Flicking feathers

After the disasterous trip to Okinawa, it took me a while to work up the motivation to get out again.  Actually it was about 5 weeks, I had been using the weather as an excuse, but really my head just wasn't there.. I firmly believe that fishing is at least 90% mental and if you can't get motivated, you're not going to perform.  Around the third weekend in January I convinced myself I'd have a good day if I went out to the river.  The Monday was the third successively warmer day in a row with non of the nights falling below freezing, if you can get this kind of pattern falling on your winter day off, it's usually a sign you'll have a good day. So I set of for the river around 9.30 after giving the sun a chance to get up.. What I found when I arrived at the river ten minutes later was not a pretty sight.. the river bank had been totally shorn of all the trees and under growth for a good mile of the best stretch.. This used to be covered in 4ft high grass, m

Last year I made several plans to go and fish an island in southern Japan, with the hope of getting my first Giant Trevally on the fly as well as ticking a few other species off the list.   It started when I was looking around on Google earth at some holiday destinations and spotted Kuroshima island  at the extreme Southern end of the Okinawan archipelago. Kuroshima Island It looked great and had good reports of quality GTs, bluefin trevally and both titan and yellow margin triggerfish.  I had to go, the first plan was for August, but that had to be put off because all 14 rooms on the island were fully booked by SCUBA divers.  No problem, I thought and took some leave at the end of September, being only a 4 hour flight from Tokyo makes it possible to go for a long weekend. So I got a box of GT flies and a collection of flats flies tied up and got ready to go. GT brush flies NYAPs and poppers GT profile fly And some triggerfish crabs and

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Well I've not posted on here for a while.   The super hot summer days really curbed my urge to get on the river, and the days I did get out didn't last too long as it was just too hot 37 degrees Celsius in the shade is no fun at all. Salty Fun While I wasn't carping I did do a few salt water trips where the breeze helps a bit.  I even managed a Dolphin from the shore in Southern Chiba Apologies for the moobs, but it was definitely tops off weather that day.  I caught it on a silicon fat boy like this. As the weather cooled a bit I did a bit of bass  fishing in the lakes but not on fly so it won't feature here. Looking Forward Now that the weather has cooled off and the typhoon season is coming to a close, I'll be spending more time out on the river chasing carp. I still expect a few really good days before the end of the year to round out what has been my most successful season of fly carping yet.  

Last week I was lucky enough to have a free slot in my schedule and managed to get out to a new river with recent carp convert Hideto.  Actually Hide had fished the river once before and suggested we go.  after a quick train ride we were at the venue in the outskirts of Tokyo.  The Yanase river is a beautifully clear freestone river running between Tokyo and Saitama prefectures.   Hide was keen to show me the whole of the stretch we were going to fish before fishing it, which to be honest I found difficult.  There were just so many positive switched on fish feeding in the gin clear water I hated passing them by.  I think Hide's trout stream background maybe still has a grip as he seems to favour and upstream approach - so he didn't mind walking down past the fish to come back up at them.  I think with time I can turn him. I almost never want to present up stream to a carp as it just makes it far too easy to line them.  I mush prefer to cast down and across to almost square

Last Monday I took my buddy Hideto from  the Tokyo flyfishing blog   out to show him the ropes. He'd been carping before but like most he'd struggled and never really got in to it.  Eventually I convinced him that carp were worth chasing and he asked to come along. I took him to a small river near my apartment, it doesn't have many big fish but it has a lot of fish so I was confident he'd get a fish or two.  After a quick coffee and explanation about the river, flies and presentation we headed up to the water. It took Hide a little while to get to grips with the presentation and reading the fish, although identifying takers is going to take more than one session to pin down. Any way we eventually got him a small fish about 20 inches or so after which his confidence started to grow along side a healthy respect for the carp as a fly fishing target. As the day wore on he picked up a few fish finishing with 5 or 6 nice little commons.  I didn't fish that hard as I

There's a lot written all over the internet about leaders and connections and some of it is good, some of it on the other hand is rubbish.  Anyway I thought I'd add add my tuppen'worth.  Today I changed over to my summer line on the carp set up. I use a WF 8 Rio Smallmouth Bass, in the summer here as it's just too hot for a cold water formula line.  Since I was changing back, I replaced the connections. I start by attaching  a length of 30lb fluorocarbon to make the butt section.  I use a modified Albright Knot for this.  Basically I tie an Albright, but leave the waste end of the fluorocarbon the same length as the end you would normally leave.  If you don't know the Albright you can find out how to tie it   here , just remember don't trim the waste like the standard knot. The next thing I do is furl the two ends together to make a single butt piece.  To avoid putting a ton of twist in the fly line I tighten the drag on the reel and pick up the whole ri