Mayflies; Our usual weekend

My daugther asked me to take her outside as usual weekend.

When we opened and closed the entrance door, noticed he was seeing us off by chance.

He, Akamadara mayfly dun(male), did shed its skin on our door! What a amazing location here!

On the way down to parking lot, we found another one.

It had only two wings, two tails, and its size was about 5mm. It seemed to be Futabakokagerou.

First, we visited Goryu fall. As you see, it was just flood because of last night's rain.

Even it was not good condition including weather, she looked happy to be there.

Next destination was Momosawa river.

We found the biggest mayfly which we'd ever seen.

It was Futasujimonkagerou's dun, and its size was about 25mm.

Mokagerou family is famous as its size in Japan. But we liked its pretty color also.

I would like to try its tying soon.

Hair Wing Dun again

Since I tried this pattern at last fishing trip, I've liked it.

I know CDC's superiority to represent fuzziness well, but also know that Elk hair's merit like easy to be dried.

In addition, it was so visible and worked for the rising fish as mach the hatch.





Especially I'm expecting mahogany's one for Akamadara mayfly's hatch.

Nasty pix... ; 6th trip to Oshino

Let me say something first.

On the way to Oshino, I wondered where I take my favorite digital camera, and noticed that I left it at home...

Which meant I had to take pix by a digital single-lens reflex camera with a zoom lens only. I seemed to be almost impossible to take nice pix for fish and aquatic insect...

So I got these pix by the zoom lens's one, they are not my favorite as I imagined. Although I hesitated to upload these, decided to do that just as my fishing record.

I had some themes for this trip. One of there was the natural drift to downstream. So I picked the hole in front of old Fujikyu hotel.

Ant
Late afternoon, there were some fish feeding the nymph around water grass. So it looked like that sight nymphing was best bet for me.


Then an aunt climbed my fishing vest up. It likely gave me a inspiration, so the ant parachute was tied as first try. There were several rises also.

It attracted more fishes than I expected!

And I hooked first rainbow up. It gave me a confidence though, some big boy refused just close to my fly. Which meant my drift of fly was not good. It should be my next theme .




Akamadara mayflyWhen it was getting early evening, there were some mayflies flying. So I changed it to crippled dun type.




That seemed to be good decision. This was about 40cm(16inches) brownie.

It needed more than 1 meter to take this pic because of zoom lens...



In his stomach, floating nymph of akamadara mayfly was dominate. It was not bad choice.

After that, I got two more fishes. I think everything is getting better than before.


Today's hit flyant parachute #18
flav crippled dun #18
hair wing dun #14
floating nymph(PT) #18

Parachute and Hair wing dun

To make the Parachute type fly beautifully is one of my tying themes.

I still have difficulty for attaching the hackle...

This is Hair wing dun type.

I hope they'll behave like Hirata mayfly, and deceive the fish.

River Watching; Shiba River

Shiba river is one branch of Fuji river's basin. I thought it should take about half hour by car from our house, but actually it took an hour.

After she enjoyed her bike time, we started to check this river.

Under the stone which was turned over, we found several nymphs of aquatic insects there.









I think this is one of Hirata family. This type is called 'Clinger type', which means it attaches itself to the back side of stone and not good at swimming. As you see, it has flat body.






On the other hand, this type is called as 'Swimmer type'. As its name itself, it is just good swimmer.

I guess this is Kokagerou's(Baetis) one.









There are all sorts of nymphs. I likely need more knowledge and learning. Should keep my eyes peeled.

HIRATA & KOKAGE

This late afternoon today, my daughter requested me to play together with her bike. I was thinking of destination, and picked MS river for biking and fishing together.

After her bike practice, we went down to the river and saw many aquatic insects there. Also there were several splash rises! Yeah, it was time to grab our fishing pole.

We began to identify the species of mayfly's spinner as start.

It had two tails, and green eggs. Body size was about 12mm. It looked like one of Hirata family, Elmonhirata? It was new to see for us.

We did see small one's hatch. That must be Kokagerou, two tails, small body(6mm).

Then the bigger one also hatched. It looked so lovely, and same as the first spinner.

I tried several pattern in short time, but had no luck...

Maybe they were so skittish or there were very few fishes.

But it was really fun to observe their activity and identify their species.

About Aquatic Insects

I've been thinking that I would like to know about Aquatic Insects more in detail. Last week I met this book casually at bookstore next to my parents' house. It was much better than I expected! If you are interested in such a kind of stuff, let me recommend it for you.

My rough guess says this should be Akamadara mayfly' dun. It was on the post box yesterday. His huge turban eyes told me he was male.

And I found its spinner and shuck also on the our apartments' wall. He must have molted on the wall! Perhaps it is a good place to observe their life, because it locates just by the Kise river.

Sight practice and Higenaga Caddis; 5th trip to Oshino

I've thought the spring were already gone and it was already early summer here. But at Oshino, it was still part of spring. The effective temperature which I felt was much cooler than Numazu, kind of cold still.
Let me talk about this trip as three parts.
Part1; Day time, Sight Fishing
Since there were not any rises except small yamame trout, I tried sight nymphing as first. Several takes of fish pleased me though, a bunch of mishooking made me disappointed. Even I succeed in setting a hook once, missed it... But it could be a good practice for me. My MORPHO Marabou worked well.



Part2; Early Evening, Spinner?
The number of rise was getting increased a little at early evening. It was hard to identify their target of rise, but I got several good reactions for my parachute, and spent caddis pattern.
This was caught by parachute type.












Part3; Late Evening, Higenaga Caddis? No, another one
We could often see their rises at late evening. I picked Higenaga caddis pattern as first, because I saw its adult in a daytime today.
Fortunately it worked! Healthy good one was caught by it.
On the other hand, I saw some middle size mayflies flying. I suspected my luck with Higenaga was just lucky one. The target of their rises looked like different from Higenaga caddis.


Kind fishermen gave me a hint later. His result of stomach pump showed that there were several nymph, which seemed to be a kind of madara mayfly.

I bought stomach pump and shale for my further improvement.

The blessings of nature

Miso soup with the crab made by my mother, and the butter sauteed Hatami shellfish by myself.

They were so yummy for us. Especially my daughter was so excited to eat Hatami, because she caught it and helped my cooking. I believe it is good experience for her as infant.

HATAMI gathering on Children's Day

Do you know the shellfish named 'HATAMI'? For me it was first time to hear that.

It seems to be bigger than ASARI clam and be available around the Sea of Enshu. Its season sounds like just now, so we planed to go HATAMI gathering today. Today as Children's Day is just best day for that, because of its the spring tide.

The secret hole was not far from my parents' house. It took about 15min. only. In spite of a little rain, there were many people for the same purpose.

I was completely soaked through to the skin, but our harvest was definitely more than we expected!!

We have to wait for a few days until all the grain of sand will be out from the shellfish.

This was a kind of surprise gift. We are going to cook it tomorrow morning into the miso soup.

Cherry & GASAGASA

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The cherry tree in front of my grandma's house bore lots of fruits this year.











My aunt helped her to pick them. They tasted fine with just a little sour.











My father took us to the upper Kikugawa River.










By 'GASAGASA' catching, we caught them.

Especially one of dragonfly's nymph was so huge. It might be Oniyanma's one.

Nostalgic G.W.

Our plan of this weekend, called 'Golden Week', was to visit my parents' house in KIKUGAWA city.

The morning of departure, I found this mayfly on the glass of my car. Not sure of its detail species though, I speculates that it might be one of Futaba family by its number of tail, wing and body size, about 10mm. If you have any suggestion, please let me know.

One of my hometown's characteristics is tea plantations. It reminds me of my old memory, younger days.

'Ruby' is her name, she likely likes her.

Replanning of streets took some of my memories away. But it seems to be giving new one to us now.

MORPHO Marabou and Spinner

Just for change, these Marabou were tonight's starter for me. It likely would be effective for the sight nymphing at Oshino.

Just a little bit MORPHO were blended also.





This spinner's wing was also consist of MORPHO & CDC.

It looked like a little heavy, so maybe I should cut some CDC before using.