Japan Cast 2018: Ep.2, Hokkaido

0:00Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Tenkara Cast where you're going to be listening to a Japan cast where I take my podcast on the road as I travel around Japan in search of Tenkara. In Search of Tenkara is a tagline or a title kind of thing that I came up with years ago because I started doing this pilgrimage to Japan. This is my ninth time visiting the country. And, you know, I wasn't sure exactly what it is that I was looking for. So before I went on a trip, I was asking myself, okay, what is it that I'm trying to learn? What is it that I want to bring to our readers, our listeners in America and around the world? and you know I realized that I was really searching for what exactly I wanted to get out of Tenkara. Was it simplicity? Was it a super efficient way of catching a lot of fish? Was it more than that?

1:04So here I am back in Japan, night trip. This time I'm visiting Hokkaido to start and I'm here in search of Tenkara. Right now I'm sitting in a hotel room on the shores of Lake Akan. So Lake Akan is on the far north eastern part of Hokkaido. It's pretty much pretty far up northeast in Japan. It's almost as far northeast as you can get. And there's a few lakes around Lake Hakan. And this is in the Kushiro prefecture, or not prefecture, but in the Kushiro district, if you will. So Kushiro is the name of the airport that I actually flew into three days ago. and then we just kind of be we head a little bit northwest of there and we'd be hanging around this mountain area that really reminds me a little bit of the eastern part northeastern part of the United States coincidentally or maybe not coincidentally you know that's usually how geography or geology kind of works oftentimes in the eastern part of countries you might have older mountains that are a little bit not as tall, that are a little bit more rounded, a little bit more worn out. And, you know, this kind of reminds me a little bit of some country in like Vermont area, for example. We have, there are a couple of big mountains around here, but it doesn't give you this jaw-dropping mountain kind of views like we have in Colorado, for example, where we have relatively new mountains. Here we have more like a rolling kind of or rounded kind of mountains.

2:45And you know we stayed in a town for a couple of days. We stayed in a town a little bit northeast of where I am right now. We stayed in the town of Tshikaga. And from there we kind of did a bunch of little trips to different rivers and streams and just been exploring the area trying to find large fish and different types of fish. So the fish that we've been catching here the most have been rainbow trout. I know it's an introduced species. I do have to research a little bit more on when they got introduced here. But my understanding is that rainbow trout tend to be introduced species in this part. Although I wouldn't be surprised if they are not. Because you know we do get them in california and there's a pacific coast that you know both uh countries share but i believe they're introduced species here i'll have to research a little bit more and then we've also been catching different types of char we caught a couple of iguana which is you know like a brook trout almost we also caught some dollivardens you know over here they call those fish, Oshokurokama, Oshorokama, sorry, in Japanese is a hard language, and I'm going to be talking a little bit about that in a second, Oshorokama, Oshorokoma, there I am butchering, Oshorokoma, that's the most complicated fish name I've run into in Japan, Oshorokoma, and that's a Dali Varden, and we've also caught some of the white spotted char, and those are the amemasu. So we just kind of used the town of Tashikaga as a home base for a couple of days, explored a bunch with a guide and then today we moved hotels. We're now in the Lake Akan area and that's after a long day of fishing in a lot of rain. So the town of Tashikaga is pretty small you know it's a 7 000 uh person town uh again it reminded me of some of the kind of smallish middle mid-sized towns in uh in new england kind of area uh very green very verdant uh there are farms that run right into the into the foothills and then the hills kind of start and then it's all forest from there so it's really beautiful uh burden kind of area hokkaido is kind of like a you know known for being a little bit more wild uh less populated but there are a lot of farms here there's a lot more space open space available here in Hokkaido I think than a lot of other parts of Japan so those tend to get filled up with farms we've seen corn we've seen chives and green onions uh what else did we see um wheat a lot of wheat here as well So that's a few of the things that we saw growing in this area.

5:42In the last couple of days, you know, right now it's summertime, June 27th, so I guess officially summer. But it does feel a little bit more like a really nice spring day, much in the United States. You know, it kind of reminds me of weather in California when it's a little rainier. So the last couple of days, the temperatures have probably been in the 70s for the most part, like high 60s, low 70s. Warm in the sun, kind of chilling in the shade a little bit. And for two days, it threatened to rain. You know, it's kind of cloudy a little bit. But we avoided rain until today. And then today, the luge came down. so for the last couple of days we had terrific fishing weather today not so much we still did fish and I'll talk a little bit about that so kind of you know it is rainy season here in Japan so sometime in June usually the rainy season starts June early July so we've been kind of very lucky actually that we had some good weather with us the water um you know has been very nice um we have run into a huge variety of types of waters here not unlike any really any part that has trout in the united states uh if you drive a little bit you find some um very tight mountain streams you go a little bit lower you find some of the the main rivers you know some of the the primary rivers that can be 60 80 feet wide and they can feel just like something in Montana so the variety of waters here has been quite incredible I'll be uploading some photos in a day or two from my better camera I have to get a card reader before I can do those the better photos but you'll see there's a huge variety of water we've fished small and big we've also fished very clear water we've also fished murky water we've also in terms of bugs huge variety of bugs like anywhere we've seen a little bit of a caddis hatch we've seen mayflies going off small and large so a huge variety of things and that's one thing where oftentimes people think of Japan and they think of small fish, small streams, not a lot of bugs, very clear water. And yes, there's a huge abundance of that. But part of, I think, of what I wanted to be here for and try to document on the trip is focusing on the similarities between waters that we can find in Japan and the fish that we can find in Japan and of bugs and the kind of rivers and fish and that kind of thing that we can find in other countries because they're not that different.

8:41They really are pretty similar. And I kind of had a thought today, you know, because one of the streams that I fished reminded me of something that I fished out in Wisconsin, actually, in a driftless area. So this morning we left the hotel at around 8, actually 7.30. Went to a little stream, it was raining a bunch, so we didn't expect to fish a lot. I actually wanted to be capturing videos, but they insisted that I fish, so I obliged. And the stream really reminded me of something in the dripless area. And then I kind of had this thought of just a little tip. Try to go fishing in as many places as you can, because I think fishing is all about experience. and the more experience you have the more you can apply your past experiences to new situations new locations and so forth without feeling like you're learning something completely different of course easier said than done but i was very happy that not too long ago i got to fish that stream in the dripless area and i got in today and well i was like wow this reminds me a lot of that And I fished it just like it.

9:53And of course, I caught fish as well. I'm not saying you have to have those experiences, but just something that occurred to me that having a wide experience in a vast variety of conditions and waters can come in handy. So what else is there to talk about? So one thing that actually has been bothering me a lot, and it's kind of hard for me to say, but I think a lot of people have already noticed that, and I wanted to bring it up today, is essentially just how poorly the Japanese anglers treat the fish. And that's being a little bit of a downer on this trip, as it usually is. But I think it's just kind of becoming more and more infuriating every time I come and I go fishing with anglers. And I'm so used to being in an environment, being with a group of people that really honor the trout that they catch.

10:57You know, they'll wet their hand before handling them. They'll bring them in quickly. you know oftentimes just barbless hooks release the fish very quickly and really we try to do everything we can in the people that with the people that i fish the most with to minimize any harm to fish and i come to japan and it just absolutely breaks my heart every time and i've tried to speak to anglers here but you know it is just something that is just it's pretty sad you And I think it's kind of an interesting, how can I put it? I think it goes hand in hand with how people usually think of the fish. Usually they think of the fish as food. That's why there's so much catch and keep in Japan. And that's why so many streams in Japan don't have a whole lot of fish. but then you know it kind of translates into the micro kind of aspects of it where even people that that are catching and releasing fish they just don't really seem to know any better or don't care I'm not sure what it is but every time they catch a fish doesn't seem to matter how small they are you know sometimes they'll just catch a fish and they'll keep it on hook forever trying to take a photo and I keep bagging them please release fast release quick and sometimes they hear it helps when I'm filming when I have the camera rolling I tell them please release quick so that I can try to get at least the footage without seeming like they're absolutely torturing the fish but they kind of are so that's it's a little bit of a pet project of mine to kind of work on catch and release in Japan, trying to promote that when I come here. And I think I, I think I've done that for the last several years, trying to kind of educate people on how to be better about treating fish. And that's one thing that I have loved having the opportunity to host people from Japan in America, and just kind of show them better ways to honor the fish so that the fish are going to live another day so that they can catch them again and so forth.

13:10that's it for my little rant you know it's a little sad if you have noticed a little bit more nasal than usual it's because I cut a code maybe that's bringing out that negativity in me but that's what the little sniffling that you're going to be hearing is so hopefully this doesn't last very long because I have a long trip ahead of me I've got another 10 days or so or actually just a week, a little over a week. So hopefully I get over this because I got more travels and I got more stuff to create for you. Another thing that has been a little tough this time has really been the language barrier. And it's always been there. I mean, this is the ninth time I'm coming here to learn Tenkara. I'm always spending time with people that don't speak a lot of English. about half of the time I have come here on my own so I have I have had to learn how to communicate and I speak a tiny little bit of Japanese I really don't speak much at all half of the time I've come on my own half of the times my wife or a friend of mine has tagged along but I kind of feel like this time has been a little bit challenging because it's it's been myself and three other people for the most part here in Hokkaido. Myself, Dr. Ishigaki, Mr. Nakayama, and then we had a guide, Mr. Murakami, joining us. And I communicate perfectly well with Dr. Ishigaki. I know enough Japanese and he knows enough English that we get ourselves understood and we seem to have good chemistry. When he does speak Japanese, he speaks a little bit simpler, simpler words that are oftentimes part of my vocabulary. But the other two people that are part of the trip probably don't have a lot of experience fishing or hanging out with foreigners. And for some reason, like I, especially with Mr. Nakayama, I can barely understand a word he ever says. And it's so interesting to me because in the past I've run into a lot of people and sometimes I can communicate really well with some people, oftentimes not as well, but with him it's like it's really hard.

15:26So that's, you know, one person in a group. And then a guy that we had with us, kind of similar when he spoke Japanese, really hard to understand him. So for three days it's been a little bit more, I've been feeling a little bit more isolated, I guess, than I usually do. and I have all kinds of questions that I really wish this time I had a translator with me because it's being a little hard to ask him to find out but I will have a day and a half of fishing with Dr. Ishigaki again when we return to the main part of Japan and my wife is going to be tagging along so she's going to help ask a lot of questions and I do have a ton of questions for Dr. Ishigaki that I hope to get answered. So I'll try to make a kind of interview with him about several things, one of which is what I've been noticing is that Dr. Ishigaki is getting his tenkara more and more complicated.

16:28And that's been interesting. I'll leave that for another episode for another day because I want to understand a little bit more of what's going on. but you know like all of a sudden his fly box is having nymphs and dry flies and part of it might be going to a different area people told him that you know that's kind of what he needed but i kind of had a suspicion that his trips to the u.s and people giving him all these flies and and the fact that now he's retired and he's fishing a ton maybe he's got a little too much time on his hand he's complicating his fishing a little too much and it's a little bit hard for me to watch that because it's like we've been to places where he's insisting that I change flies and I was like what we've been fishing together for 10 years and you've never asked me to change flies you've always had this fly is okay and and that's been pretty tough to kind of to deal with it's a new feeling uh having my teacher that told me not to use a bunch of flies telling me to change flies um and same thing kind of goes with the guide so the guide that has been taking us around he's not a tenkara specific guide he's a fly fishing guide and we've been getting to different waters and he's insisting that i use whatever flies and in reality like oftentimes you know i'll take their fly what i've learned one little insight that i've had is never say no to a fly and if somebody's offering you a fly, take it. And there's a lot of different reasons for that. First of all, you know, you want to listen to them. You want to give them, you know, the, you want to understand where they're coming from. You may pick up a fly that really is making a difference. So never say no to a fly.

18:15And I've been doing that. I've been trying all kinds of flies that they throw at me because I don't want to be rude. And it's really very, very tricky here in Japan, especially when you don't speak the language, it's really tricky to go against, you know, the word of your teacher or guide. I mean, the people here are kind of educated since they're kids not to define, not to disagree with a teacher or somebody who's trying to show them around and that kind of thing. So the times that I've tried to disagree, I've noticed it's really tough. There's like some kind of tension that immediately rises and I don't want to be you know very disagreeable so I've been saying yes to all the flies but I'll try those flies for a little while and then maybe I'll catch a fish with them maybe not but after a little while I'll change flies and I'll use use my usual Sakasa Kebari you know style Tenkara fly and I'll catch fish as well and then and I'll make sure to tell them like oh I changed flies and I I caught it on a Sakasa Kebari again I have not really seen a difference in the numbers of fish that I was catching with the flies that they're throwing at me versus what I was using versus what they were catching. It's been really very, very consistent among the three of us and with whatever fly I've been using. So I'm still a very strong believer that technique is very key. As I think I might have mentioned before, like I'm not going to say that one fly is going to work all the time, but about 99% of the time is my estimate so far. And this trip to Hokkaido did not break that. I'm going to have to understand a little bit more why Dr. Ishigaki is kind of starting to change flies a little bit. I'm afraid that people have taken him to the dark side. And I'm really curious to see what's going on because it's not making a difference um and that's another thing too like i'm um it's been very interesting being guided around uh on this trip uh it's the first time that i'm coming to japan that we're actually working with a guide to take take us to different waters um dr Ishigaki has been to this area a couple of times but he doesn't know it a whole lot um and we're relying on the expertise of a guide to show us around because we don't have a ton of time i mean it's only three four days of fishing. So we really have to maximize that. And a guide really adds a lot of value. But at the same time, I'm really not used to it. And a guide didn't know me, doesn't really know where I'm coming from kind of thing. So it's, I'm finding very challenging. He might just be that particular guide. But I've been finding very, very challenging to be guided around being told to change flies when I really don't believe I need to.

21:15And then sometimes being pointed to waters that are super obvious. And that bugs me a little bit because I don't know if it's condescension or what it is, but it's like, I know that's the water. It's really, really clear. That's the main pool in this whole run. So that's kind of being a little bothersome. And then I think getting around with a guy too, where we really just don't stop when I wish I could. We don't fish when I wish I could. I'm just not used to that. I usually have a ton of independence. Usually I have my own car or I'm with somebody, just one other person and it's easy to ask to stop, but it's a small group and a guide makes it very tough. So I kind of feel like I missed a few opportunities to get some nice footage when I was driving around, but it's okay. I'm learning how to be guided and that's important. But I think Hokkaido, it's one of those places kind of like Patagonia, like in Argentina, in Chile, in Alaska.

22:21It's one of those places that I believe lends itself super well to coming here, renting a car and just driving around and figuring the streams out because you see them on a map and yeah, you might waste a little bit of time and places that don't have a ton of fish. But public access in Japan is incredible. You can drive on the little roads through farms. We've done that a couple of times. You can walk through farms pretty much anywhere you want to. It's very, very rare to see a stream that is closed off. You can stop anywhere to see a stream, walk a little bit through some areas, and you can fish them. So it's one of those places I really want to come back to. This is my first trip here. One day I'm going to come back here, rent a car for a little bit more of an extended period of time and go explore. Because I think that's going to be a ton of fun. And next time my wife might join me and have a little less communication problems as well. One thing Hokkaido to be aware of is that there is a lot of possibility of bears.

23:29We have not seen a single bear so far. but mostly that's probably because everybody in my group except for myself carries a little bell on their belt so the bell is constantly ringing and I'm actually really happy to be in a hotel room right now taking a break from the bell clinging clinking noise it's actually kind of started getting to me at the end it's like really kind of annoying but I guess I can say kept the bears away because we didn't see a single one and that's usually a concern here um bears so be aware of that if you do come fishing if you go explore on your own uh and the japanese bears can be very vicious i'm not sure if they have the same bears here i'm guessing that they do um the their the japanese bears at least in the honshu in the main island of japan they tend to be a little bit smaller but very aggressive bears and I remember this one time I was visiting Margaret's my wife's grandparents in Yamagata and that was actually my first time fishing in Japan I believe it was or maybe it was my second time but we were visiting with her grandparents her grandfather took us out fishing one day we came back and in the news that evening there was a report of three people that were just about, I think it was like 20 kilometers away in a different hilltop, and they were looking for chestnuts. They were dropping off the trees, but the three people got attacked by one bear, and they all got pretty badly mauled, and that was really not that far from us at all, and we, you know, that bear could have been 20 kilometers southwest, and he would have been right where we were. So we were very lucky. The bears here tend to be aggressive, but little bells, I guess, keep them away. So I think that's it for today. I'm going to shut off here. I'm going to go to the onsen right now. It's around six o'clock right now, my time here, six o'clock in the afternoon, evening. I'm going to go to the onsen for a little bit. There's a lot of hot springs, pretty much like the rest of Japan. If you drill a hole in the ground deep enough, you're going to find hot water. So a lot of places, especially places that have more visitors will have hot springs. And there's one just downstairs. So I'm going to go there, chill out for a little bit. I am staying in a tatami style room and I've got a nice tea set here on the table in front of my microphone. So I'm going to go use the onsen, have a little bit of tea and then go out for dinner with the rest of the crew in a little bit. Let me know if you have any questions about japan uh anything you'd like to learn i'll try my best to uh to go research it to try to find it to ask people around uh or just let me know if you're enjoying this podcast uh if it's something that i should do it again every time that i come here uh but that's it today if you want to leave a comment at tenkarausa.com forward slash podcast just look up the Japancast page where it's going to have all the episodes that I'm posting and I'm going to try to upload some photos there as soon as I'm uploading this episode. Any questions, any comments, anything you want to share, please post in there. Thanks so much for tuning in. Hopefully this was not a waste of your time. Hopefully you're enjoying this and I'll probably be posting my next podcast episode around July 1st, where I'm going to have had at least one day of fishing with Jeremy. So stay tuned for that. That's going to be from the Gifu Prefecture of Japan, where I'm usually used to fishing, although I am checking out a new area. So we'll see how that goes. Hopefully we'll catch a lot of fish there. All right, guys, until next time on the Tenkara podcast and on the Japan cast. And I'd like to extend a special thanks to Niko Gawa Takenobu for allowing us to use his music in his podcast and our videos. This song is called Deeper Than a Vine and you can check out his music at takenobumusic.com or also look up our new playlist in Spotify and Kata Tunes and you'll find a lot of his songs in there.

27:57Wow, a little update from the onsen, the hot spring. I just about scalded my legs raw. I've never experienced something as hot as that before. I do consider myself a little bit of a hot spring veteran. It's one of my favorite things to do when I come to Japan multiple times, sometimes in a day. And I do have a hot tub at home. And the thing about the onsen hot springs is that first you clean yourself, you shower or kind of wash yourself. And then every time you step into the pool, the onsen pool, it always feels very hot. And then you kind of give it a few seconds, stuff it out, and then it starts feeling good. You start sitting into it, using your body into it, and it always feels great.

28:59I made a mistake of just kind of going with my legs in, and I try to tough it off for a few seconds, and my legs are red right now. Never experienced something that hot. My experience with hot water tells me that that was probably about 110 degrees or 108 at least, which would be like 42, 43 Celsius. Really, really scalding hot. And I just immediately hopped out of it when I realized that it was not going to get any better. And I found a spigot to allow me to turn the cold water into it and cool it off. Yeah, I've never had that happen before. So be aware, be careful. And before you ask me which hotels I'm staying, if I have any recommendations, I should say that I don't. Neither of the hotels that we've stayed here in Hokkaido have been very good. So, you know, just do some researching online and you're probably better off.

29:59There's plenty of places to stay. The shores of the lake here, Lake Ankan, are full of hotels. So that should not be a problem at all to find a place to stay. All right. Until next time on the Tank Out of Cast.