Even more species hunting adventures in Japan: Hiroshima & Miyajima.

The following day, we were up early again to head to Shin Osaka station to catch the shinkansen to Hiroshima. It was Ryan’s first time riding the bullet train, so he was very excited.

The Shinkansen is brilliant! Fast, efficient and safe, you might be surprised to know that it has been operating in Japan since 1964!

In only an hour and twenty minutes, we had travelled 327km and had arrived in Hiroshima. Ryan was suitably impressed! Heading west from Hiroshima station on foot, We stopped briefly by the Kyobashi River when we spotted some black seabream hanging around, but they were incredibly skittish and all swam off when a rig landed in the water anywhere near them. Even casting away from them, any that then came over to investigate our chunk of raw prawn quickly rejected it and swam off with purpose. Giving up, we continued west until we reached the A-Bomb Dome.

Eighty years ago, an atomic weapon was detonated almost directly above this building, destroying most of city.

The Cenotaph for the A-Bomb Victims. This arched tomb holds the register of victims. It's a focal point for annual peace ceremonies.

For me personally, visiting the Peace Park in Hiroshima is a deeply moving experience and also an opportunity for reflection. The horror of what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is beyond comprehension. There are no winners in war. I took a moment to gently ring the park's peace bell before we left the park. 

Crossing the river from the Peace Memorial Park, we caught the fast ferry to Miyajima. We spent a couple of hours exploring the island, visiting Itsukushima Shrine and as the tide was out we walked down to see the huge Torii gate that marks its entrance out in the bay.

Lilian loves a silly selfie!

The massive Torii gate was very impressive, and it was nice to actually see it.

When we visited six years ago, it was covered in scaffolding whilst it was being refurbished!

After passing through Itsukushima Shrine, we walked for a while along the coast and then doubling back we visited a pagodo up on a hill and then wandered back through the town's busy streets. There, we enjoyed sharing some tasty snacks for lunch in the shape of curry pan, deep fried oysters and beef and potato korokke. We wanted to go up to the top of Mount Misen using the island's ropeway, but the queues were ridiculously long, so we decided to go do some fishing instead! Heading around to the large concrete steps at the back of Hiroshima University of Economics' Seminar House, we scratched around with small hooks initially. Things were slow to begin with, but eventually we caught a few fish and remarkably every species we caught were additions to our tally.

First to bite a little piece of prawn was this tiny oblong rockfish. 

After having our bait stolen a few times, and then our hooks bitten clean off, we caught a few of these grass puffer.

I then moved around the corner to fish over a sandy area. This produced a small red bream, the same species Ryan and I had caught in the fishing restaurant back in Osaka!

This was followed shortly afterwards by a small black seabream. Not as cautious as the bigger ones in the rivers of Hiroshima!

After a while, we realised that we were running out of time before we had to pack up and walk back to the ferry terminal to catch our ferry back to Hiroshima. For the last fifteen minutes of the session or so, we switched to fishing small paddletail lures on jigheads over some rougher ground at the bottom of the concrete steps. This proved to be a great choice. As the sun began to set, this approach tempted a few marbled rockfish out of their hiding places, and we both caught them.

As the sun went down, we tried something different.

Our first marbled rockfish of the trip aggressively hit our lures.

Quickly packing up, we briskly walked back to the ferry terminal and caught our ferry back to Hiroshima. Walking back towards the station, we headed to an okonomiyaki restaurant for another large savoury pancake washed down with a few beers.

Hiroshima style okonomiyaki is my favourite. It's all about layers!

With full stomachs, we headed back towards the station, but before we caught the shinkansen back to Osaka we headed to the Kyobashi River for a quick session targeting yellowfin goby. I caught some there when Lillian and I last visited Hiroshima, but sadly Ryan and I drew a blank on this occasion. Back on the shinkansen, we were back in Osaka in no time. It had been another enjoyable day trip, and Ryan and I only needed another two species to hit our target. Maybe we could get them the following day somewhere in Himeji after visiting the city's famous white castle?

Tight lines, Scott.

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Species hunting fun in Japan : Osaka.

The train journey from Kyoto to Osaka took less than an hour and as I was keen to do some fishing we dumped our bags at our apartment and jumped back onto the metro to visit a fishing spot nearby. It was pretty windy when we arrived and the sea was a little rough but despite this there were a few anglers out fishing which was encouraging. I didn't see anyone catching anything however and sadly I didn't catch anything either. Being the third occasion I'd fished in the sea in Japan and the third time I'd failed to catch anything I was beginning to feel a little bit frustrated. Before we went back to the apartment we went for a wander and accidentally stumbled upon a strange saltwater canal and decided to see if there were any fish in it. Almost straight away we could see some seabass and seabream patrolling but they swam off quickly when they spotted us as the water wasn't very deep and was very clear.

Some fish had made there way into this saltwater canal from the open sea via a pipe at one end.

As well as the larger fish there were the odd shoal of smaller fish swimming around but again they were very skittish and swam off when I got close or cast near them. Eventually I found one species that was a little less shy and showed some interest in my lures. They kept pecking away at my piece of angleworm and after dropping down to #18 hooks and smaller pieces of Gulp I eventually managed to catch my first Japanese saltwater species of the trip! I caught a few of them and before we left I doubled my saltwater species tally for the trip with a small Japanese whiting.

A rather weird looking little fish it had hard bony structures similar to a triggerfish or a file fish. It had three of these though, one at the front of its first dorsal fin and two underneath! Very useful for handling them! After a bit of research when we got back to our apartment I discovered it was a short snout tripodfish.

I recognised this species from the front of Isome packets. 

The next day we visited the Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan, the biggest aquarium in the world. It didn't disappoint with several incredibly massive tanks full of all sorts of fish from around the world. The whale sharks and sunfish were pretty amazing but oddly enough my favourite exhibit was a very small tank that had a few fringed blenny in it. Also known as the Japanese Warbonnet they were quite big as far as blennies go and have lots of frilly appendages all over their head and fins.

A bit like our Yarrell's blenny on steroids. Maybe I'd get lucky and catch one?

Whilst having lunch in the aquarium's cafe we spotted a few people fishing near the aquarium in a few different harbour areas so we headed back later in the afternoon with my fishing gear. Armed with some bait this time to increase my chances I caught loads of these slimy little fish with an insanely protrusile mouth on tiny little strips of squid.

I'd later discover this is a spot nape ponyfish. The amount of slime on them was quite incredible but not unpleasant.

As light began to fade I started fishing closer in to the harbour walls and much slower too. After a few more spot nape ponyfish I caught a couple of rockfish. I was very excited about catching these as they are a popular target species amongst Japanese anglers and I they were one of the species I was hoping to catch during the trip. I recognised the first one as a darkbanded rockfish, Mebaru in Japanese. I wasn't sure about the second one.

I was over the moon about catching this little darkbanded rockfish.

The second mystery rockfish.

To celebrate catching my first couple of rockfish we headed out after dark to Dotonbori for a wander around its busy neon lit streets, to try a local speciality, octopus balls and enjoy a few cold Asahi Super Dry.

Dotonbori is Osaka's busy nightlife area. It has lots of bright neon signs, tasty street food and lots of restaurants, shops and bars.

It also has lots of massive signs too. This onewas  for the freshly made octopus balls we were after. They're called Takoyaki in Japanese.

Takoyaki is octopus chunks cooked with some other ingredients in batter which is shaped into balls. Barbecue sauce, mayonnaise and bonito flakes usually finish them off although other toppings are available too. It's a good idea to let them cool before eating as the inside is gooey and can be like molten lava.

Back at the apartment that night I did a bit of research to try and identify my mystery rockfish but didn't have much luck so I text Adam Kirby back in the UK to see if he or one of his Japanese friends could help. It didn't take long for Adam to introduce me to Masa, an angler based in Osaka, who quickly identified my mystery catch as an oblong rockfish.

We carried on chatting for a while and he very kindly gave my a few places I could try for Japanese horse mackerel which funnily enough weren't too far away from the spot I'd caught the rockfish at. Fishing for these would have to wait though because the following day we were making use of our Japan rail pass by taking a trip west to visit Rabbit Island. I was quite exited about finding out if there were any fish there as well and had been given permission to do a fair amount of fishing while we were there.

Tight lines, Scott.