Return Trip on VW Camp Van: Part 3 – Lake Hamana, Western Shizuoka

2016/07/022020/11/25

On the previous evening, I drove out of Aichi into the western part of Shizuoka to park next to Lake Hamana, the largest brackish lake in Japan holding 338 fish species (according to Wikipedia). I came to this lake many years ago for water skiing, but it was my first time for some interaction with aquatic life.

Great thing I began to discover about traveling on camper van is that your not only driving mobile business hotel, but it can be a lake side lodge for biology study. Well... at least that was the plan, but obviously I wasn't the first one to lodge in the same location. Regardless of my academic intention, I became a subject of social interaction for the motor campers who accepted no refusal from me drinking from 7pm until.... 4am...

That nearly ruined my purpose of being here in Lake Hamana to do sightfishing on seabream, but noise of tourists and hot summer air woke me in the middle of hang over around 10am. Then it was very nice having shower equipment in the back of van that put me back on business. 

The rest is not too bad, I only had to manage a very short boat trip (1,000JPY round trip) between the car park and the shallow flat of Benten Island on the other side.

Benten Island is a small sand bar with about 3km diameter which I had no fishing information whatsoever, but used my fish sense that this spot looks too suspicious. Boat dropped me just off the torii which is very easy land mark to remember where to walk back to for pick up.

I decided to cover the island clockwise this time to gather as much information as possible. I didn't take a good picture of what the water looked like, but it was very much similar to tropical shallow with sandy bottom with sea grass nesting lots of shrimps and small fish which is making ideal hunting ground for seabream or other predacious fish. From time to time, I spotted school of small seaperches not big enough for good sport on 6wt fly rod I was carrying with.

I scouted only for little over 4 hour under scorching sun with too much sweat coming from having too much alcohol earlier, but I was lucky to spot blackhead seabream and identified its tailing silhouette. After the initial learning, I had chances to make presentation 3 times on tailing fish. 1 fish took the fly, but it didn't set hook.

Then funny thing happened at the end of island tour. At about 100 yard left to the pick up point, I took a short cut through muddy pool whose water temperature felt unusually warmer than other spot. There I realized I just walked into the middle of school of seabreams. The moment they noticed my presence, every fish in the pool rushed out into the deep banging hard against my foot which got small bruise. Not just one rush, but three rushes, so I assume there were more than one school in that small spot. Mating? Feeding on something thrown away by other anglers? That will be the homework for my next visit.

For the sight fishing, I tried Crazy Charlie tied on #6 which didn't get his attention, so I changed to Markin Crab tied on #6 I had left in my fly box from while ago. It must have the right noise and right sink rate, but fish didn't hit the fly hard indicating it didn't have the perfect profile.

I thought of staying at Lake Hamana over for one more day, but it was too hot and I had to catch up with my New York time buddy on the Eastern side of Shizuoka for BBQ at antique Japanese house.

It took me 2 hours driving through traffic to get here, but it was worth the trip to walk through curious antiques that are kept in very good condition keeping the look of Japanese house built in the late 19th to early 20th Century.

And nothing felt greater than being accommodated for dinner and drinks after 3 nights of DIY.

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