I was resigned to a fall and winter of reading and fly tying but luck had me leafing through a copy of Fly Rodders magazine again and in it I found reference to a special opening of fishing (catch and release only) on the Arakawa in northwest Saitama.

I've been going there quite often since October. Only last week did the weather finally warm up since Christmas and New Year's -- enough to make a trip to the stream appealing.

I started fishing big wet flies like I'd seen other anglers using. They seem to be fond of big two-handed salmon rods and big wet flies, which is puzzling to me. Seems unnecessary on a medium sized stream. Anyway, I didn't have much luck, so I took a lunch break for some apple struedel, smoked cheese and a bottle of grapey wine from Yamanashi.

Tipsy on the wine, I waded out again. Then I had some luck. I started noticing little sipping rises to something on the far bank. I looked down into the water to see what might be hatching and after a moment, I saw hundreds of little midge pupal husks and some midges floating on the water here and there. There were even a few mayflies flitting about, if my eyes weren't deceiving me...

I tied on some finer tippet and a tiny #20 Syl's Midge and within an hour I caught two nice Rainbow Trout, one about 16inches, maybe the biggest I've ever landed. Both were released in the water with a little homemade bamboo and stainless pin release tool I hacked together (worked nicely). Here's a picture of the first trout...

filtered version