Christchurch earth quake

I can not imagine how hard the life is now in Christchurch and amount of pain on people who have lost loved one because of the earthquake.

Being Japanese and working as a teacher, the tragedy at a language school in the CTV building was something I felt sad especially.

May peace come to the heart of people who have to go through the hardship.

Reunion

A year or so ago, I met a young Japanese boy at one of our fly fishing club's meeting. He told me that he wanted to learn fly fishing, so I took him out to a river and showed him how to catch fish on flies.

It didn't take long for him to learn skills, and he started to explore his new water on his push bike which, as I remembered, was literally being pushed around because his tires were often being punctured.

Like other boys interested in new toys, he was always talking about his wish to own a top quality rod and reel, but despite of his cheap second hand gear, he caught more and bigger bream than anyone else in the club before leaving to Japan at the end of the school term in that year.

一年程前にフライフィッシングに興味のある日本人の少年に会いました。日本からの留学生で、たまたま地元のフライフィッシングのミーティングに来ていたので、声をかけたところ、フライフィシングを教えて欲しいと言うので、一緒にクロダイやトラウトを釣りに行きました。

釣りのセンスが良く、しばらくすると川へ自転車に乗って行き、クロダイのポイントを新しく開発して行きました。もっと良い竿やリールが欲しいなんて事をよく言っていましたが、その年の暮れに日本に帰るまでの間、安いお下がりのロッドとリールで、他のクラブのメンバーの誰よりも多くそして大きなクロダイを釣っていました。


It looked like his casting got better

Last week he returned to WA to have some time off before him moving to North East of Japan to start his university course. It sounded like the uni is closer to some of Japan' top trout rivers, so I am sure he is going to enjoy his new life over there.

We went out together on the weekend to chase some bream. We caught some fish, and talked about our hope for next year's NZ trip.

It was good to catch up with you, Itaru, and I wish you the best luck.


この度、晴れて大学入試に合格した彼は、四月から東北の大学に通うそうです。渓流王国東北に行けるなんて羨ましい限りです。

この週末は、日本から遊びに来たそんな彼とクロダイ釣りに出かけました。イタル君、久々に会えて良かったです。春からの新生活がんばってください。来年は、NZで会いましょう。








See you again, my friend!


It was a beautiful sky in this evening.

Canon D10 & EF 50mm Macro

At low tide and high tide

It looked like bream were on their hunting mission again during the first phase of incoming tide much like the last weekend. I picked up a few yesterday and this morning including a couple of nice fish.

先週末に続けて、クロダイの反応は、干潮から上げ潮に変わってからの２時間位が良く、釣れた魚も平均して良いサイズでした。その後、ある程度潮が入って来て水位が上がるとアタリはパッタリと無くなりました。


This one pulled a line hard. Two more turns would put me into the bucking.







I then joined my friend for the afternoon fishing today. We got there around 4:30, and the tide was much higher than I expected, and it was still coming in.

There were a lot of fish in the area, and we were getting many hits until the tide started to slow down eventually around 6:00. Compared to my morning session, most of fish were small though. My friend picked up a couple of OK size, but others were just over 20cm or so.

It was interesting that, my green coloured streamer, which has been working very well in the morning for the past 3 weekends, did not produce much this afternoon. My friend was getting fish constantly, but I was struggling to get connection. I took the fly off, and changed to dark brown one. It then took me only two cast to hook up fish in the same area where I was casting before. This reminds me again that the colour of flies is important for bream.

午後は釣りに行く気は無かったのですが、友達が行くと言うので、４時過ぎからちょっと出かけました。満潮辺りの水位は稀に見る量で、岸から十歩程度で腰まで浸かる深さ。釣れる気はまったくしなかったのですが、魚の反応は意外にも多く、六時頃になって潮の流れが遅くなるまでコンスタントにアタリがありました。ただ釣れて来る魚は、朝の釣りよりもずっと小さく、アベレージで２０cm位。

おもしろいと思った事は、朝はあれだけ高反応だった薄緑色のフライは駄目で、茶色の毛針に変えた途端にアタリの連続。この釣りでは、やっぱりフライの色は重要だと再認識させられる午後でした。

Water was high. Only 10 steps got us into waist deep


A small fish caught in the afternoon