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Mountain Streams  --Vol.18--

Burning Heat and Low Water

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Under the scorching sun this large yamame trout has come up to the surface. Its body is thin due to lack of food in the low water season.

When the rainy season is over, the Takahara River dramatically changes its scenery. Only a glimpse of river makes us tense after the snow melting season, but now the flow becomes calm day by day. Then the river flows very narrowly through the wide bank. My eyes are blinded by the glare on the bank in the daytime and the lukewarm water flows in the evening. Probably fish cannot stand the heat. They appear only after it is getting dark. It is really a brief space of time in a day. I reluctantly made it my rule to go to the source area in the daytime and back to the mainstream for the evening rise. But I cannot be satisfied with such routine when there are a lot of big yamame trout in the mainstream. I want to fish the mainstream during the day, too. I began to test it although expecting my failure.
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The Takahara River is rising due to rain and the snow melting water. Almost all fishing points are destroyed.

Fishing low water under the scorching sun in midsummer. It is easy to say and various possibilities occur to me as far as I am away from fishing points. But the real fishing is far from thinking of it. Only standing on the bank makes me frustrated except for source areas or shady banks of rivers. But I headed for the heated river many times because I was sure there were big yamame trout. After 10 o’clock in the morning the bank of the Takahara River looked like a giant flying pan. There was no shade on the bank and no angler, either, as far as I could see.
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Medium water in summer. The water level falls and is not half as high as the snow melting season.
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Low water in midsummer. The bank is still filled with heat in the evening.

Well, what fly should I choose first? I started fishing with size 16 Wild Canary. The strong sunbeam was shining on every corner of the shallow river bed. As the water temperature went up sharply, no fish seemed to hide in the shadow of the big stone near the bank to avoid strong sunbeam, unlike the source area fish. If a fish hide there it will suffer from shortage of oxygen. Decrease of water made the stream calm. Size 16 fly, which had been too small to float properly a little while before, was floating and drifting beautifully anywhere in the river. Half an hour had passed when I came near to the place where big stones are in the middle of the river, one lying on another. Narrowed flow fell sliding on the polished smooth rock surface and was flowing down and eroding rocks downstream to form the head of the small pool like a channel. The river was flowing here rapidly and smoothly, unusual in low water. My Wild Canary came down the channel like sliding a playground slide. Somehow the way of fly drifting draw my attention. I cast the fly twice as many times as usual, probably 5 or 6 times. When I cast the fly as the final trial that big yamame trout suddenly came up. It wiggled its brown body very slowly in the fast stream as if the time had stopped, and bit my fly. I raised my rod and felt the weight of the fish but my yamame trout seemed to care nothing and disappeared under the foam. Immediately, alas, my fly returned to me. I felt as if I had seen a vision. Is this what they call a daydream?
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Two big yamame trout. Only a few of yamame trout remain here until summer but most of those remaining are over 30cm.
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In the daytime of low water, even char respond dull, as if they were sleeping.
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Size 10 Wild Canary. It is very noticeable, even if I look the other way, and also provokes big yamame trout under the scorching sun.

Soon I came back to myself but I could not believe what happened in front of me. Immediately I cast the fly once more, and again, more times than before, in vain. Never came back my yamame trout. I knew that it was quite natural. If it had come back, it would have been almost a miracle. I felt vexed and that awakened my fighting spirit.

I changed my size 16 fly into size 10 Wild Canary and started fishing up at much higher speed than before. Fish come up to the fly even under such scorching sun. But I have to cast the fly to the special spot where the river is flowing fast and smoothly. Here large sized flies are desirable because big fish are hungry due to lack of food. At first I had chosen size 16 fly, expecting that small flies are suitable to inactive fish. But it turned out to be wrong. Now I should chose a larger fly and cast it to the proper point over and over to half-sleeping fish. That was my conclusion to draw from my failure. I am accustomed to fishing the riffle water full of oxygen in midsummer from my childhood when I fished sweet fish. I gave up fishing calm pools or mirrors behind the rock where water was stagnant but only aimed at special points dotted in the current with big stones. I began to cast an inappropriately large spinner for the current size in order to provoke the fish. Fortunately, several hours later I caught two big yamame trout much bigger than 30cm.

-- To be continued --
2001/08/19  KEN SAWADA
Tranlated into English by Miyoko Ohtake