An introduction of Japanese char "Iwana".

Unfortunately, I can not fish Yamame near my place. So please enjoy the photos of Iwana.

"Iwana" means "fish of rocks/boulders" because they tend to stay  under the rocks or in the slits of boulders. 

I caught the char above at this pool.

Another Iwana.

 

Dear Mudfish marquand

Thank you for your reply.

To be honest, I caught those Iwana in the photos with spinning tackle and minnow type hard-plastic "lure".

I do enjoy fly fishing but these days so many fly or bait anglers are on my favourite streams. There is too much fishing pressure on the fishes. So I choose an easy and quick way to fish them.

Besides, my best fishing buddy, my uncle, does not fly fish, he does spin fishing only. He is 65 years old now and can not walk along the stream so long distance. So we fish only each likely spot by moving his car.

At any rate, what I have written so far is just my excuse.

When I fly fish to catch Iwana on my favourite streams, I use a 3-weight, 8ft-6in rod and a floating line with 12ft tapered leader and 5 to 6X, 3-4ft tippet. These setup suit for dry flies and nymphs with a yarn indicator. If I try to use two wet flies or bigger lure like a woolly bugger, I would select 4 or 5 weight, 8 to 9ft rod.

Some anglers use 2 or even 1-weight, very light rods, but I recommend 3-weight rod.

Today, among many Japanese anglers, parachute type flies are very popular and they work well. From June to September, Iwana tend to focus on the terrestrials so I use a parachute-beetle dry fly.

wing: brown hen hackle

body: peacock herl

wing post: white/pink aero dry wing(a product by Tiemco of Japan)

hook:size10-14

After my first fishing trip to NZ in 1997, I tried Royal Wulfs for Iwana, they worked quite well on Japanese mountain streams.

I have to practice fly fishing more and more to prepare my next trip to NZ!

Please ask any other question.

Cheers,

GO

Dear spin king,

Hi! Thank you for your kind reply.

I used to live in Greenlane for 9 months to study English. Almost every Sunday, I went to the Ladies Bay and enjoyed spin fishing for kahawai by using metal jigs.

Then I moved to Hamilton and studied at the Waikato Univ. for 3 years.

Please enjoy your fishing.

Cheers,