Long Time No See – Bass on Fly: Ongata Bass Fishing Pond, Tokyo

2009/03/292020/11/25

I still remember the excitement when I caught my first fish on a fly. That was small mouth bass for me, and the bass fought hard and long after taking my orange scud, and the moment of landing in net was something, well, something "fly fishing". Then I kept coming back to bass on fly in rivers and lakes around Harriman State Park in New York for both small and large mouth fighters who appear in school under the water gin clear.

I could just keep going back in my memories in beauty, however, when I returned to Japan, none believed such experience exists. Bass fishing in Japan pretty much associates with "muddy" or "murky" for their habitats are heavily affected by human habitats. That’s very sad, but I know couple of mountain lakes who hold relatively clear water where I want to visit for bass fishing when I can spend full day, but in the meantime, I make a choice for nearby solution in Tokyo only 60 minutes driving away.

Ongata Bass Fishing Pond holds plenty of large mouth bass, raibow trout, and white bass. Water springs into this small pond from nearby well, so it is gin clear and best for sight fishing or you can fish the edge of structures prepared. They let you fish from one hour, so it neatly fits urban anglers who don’t want to spend the whole day for activity.

As for fly anglers…. well… pond’s perimeter is really tight and doesn’t allow comfortable back space for arial cast. Only way to arial cast is to short cast, to side cast when path is clear, and to cast from the small island.

So, I started fishing with roll cast and caught cute bass in 30cm’s. I could see him chase and take my wooly bugger which makes the sight fishing the best of practice. 

Then fish learnt my fly line and stopped reacting to the fly, then I had to look for spot where I could execute arial cast. Side by side cast to distant fish or fish hiding under structure reacted again for pure excitement for hours. School of white bass were constantly swimming by, but they did not react to fly at all. I may have to try small scud or use sinking line to show only fly floating in the midst of water.

Ongata Bass Fishing Pond
http://www12.ocn.ne.jp/~bgb/OBFP.html

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