Hi guys,
The other day, I went back to my parents' house in my hometown. When I return home, I sometimes visit streams where I enjoyed fishing for yamame with my deceased father, for the purpose of tracing my memories with him. This time, I visited a stream in my mother's hometown and where I was born to catch yamame.
In this fishing, there was another theme besides fishing in the stream that flows through my mother's hometown. It is to enjoy both cycling and fishing. This time, I decided to use a mountain bike that had been left in my parent's garage for about 25 years. As expected, the tires and tubes must have become useless, so I bought new ones and replaced them.
After changing the tubes and tires and washing the whole bike, I tried to ride it. I noticed some serious problems with this bike. The first problem is that the rear derailleur did not work. Luckily the front derailleur worked. Another problem was that the rubber handle grips were decaying. When I held the grips, the melted rubber clung to my hands.
I had to replace the wire cables and replace the grips to use this bike comfortable, but I couldn't do it. My hometown is a small town, so there is no bike shop that stocks these parts. I was going trout fishing so I had to climb uphill. It seems that there is no choice but to endure with top gear x inner chain ring. I covered the melted rubber grips with packing tape.
It was a perfect day for biking and fishing with pleasant weather. In Japan, it is customary to celebrate the growth of young girls at the beginning of March and the growth of young boys at the beginning of May. And from April to the beginning of May, it is customary for families with young boys to put a kind of windsock called “Koinobori (鯉のぼり,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koinobori)” in their garden. This custom is gradually becoming obsolete, and I rarely see it these days, but I found it for the first time in a long time during the cycling + fishing trip this time. "Koinobori" is a windsock that resembles a carp swimming up a waterfall, and is a lucky charm for young boys to grow up strong.
I have visited this stream only once. That's over 35 years ago and I was a high school student. I remember catching a yamame with bait at that time. This time I fished in the upstream area from that time. After reaching the destination, I was surprised to find a very beautiful stream there! As I was preparing to start fishing, an angler called out to me. He said he just finished fishing here. Looks like I'll have to endure tough fishing...
Shortly after I started fishing, I was once again surprised to find such a beautiful stream so close to where I could reach by bicycle from my parents' house. Unfortunately, the hunch I had before I started fishing turned out to be true. I found a few yamame that were frightened and ran away while I was moving, but my fly didn't attract any yamame...
I didn't enjoy fishing at all, but as I moved upstream, I noticed that the stream turned into a rocky and beautiful landscape. I went fishing this time during the consecutive holidays called Golden Week in Japan. Fishing pressure is high at this time of year as most rivers are flooded with anglers. I would like to enjoy fishing and scenery here again at another time.
Thank you for looking.