The Shokuryoshi Experiment
Time: 4:00pm - 6:30pm*
Weather Conditions: Overcast skies, with air temp around 90F and a slight breeze upstream.
Water Conditions: Gin-clear water, flows a little high, and water temperatures around 66F.
*A portion of this time was split using a different method of fishing as part of an experiment related to the Shokuryoshi Experiment. During this session, I fished with a tenkara rod for 2 hours.
** Edit: The different method of fishing mentioned above was done with a keiryu rod. I have since released a post regarding that experiment, which you can find here - "Supplemental"
It has been a busy month, and this day I was able to break away for a bit and revisit a stretch of river that I had written about in a previous post, which I'll link below...
After getting my gear together, I walked downstream, along the highway, until I reached the end of the access on my side of the river. The flows were a bit high, and I wasn't prepared to cross over the river to try to fish any of the runs or pocket water below this point. Besides, I had plenty of water between me and where I had parked.
The water temps were reading a little warmer than I would have liked, so I decided to skip over the long run and check the temps at the bottom of a stretch of pocket water with plenty of white water.
The temps there weren't much different. I wasn't sure how this session would pan out. Last time I encountered warm water on this river I had a bit of trouble locating fish that were eager to eat. You can read about that experience in the previous journal entry post linked below...
I figured I would start picking apart the pockets in this section, then move up to the next deep run. This pattern would repeat a few times as I worked my way back to the car.
Placing casts into different parts of the pockets, I finally found a fish in a section where two different incoming currents intersected. It wasn't a big fish, but I would take the little victory and adapt the presentation and placement to try to replicate the results. Unfortunately, I wouldn't find another fish in this section.
Moving out of the pocket water and into the run above it, I experimented for about 15 minutes with trying to pick up a fish out of the deeper water. There was success, but this catch is not recorded in my numbers and will be talked about in a later post.
I hit another section of pocket water, and struggled to find any feeding fish in the small, turbulent spaces between the boulders. But, I carried on casting and presenting the fly with optimism.
Near the top of this section, I hooked into and landed the biggest fish of the day. Even at that, the fish was maybe 8"-10" in length - so no monster, by any means.
After circumventing a sketchy section and finding water I could wade in again, I experimented for another 15 minutes in another long run of calm water. Again, this will come up in a later post - but there were not fish caught here.
The final section is where the middle path used to be, but with high water, I'm not so sure if it's still there. I fished my way into that section, and up to the top of the pocket water here. It was more open, with pockets bordering on becoming pools in the lower portion. In this final stretch I picked up two more catches, bringing the total of fish caught on the tenkara rod to 4 for the 2 hour session.