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Summer of Smallies

Discovery

While Japan is known for its bass fishing industry, where I live there's not a lot of opportunity for the fly angler and where there is, the number of fisherman is unbelievable- really not my cup of tea.  I like to get away from the crowd, which makes carp ideal as almost no one here targets them.  I started fishing a new river about an hour north of Tokyo that as far as I knew didn't hold bass, it certainly didn't hold bass fishermen.
I'd fished it a few times since last year and had caught some lovely big carp to over 20lbs in super clear water, it was great especially as the fish were pretty predatory and willing to chase down big flies.

That's a size 1 hairy fodder hanging out of that fish's mouth

This spring I noticed a fish out in a deep pool that clearly wasn't a carp didn't seem to spook from the flies it wasn't eating, I took me a minute to realize, but then it dawned on me.. bedding smallmouth and no one was fishing for them!We spotted a few more and decided to come back post spawn and get some.
It's been pretty good, we could probably have caught more fish by covering more water rather than sight fishing everything but, it's not just how many you get, it's also how you get them. This was a great little find and not far from home either.

Here's a nice little chunk caught on dry fly


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