Even more species hunting adventures in Japan: Himeji.

The day before we headed back to Tokyo, we caught the Shinkansen in the morning again. This time our destination was Himeji, where we would spend the day visiting its famous castle and some of the bodies of water in the surrounding area.

Himeji castle is Japan’s best preserved feudal castle. Despite the city being bombed during World War II, the castle escaped unscathed. Standing for over seven hundred years, it has also survived natural disasters.

Walking around the castle grounds, you eventually make it to the main keep and can make your way up to the top via several sets of very steep wooden stairs. The views of the castle's surroundings from the top were great, but it was the magnificent decorative Shachihoko, large creatures with the body of a fish and the head of a tiger, that caught my eye.

We'd spot more of these decorative Shachihoko around the city later in the day.

Heading back down the wooden staircases again, we eventually made it back outside and ended up in the large courtyard directly in front of the castle. Himeji Castle is very photogenic so we took a few more photos.

 Also known as the White Heron Castle, Himeji Castle is Japan's largest and most visited castle. 

Leaving the castle grounds, we spent some time wandering around the beautiful Koko-en Gardens. A potential fishing opportunity did present itself inside, but we decided not to take it. By this point it was early afternoon, so when we left the gardens and found a nearby restaurant where we treated ourselves to some unagi.

Koi carp would have been our ninety-ninth species of the trip, but we decided against fishing in the garden's pond!

Grilled eel with barbeque sauce over rice. Served with miso soup and two small side dishes. It was very tasty.

Sightseeing out of the way, it was time for a relaxing stroll along some of the bodies of water around the castle. Obviously, fishing in the moat directly in front of the castle was out of the question, but we did see some grass carp, bluegill and largemouth bass in there as we walked along beside it. We decided to go to some quieter areas to the north of the castle, where I thought we could quickly pull some bluegill out using a piece of line, a split shot and a small hook baited with a piece of pink power isome. After walking for about ten minutes, we found a suitable spot with nobody around. Quickly setting up our simple hand held rig, the bluegill present weren't shy. Dropping a small section of bright pink isome down the side, it quickly vanished, and tugging upwards on our line when it did, we rapidly caught a few before making a quick exit.

The bluegill is considered to be one of Japan's most invasive species. 

Heading away from the castle and its moat, we headed northeast towards a canal that I thought might also hold some fish. On the way, we walked through Shirotopia Memorial Park, where we passed an amazing tree. 

Just a random tree, but I thought it looked stunning!

Arriving at the canal, it wasn’t particularly deep, and the water was crystal clear. There was no sign of any fish initially, but then a small group of grass carp appeared from further along the canal to our right. Quickly rigging up a single rod and tying on a 15lb leader with a chinu hook at the business end, I tossed in a few pieces of bread to see how the fish would react. Every single piece was hovered up very quickly, so I put a piece on my hook and flicked it out. It didn’t take long for a grass carp to swim over and take it into its mouth, and I quickly set the hook. After a short scrap, species number one hundred of the trip was on the bank. 

Species number one hundred of the trip and new personal best grass carp for me into the bargain!

Ryan was keen to catch one too, but the commotion my grass carp had caused had spooked the other fish away from where we were and coloured up the water too, so we baited his hook and walked along the water’s edge. It didn’t take us too long to locate another group, and flicking his bait towards them, a few of them went straight for it and Ryan soon had one hooked. After a brief fight, Ryan had landed a grass carp of his own. 

Ryan's first ever grass carp! A nice fish on ultra light tackle, but pound for pound, they don’t fight that well.

The mouth of a grass carp is quite strange. They’re primarily herbivorous, but like most fish with specialised dietary habits, they are also opportunistic feeders too. 

After putting Ryan’s fish back, we started walking back towards Himeji Station. After spending some time in a clothing shop, and a short shinkansen ride later, we were back in Osaka again. In the evening went out for dinner to a shabu shabu restaurant.

Wagyu beef hotpot. A fantastic meal to end our time in Osaka. 

Heading back to our apartment, we had a bit of packing to do for our journey to Tokyo the following day. Taking the shinkansen again, at least we didn't have to worry about what we were packing into carry-on or checked luggage! The four of us had really enjoyed our time in Osaka and our day trips to Kyoto, Nara, Hiroshima/Miyajima and Himeji. Ryan and I had squeezed in a few short sessions, added twelve species to our tally, and reached the milestone of one hundred species during our time in Japan. With lots more sightseeing planned for our last couple of days in Japan, I wasn't sure we'd get an opportunity to add any more, but should an opportunity present itself...

Tight lines, Scott.

Click here for the final part...

Black and gold.

I visited the west coast last month to see if could get myself onto the pontoons in a large marina. Inspired by a series of Instagram posts from Scandinavia and the east coast of the US, I wanted to see if I could see any juvenile lumpsucker lurking close to the weed growing around the edge of the floating platforms and their ropes and chains. Upon arrival, it soon became obvious that all access was controlled via a single keycard operated security gate, and there were lots of boat owners around, so I ended up aborting my reconnaissance mission before it had even got underway! I decided instead to fish around the edge of the marina for a while. Perhaps in the weed around that I might spot something unusual? The water was crystal clear, but I couldn’t see any fish at all in close and casting out onto the marina’s silty bottom, it quickly became apparent that one species in particular was totally dominant.

After catching one black goby after another for about an hour, I decided it was time for a total change of scenery and target. 

A fairly short drive later, I was soon trying to spot a completely different species. Whilst there was absolutely no possibility of seeing a lumpsucker, there were also no access difficulties either, despite the small body of water being in front of a public building. The long, narrow pond in Greenock I was standing in front of contains goldfish. No doubt one time family pets that had been irresponsibly released. Walking along the edge of it, I soon spotted one slowly working its way through the weeds in the pond. As it reached some lily pads, I lowered a small piece of bread through a gap in them into its path and, after a brief pause, it turned towards it, swam forward and lazily gobbled it up. If only finding and catching a lumpsucker was so straightforward!

Only my second every goldfish from a Scottish venue. 

Popping the fish back, I carried on working my way along the side of the pond, looking for another colourful fish to catch. The weed was pretty dense, but eventually I spotted a second, much bigger goldfish methodically nudging it’s way through it. This one didn’t show any interest in my baked bait, so I decided to try something completely different, an isome worm. Somewhat to my surprise, the fish aggressively attacked the heavily scented lure straight away, darting over and inhaling the entire thing in one go. Striking quickly to set the hook before the fish could reject and eject my artificial worm, I quickly pulled it up through the vegetation and lifted the fish out onto the grass by the side of the pond. 

About the size of my hand, I believe this rather plump goldfish is an example of the shubunkin variety, due to its scattering of beautiful pearlescent scales.

Popping the fish back, I decided to call it a day. I was reasonably confident I’d just caught the nicest looking goldfish in the pond, and besides, people passing by asking me what I was fishing for had become mildly irritating. The photo I took of the first goldfish I caught in Scotland a few years ago wasn’t the best, so I was happy to get some better ones. As far as locating lumpsucker goes, I might need to rethink my marina fishing plans. I’ll either need to seek permission, sneak in behind someone or find a different marina that has less or no accessibility restrictions. With more horrible weather on the way at the end of this week, I might also have left this project a little too late in the year and might have to revisit it next summer instead.

Tight lines, Scott.

Finger freezing finesse fishing fun.

I popped down to St Abbs Harbour earlier this week to target two species, coalfish and flounder. The sun was making a valiant effort to poke through the clouds, but an icy easterly wind made the session a pretty cold one. The tide was out when I arrived, so I fished into the channel at the mouth of the harbour to begin with.

The inner harbour was almost empty.

I had my trusted HTO Rock Rover in the car but decided to go with a bit of finesse, opting to hopefully give a setup I bought for targeting horse mackerel a bit of action. I'm not really a tackle tart but my Major Craft Crostage Light Game 6ft9 0.6-10g Aji rod paired with my Daiwa Legalis LT 2000 loaded up with 2lb fluorocarbon is a very nice combo for fishing on the drop with tiny metals and jighead mounted soft plastics.  I decided to fish the latter and looking through my small box an old favourite that I've not used for a while caught my eye, Marykyu Power Isome in pink. Rigging it up on an 0.9g Ecogear Shirasu Fine jighead, I flicked it out and let it sink slowly towards the bottom. It didn't get all the way down when suddenly my line tightened up. A fish had fallen for my blueberry flavoured trap. It put a good bend in my ultra light rod, was taking some line and was obviously a reasonable size, so I didn't bully the fish too much for fear of being broken off. When a coalfish eventually came to the surface, I had to hand line it up the harbour wall as I didn't have a net with me. I'll never learn!

Great fun on my ultralight setup.

I carried on fishing patiently, repeatedly letting my piece of isome fall down then twitching it back up through the water column. After a while I caught a second coalfish about the same size, so there were obviously a few of them around. My hands had gone pretty numb by that point though, so I decided to go target flounder in a more sheltered area. The water was pretty clear and after a while I hadn't seen any flounders following my isome as I slowly worked it across the bottom. My hands didn't seem to want to thaw out, so I called it a day and headed home, happy to have edged another species closer to my 2023 target of two hundred!

Tight lines, Scott.

Ask the expert?

I've been exchanging emails recently with an angler from Fife called Dan who had been reading my blog and decided to get in touch. Feeling fed up of fishing in the sea in his local area using traditional methods and reeling in relatively small fish using fairly heavy tackle he has been exploring light rock fishing or LRF. For the avoidance of doubt this is the presentation of ultra light lures using a variety of methods and balanced ultra light tackle to target various species in saltwater. I was flattered when he said he wanted to ask an expert some questions but an expert in LRF I am not, by any stretch of the imagination. I was however happy to try and help him out and increase my circle of fishing friends in the process so I arranged to meet up with Dan last week and taking advantage in a drop in the wind we headed down to Dunbar Harbour for low water.

First off we started off drop shotting Gulp! and Isome in the old harbour for flounders but this didn't produce any bites. At this point I should say that both these products are examples of a hybrid of lure and bait because whilst they both take the form of an artificial soft plastic they both also contain active ingredients that fish can identify as belonging to something edible. This makes them incredibly effective and really they require little skill to achieve immediate results. Elitist, lure only anglers who use these hybrid products please take note, you might as well be using ragworm! Personally, being an angler who enjoys fishing with bait, lures and everything in between this doesn't bother me at all and I've caught lots of fish using both. On reflection though using these hybrid products does become the easy option when "lure" fishing and perhaps to the detriment of exploring other methods using wholly artificial lures.

As the flounders weren't around I suggested we headed over the back of the harbour to try and catch a few mini species in the rockpools. After explaining to Dan the types of features to look for in a rockpool that might hold some aggressive little fish we set about exploring to find some. The first thing I caught was a small hermit crab, one of several that stirred from their static positions and scurried across to attack my piece of Gulp!. Dan was quite surprised by the way everything in the rockpools, including the hermit crabs, reacted as soon as my chunk of Gulp! was dropped in even if I just let it sit on the bottom motionless.

The rockpools I searched soon produced a few gung-ho long spined sea scorpions.They charge out of their hiding places and attack with lots of aggression.

Dan was soon happily exploring on his own catching a few small spiky fish too.

After an hour or so, catching about ten long spined sea scorpions between us, we then headed further down the coast to St Abbs to try and catch some coalfish after dark using on the drop (OTD) methods. We probably could have stayed at Dunbar but usually down at St Abbs the fish are more numerous, occasionally bigger and there are usually far less seals too. Both armed with solid tipped rods we had a chat about the benefits of using them for fishing OTD. I started of with a mini Savage Gear Sandeel paddletail, casting it out and flicking the bail arm over as soon as it hit the water. I kept tension in the line, simply allowing it to fall back towards me in an arc. Fishing like this as well as feeling for positive bites you also have to watch your rod tip and line because some takes are not so obvious. If a fish takes your lure and swims upward or towards you the only sign might be a release in tension, the line going slack or even a subtle change in the slight bend in your rod tip as it straightens a little. Basically when fishing this particular OTD style I find that less is more and usually select a lure whose action works even at slow retrieve rates. Metals are also a great choice of lure for OTD fishing as again they have a nice action as they fall through the water attracting fish to investigate and strike. On this particular occasion however I found them to be not as effective as the paddletails. Again it didn't take long for Dan to try a few lures, make a few adjustments and start catching coalfish too. Over the next few hours we carried on messing about and must have caught about a hundred small coalfish between us by the time the wind picked up and our wet hands started to become unbearably cold.

These ravenous little buggers provide a good opportunity to practice fishing on the drop with both small soft plastics on jigheads and small metals too.

I really enjoyed the session and Dan said he felt he had learned from it too. It was nice to have helped another angler to get more from their fishing. I've lost count of the number of times in the past I've benefited from the advice of other anglers so it was good to share some of what I've learned for a change. It also made me realise that whilst Gulp! and Isome are highly effective fish catchers, other choices of lure when fished with the right technique can also produce fish if you are willing to put in some effort and on that front perhaps I am a bit of a lazy bugger. Anyway, going forward I think Dan and I will be meeting up again as his genuine interest in learning about the different approaches that LRF encompasses has kind of rekindled my own desire to try different methods within that particular subset of lure fishing. Gulp! and Isome are very effective weapons to have in your fish catching armoury but hopefully when we head out again we can both ditch them most of time, do some fishing with proper lures and broaden our LRF horizons a little further in the process.

Tight lines, Scott.

From dusk till dawn.

I headed down to Torness Power Station midweek with my mate Jake to have a go for bass during dusk and dawn and to fish around at the inlet during darkness to see what might be around. When we arrived the tide was on its way out and there were a couple of other people fishing. There was a fair swell running and the waves were coming up over the reef. We got set up, waded out a bit onto the reef and started fishing just as light started to fade, although due to heavy cloud cover and mist it was already pretty dim anyway. I opted for a bombarda and tiny Slug-Go whilst Jake went with a baby Slug-Go on a jighead. After a few casts I had a knock and then Jake hooked a bass. We both thought that this would signal the start of a period of action but it didn't. After Jake lost some end gear in the gulley he was working which was begining to empty a bit we moved for a while to another spot on the reef. This didn't produce anything after a while so we decided to head around to the inlet area.

Upon arrival we started fishing from the helicopter platform. I set up a two hook flapper rig, put on a couple of Gulp! Sandworms and lobbed it out in the hope that something maybe be moving around on the bottom under the cover of darkness. Jake meanwhile soon caught a small pollock. We then heard splashing in the shadows directly below us and Jake was soon catching the culprits, small coalfish.

More active at night, coalfish are good fun on ultra light gear.

Whilst Jake continued having fun with the coalfish, with the odd pollock taking his green Power Isome too, I was getting a few taps on my rod and decided to reel in to check the lures. Both were bitten off up to the hook so I knew there were a few crabs around at least! I switched over to some larger red Gulp! 6" Nightcrawlers to put a bit more scent into the water and hopefully prevent the crabs from eating them so quickly. Once those were out on the bottom I decided to have a go for a coalfish with my 2' Ron Thompson Ice Fishing rod for a laugh. After a bit of perseverance I finally hooked one but it didn't really put that much of a bend into the little rod. It's obviously tougher than I thought! After a decent rattle on my rod I reeled in only to find the lures half destroyed by the crabs again so we decided to have a quick go in the rockpools where I'd caught a few long spined sea scorpions and the leopard spotted gobies earlier in the week. There was very little activity though but we did spot a few fish darting around and Jake managed to catch one sea scorpion. We then headed back around to the outflow for dawn.

With the tide almost fully out and nobody else around we were in high spirits. The sky was still overcast though and it was still pretty misty. We both started off fishing baby Slug-Gos on jigheads, casting up the current and working them back close to the bottom but neither of us had any luck. I decided to try a few hard lures and after trying a Maria Chase BW in Holo and a I decided to try a cheap lure I picked up for £5 at the North Wales bumble. I'd never used it before so was pleasantly surprised when on the third cast a small bass took it.

My first bass on a hard lure for quite some time!

I called Jake over and he quickly switched over to his favourite Yo-Zuri Pins Minnow. A few casts later and he was in too. He caught another two bass in fairly quick succession on it and I had a couple of knocks too but after that the action stopped again. By this point it was fairly light, although we didn't get to enjoy a nice sunrise due to all the clouds and mist! We fished on for another hour or so but by this point we were both pretty tired so we headed back up the road.

Tight lines, Scott.