Kuma Eging & Fishing: Day 4 Japan

The night before Whiskey fest meant that both Kotaro and myself were going to get a sleep in, today we were going to head up into the mountains to have a look for some Black Bass (Large Mouth), it was about a 1.5hour drive from the Gan Craft office in Tanabe. Kotaro picked me up at 1200 and yes I was feeling seedy to say the least, I do not normally drink so smashing Japanese whiskey the night before killed any enthusiasm that I had from the day before.

Gan Craft FJ Cruiser

As I had a sleep in I missed breakfast at the hotel so we went to Dom Dom Burger for lunch, it is a bit like Hungry Jacks but smaller, I have to say it was not very nice, for me it is difficukt to find fault with any type of burger but these ones were very much like the service station microwave ones. I knew i would be in heart burn hell for the rest of the day. The Gan Craft office was only a short walk away so we wandered down to get stuff ready for the trip to the hills. When we got there, i saw my fave Gan Craft toy yet, its a current model FJ Cruiser mocked up as a Police Patrol car, big lift big tyres and looked great, it also boasted one of the best rod racks I had seen in a car and when you are the Gan Craft car you need to store rods.


Rod storage in the FJ Cruiser

All gear ready Mr Hiraiwa and Mr Yoshida lead the way in the Cruiser while we followed behind, now for those of you who have never been here before the roads up in the mountains better resemble goat tracks with bitumen laid on top, they wind up through the rock crevisis and for about 15 minutes I saw nothing both moss covered rock walls, very steep and very windey, the forest areas are green all the way through even in the height of summer.

Mr Hirawia and Mr Yoshida looking at bass

We arrived in a tiny village high up in the mountains and made our way on foot down towards the river, at this spot is a suspension bridge so you can look for bass from above and pick your spots. The water was amazing, it was an aquamarine color and it almost lit up when the sun hit it, you could see the bottom for about 300 meters each way, the word crystal clear did no justice, from above we could see some good bass so we venture down to the water to attempt the bass attack. I am not very confident using a bait caster so after a few casts to practice we went to where we could see the fish, I was using a Jointed Claw, with the water this clear you could see the lure working and it was just like watching a lazy fish making its way accross the river. Having such clear water was going to pose another problem, if I could see the fish then they can see me, we saw many bass but converting them to a hook up was becoming a task, they were very spooky, even when you had a perfect natural drift of a plastic in front of them they shied away as if they knew what we were doing, I underestimated the intelligence of the humble Bass. On this trip I was not fortunate enough to land a bass, however Mr Hiraiwa and Mr Yoshida showed their skills as Bass Fishermen and converted tough conditions into bass. looks like I will have to wait until tomorrow.

The Manburger

We were all fairly hungry so we headed back to Tanabe to go to a local place owned by one of my facebook friends Akio, he had heard that I was coming so he prepared a special meal for me as he heard a rumor that I was a hamburger fan, we all took our seats and the atmosphere here was great, every one was happy and laughing, it was not a stuffy place it was a place to be enjoyed. I had some edemame and some thing to drink and then a massive manburger pattie cooked Japanese style with a sweet sauce arrived at the table, it was massive. We all shared this as it was too good to be wasted on just me, the food and drinks just kept coming, I can not tell you half of the things I ate but apart from the octopus it was delicious. We were joined by another Gan Craft Pro Staff, I will update you on his name when I can spell it, we all had a great time with many laughs all round, we were joined by Akio and his son who was 11 years old and learning English so we had a quick chat which was great to see how effective the Japanese school system is at teaching English. After dinner Imazu went to the local convenience store Lawson and picked up some thing for some entertainment and something that you just can not get back home from anywhere let alone a servo style shop,

Let the fireworks begin

FIREWORKS, hell yes. Time to go outside and make some noise. We all had a muck around with the fireworks and again more laughs. This was the best night I have had in Japan so far, the people in the smaller villages are so cool and a lot of fun to spend time with, I can not thank Akio and his family enough for being such great hosts, although we have been friends on facebook for some time now I was a great honor and pleasure to meet with him and his family in person and to be able to receive the best hospitality of any Japanese eating house I have ever been to. I will be back here again, if not on this trip, definitely another.

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