logs

Day 90: Monday, October 5, 2026

Today, my guide (Sapporo Streams) arrived and we went fishing on the Akan River. This was the first time I saw other fly fishermen fishing the same stretch of river, and not only that, it was basically four people lined up one run after another. As I got closer, I could see why: there were a ton of big rainbow trout visible in the water. I started getting a little dubious about how good the fishing was going to be consequently, as from my experience fishing other rivers in Hokkaido, big trout tend to be spooked the moment they see any human, let alone multiple humans casting heavy lures/lines at their face over and over again, day after day.

We waded a bit away from the other fishermen–apparently most Japanese fly fishermen rarely explore beyond the initial spot. Around one river bend, and there was basically nobody left to bother us. The river itself was beautiful–the sun wasn’t the most cooperative, but the onsen water hitting the river mixed with the cold air meant that steam was coming off the surface of the river throughout the morning. Moments when sunlight peeked through the clouds and illuminated the fall leaves on the trees were fleeting but quite special.

It really didn’t take long before I caught my first rainbow in a run, nymphing for the first time in what felt like ages (the Japanese guides in Tokachi are lowkey dry fly only fly fishermen). I think they’re rather obsessed in that sense. It wasn’t a crazy trout, probably in that 35cm range, but definitely a solid fish all things considered. I was pretty happy catching it!

Next, we went further up the river, where there was another deep pool in the middle of the river. I’m starting to learn where the highest probability spots where trout might be are. For nymphing, I like to figure out where faster currents either converge or by some mechanism (underwater rock, large divot in the ground) slow down. The faster currents act as a conveyor belt for food, and the trout hang out in the slow water because it doesn’t actually take much energy to stay in place. Once identified, I like to cast just ahead of said pool, so that by the time the nymph sinks to the bottom, the current has just carried it into said pool. The advantage of these deeper faster pools with turbulent surfaces is that the trout also don’t spook easily.

Anywho, at said spot, I hooked into a really nice 40cm+ rainbow. Now I started to see firsthand that the Akan Lake/River complex held some giant trout. I think catching a trout of this size would’ve been the biggest fish of the day on any other day. My feelings were confirmed yet again on the next stretch of river, where I caught another fish! Overall, wading was such a crazy experience. I would be walking through the river when I come face to face with a giant trout right at my feet at what felt like a distance at which I could just lunge and grab them. These fish were so desensitized to human presence, probably due to the combination of immense fishing pressure but also catch and release only regulations! Bait fishermen are also not allowed (thankfully) although lure fishermen are (boo!). It really made me think about how good fisheries could be if there were more spots that were catch and release only. At least this meant that people followed regulations, which is pretty expected for Japan!

We next moved up to another stretch of river, where there were several giant trout stacked in soft water next to the top of the run. Here’s where I got to apply what I learned while fly fishing in Tokachi! We used a dry dropper rig here (on top was a grasshopper dry fly and at the bottom was a nymph). I cast right in front of one of the trout, and watched him come up and eat it! Another big one, and this one was extra satisfying to catch on my new fly rod/reel, plus also on dry fly! I’m sure they see fishermen throw dry flies at them all day, so getting a cast good enough to get them to eat was awesome.

At this point, we decided to start heading back, but my guide actually slipped and fell in the water! We got back to the car, and he took off his waders–this was when I realized truly how much water was in his waders. For waders, you also wear what’s called a wading belt to stop water from flooding your waders in essentially that situation (without it, your waders could just instantly flood and drown you as there’s no way for you to get those things off quickly). I can only imagine how much water may have gotten in without said belt.

Took a quick lunch and coffee break while the waders were drying. The only food I’d been able to eat were the buffet meals at my hotel, which was a fancy hotel but honestly I wasn’t a huge fan of the food (Japan has spoiled me). But this place was more of an izakaya vibe, and it was the exact type of food that I had been craving for the past few days. In my head I decided I was going to come back (every night previously I had tried to go to some restaurant in the area but they were always closed or reserved or something). Small towns like this are surprisingly annoying about things like this. But I’ve also had amazing food in small towns too and ran into similar problems in bigger towns (e.g. Niseko). Anyways, Katsudon was amazing.

In the afternoon, we went to the same stretch of river but walked the other direction. Around the bend there’s not much fishable water, but then as you walk further you get to this nice long flat run that seemed great for dry fly. I got to showcase some of my improved fly casting skills here, honestly had a good time just walking and fishing.

As we were tying on a new fly, we heard a sound that almost sounded like an old man grunting while exercising? I looked into the distance and saw what looked like a shirtless man doing pullups? But then the white skin colored mass turned and stopped moving. It was absolutely still, so still that it made me doubt if it had moved in the first place. But after I told myself, nah that was definitely moving earlier, I started examining it more closely, when I saw four furry legs and a large brown mass. Asked my guide to come look at it, as if that was indeed what I thought it was, we could be in big trouble. My guide looked at it for 5 seconds and was like “yup that’s a bear” and we walked away briskly. As we got further away, we saw another Japanese fly fisherman walking through the river, just where we/the bear was! We yelled at him, waited for him to (slowly) get to us just to be safe, and we all left after that. I was wondering when the first time I was going to see a brown bear in Hokkaido, kinda glad it finally happened (thankfully at a very safe distance)!

Day 91: Tuesday, October 6, 2026

The best day of fishing of all time. It was certainly the best day of fishing that my guide has seen! This day is going to be hard to beat in my lifetime, even if I go fishing all the time. Just the raw number of giant fish I caught, the overall experience, and breaking my personal best rainbow all in one sitting.

We started later on account of the overnight rain (8:30) just to gauge weather conditions and also fish in a little more comfortable conditions. When we finally got to the spot, we saw a ton of cars but honestly not many fly fishermen. While we were getting set up, I saw a ton of bugs running around (kamemushi, grasshoppers, etc) which was a really good sign for fish activity today. And of course right before we got to the river, my guide realized we forgot to get our fishing passes for the day. Oops!

So round 2, we’re back at the river. There’s actually a tour group or something there, where there’s one Japanese guide and a bunch of Americans(?) fly fishing that stretch of river. One guy maybe has some experience, the others were clearly total beginners, but all of them definitely were just starting out. Again, I was sorta expecting that the fish would be spooked by the large number of them slapping fly line on the surface of the water, but we managed to access a deeper pool that none of them were fishing.

For nymphing, I took off the indicator again (so only sightline) which I feel like is the fly fishing equivalent of taking off training wheels. After running my nymph through the pool a few times, I figured out how the current and depths worked, and I decided how I wanted to cast/let the nymph drift. Essentially the current ran super fast into this deep pocket before crashing into a 90 degree turn in the river (including some fallen logs), so there was a bit of current bouncing back from the far bank, creating a second current that looped back into the main one. Where that ricochet current hit the main current was where slack water existed, and it also happened to be the deepest part of the pool, right next to a very steep dropoff. I let my nymph drift downstream in the main current, bounce with the ricocheting current, and settle into that deep slack pool. I watched it slowly drift, and then the line ever so slightly straightened out and stopped. That was all the signal I needed–fish on! The moment I hooked into the fish, even before it started struggling, I knew this was something much larger than anything I’d caught before. Just the sheer lack of movement when I set the hook told me that this thing had mass. When it started running with the current, all the bad memories of lost fish in the past came flooding into my mind, and I maintained tension in the line like my life depended on it, frantically reeling up line to match the speed at which the fish was running. The fish turned in the water, revealing a big white flash deep in the pool, at which point my guide also realized how big this fish was. Landing that fish was one of the happiest moments of my life, not just because I had been searching for that 60cm milestone for such a long time, but also because I knew that I could not have caught that fish even a few days ago. That fish was insane, I think most fly fishermen probably go their entire lives without catching a trout that large.

The day just kept going, I hooked into 4 more giant rainbows in that same spot, each of which would’ve been my personal best rainbow on any other day (50cm+). And to think the group was right there fishing the same spot too! It felt good to know I had progressed past beginner status and was now capable of catching these trout.

We went further down river, where I caught a large iwana. I was told that 30cm iwana (shaku) were also considered a trophy fish (it’s hard for them to grow that large), and in that first spot I managed to catch one! The fish didn’t stop there, I caught another 2 rainbows, both of which fought quite hard for their size. I was utterly convinced that last one was going to be 60cm as well, but I think he was just particularly feisty.

We took a lunch break at a ramen stop before going to the lake for some new experiences. There, I mostly practiced throwing streamers while enjoying the lake scenery. There was this sandy slope around the mouth of the river, but at the end, the sand drops off into oblivion. I took maybe one step too much and almost slipped off into the abyss (the sand didn’t have very good traction to help backpedal). That could’ve been like really bad.

While fishing, we could see big fish rising around us. Then, all of a sudden, I saw a fish dolphin through the air as it jumped out of the water for something. For a split second I could see the entire body of the fish in the air, and it was utterly massive. That silhouette is burned forever into my mind as one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. And the jumps didn’t end there, I watched that fish soar through the air, chasing it futilely with my streamer/dry fly. I swapped to a streamer that Oku had given to me a week ago (it’s called the Alexandra fly, he gave it to me because my name sorta matched and I had caught several nice trout with it). After a very short while, I cast at the big fish rising, and hooked into a fish! I could tell it wasn’t quite a monster, but it was definitely a nice sized fish. And as it came in, we could see it wasn’t a rainbow. In fact, it was the last species on my list that I hadn’t caught yet–amemasu! Or maybe technically iwana since it never went to the ocean? In any case, this fish felt almost as cool as the giant rainbow from earlier. Just another bucket list fish that I had been chasing after this entire trip, and the memory of standing out in the lake with all the giant fish jumping around me with the backdrop of the mountains in the distance is a tough one to beat in any number of lifetimes!

I celebrated by finally making it to the izakaya we ate at the previous day. Finally, a restaurant that serves good food that’s actually open when it says it’s open.

Day 92: Wednesday, October 7, 2026

Big travel day today, although it was supposed to be a rest day too. Spent most of the day driving, stopping at an old kissaten where I did some work (logistical stuff) for a few hours. I really like the vibe of kissaten, it’s definitely more of an older Japanese person thing, so perhaps a laptop is out of place there, but the retro style food/coffee is really nice to enjoy while working. It’s a very different vibe from the clean, modern interiors of cafes in NYC, and honestly I kinda like the old newspaper/slightly faded colorful posters and magazines vibes vs a sterile cafe interior. It’s a nice change of pace.

Driving was really cool, tons of wide open fields connected to farms while watching the sunset. After the sun set, the sky turned this purplish silver color. With giant mountains in the foreground, it was honestly such a cool vibe to drive into knowing that I would soon be hunting giant trout in the same mountains/rivers. Again, one of those imageries that is really hard to convey through text and photos/videos.