まあまあの形のシャコの毛針が出来たと思います。

night river combing

I was on the river last night, and I found these shrimps / river prawns swimming around a shallow water.

There were lots of bait fish ranging from 2cm to 8cm.  I was looking for crabs too, but didn't see any.

What is on the menu?

I was watching a few breams swimming around a jetty yesterday, and they all appeared to be locked onto something on the bottom. 

There were many bait fish in the same area, but those tiny fish are happily swimming around breams without being chased by their predators.

I caught fish on a shrimp pattern later, but interestingly I didn't get a single touch on minnow patterns. It could just have been a coincidence, but it may be possible that bait fish aren't on beam's menu at the moment.  I wonder why.

Let's keep our rivers clean

I went to the upper reach of a local river today, and I was disappointed with the amount of rubbish I saw. 

Well, it will be OK for monkeys to eat banana and throw way banana peels on the ground. That is what monkeys do. We are human and we are supposed to be smarter than monkeys, so we should do better than that.

I found some discarded fishing line and empty packets of bait along with other kinds of trash like bear bottles, cans of energy drinks, so I sadly guess that some fishermen were responsible for the littering.

May be those guys should visit other places in the world where rivers are dead because of rubbish and pollution. Only then they can perhaps appreciate that we have lovely rivers where we can swim, paddle, fish, and eat what we catch.

 普段あまり行かない川の上流の場所へ釣りに行ったのですが、ゴミの多さにあきれてしまいました。人があまり歩かない場所の様で、誰も見ていないのをいい事に、ゴミを投げ捨てていくようです。

残念な事に、捨てられていたゴミに中には、釣り糸やエサの入っていたプラスチックの袋などがあったので、どうやら釣り人の仕業の様です。

サルは、食べたバナナの皮をその辺に投げ捨てます。同じ事をする人間は、多分サル以下です。

My catch of the day

My bycatch of the day saying, "Please keep our rivers clean"

"When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money" - Native American Wisdom

Pink wiggly things

I was watching video clips of palolo worm hatch a few days ago. It is hard to believe a big tarpon will chase such a small creature. 

Speaking of the worm hatch, many years ago, I saw a similar hatch of worms on a rive in my home town in Japan. I was surprised not only to see so many of worms swimming in the water, but to see anything alive in the river which looked to be too dirty to sustain any life form (I was a young boy back then, and I honestly thought, those were mutated worms because of pollution in the river). 

Apparently, those hatching worms brings a big number of large sea bass even in the middle of Tokyo. It says they hatch in early spring on the night of full moon (a big tide, a big water movement to carry worms and their eggs to the sea, I guess).

Although I haven't seen such a massive worm hatch in Perth, I have seen a worm swimming at the surface. I am sure that our local worms have to go on their spawning run at some point of time, and fish like bream wouldn't miss a chance to get an easy meal like a worm skating at surface.

So, I decided to tie worm patterns, and keep a couple of them in my fly box just in case I might need them in future.

To tie those pink wiggle things, I needed some pink materials.  Instead of driving down to shops to buy something, I decided to dye some materials I already got. I find dying tying materials is hit and miss, but this time the colour came out alright.

Here is what I tied.

I got an idea from a worm fly that I saw on the Internet.  In stead of using a piece of foam for creating its head as the original, I tied it with deer hair, bit like tying Royal Humpy for showing my trout fishing heritage.

A pink worm designed to swim just under the surface of the water

It is pink underneath

In terms of pink materials, I have also dyed some saddle feathers as an experiment, and I used these to tie a couple of squid patterns as a prototype.  

I put one of them in our kitchen sink to have a tank test. The saddle feathers move just like squid's tentacles, but I have found that the body is not so durable. So it looks like I need to go back to a drawing board.

May be I will modify my old squid fly by adding more feathers instead of using rubber legs.

Squid pattern

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Brompton Toolkit

I bought a Brompton Toolkit some weeks ago.

It is compact, and all tools appear to be high quality. It is very cleverly designed with each tool fits nicely, and the whole tool kit even fits inside of the bike frame.

On top of everything, it looks clean and beautiful.

先日、ブロンプトンのツールキットを買いました。

よく考えられたデザインで、出先でのパンク修理に必要なツールが全て小さなケースの中に収まっています。

黒とクロームの銀がマッチして、とてもカッコいいです。

Brompton's logo is printed on the casing

The kit comes with tools needed for puncture repair including a patch

15 mm socket wrench, ratchet handle for hex tools and tyre levers

Tyre levers also work as spanners

It comes with a set of Allen keys and screw drivers

The tool kit fits inside of the top tube

Hobbit on IMAX

My wife and I went to see Hobbit at a local IMAX cinema today.

We haven't been to the IMAX before, so we weren't sure if it would be worth paying extra money to see the movie on the IMAX screen.

Well, we loved the film which made me feel like packing my gear and go on a fishing adventure in NZ. We felt 3D and all special effects looked far better on the IMAX screen.  May be it got to do with shooting the film at 48fps, but everything looked smooth and realistic.

Anyway at the end, I told my wife that I won't like to see any 3D film anywhere else from now on.

話題のホビットをIMAXの映画館で見て来ました。IMAXのスクリーンで見るのは、今回が初めてでしたが、 ３Dの映像は、普通の映画館よりも大迫力。

IMAXは、通常の映画より４ドル高いけど、これからは、３Dの映画は他の映画館で見る事は無いかもしれない。

Happy New Year 2013

Happy New Year!

The sky was dark and grey, but I went fishing with my friend for the first fishing of the year 2013.

新年明けましておめでとうございます。

パースの元日は、あいにくの空模様でしたが、ちょいと、初釣りに行って来ました。

My first catch of the new year

 

Another fish that I caught this afternoon