Noriyuki Inagaki, my neighbour at the dormitory, set up a 3 o'clock in the morning departure for Nagano. The thing is during the Obon, every single Japanese must go back to his hometown and therefore, it is amazing how the highways and trains all over Japan are crowded. Since the Obon starts officially on Wednesday, we must leave really early not to get caught in the traffic! We drive by Toyota city which is very large with so many manufacturing plants, it is unbelievable. You got to see it. The landscape is simply one Toyota plant after the other for half an hour. And suddenly, it is the forest. The mountains shaped a little bit like the Appalachians with little old houses stuck on the side of 3 meters large streets. Quite a difference. A Japan paradox from modern robotized plant to bamboo houses...
We stop at a small village called Urugi (the selling tree) in the middle of a valley where we decided to eat breakfast. A typical Japanese breakfast: potato salad with carrot juice. And now, I have to say a bit about the guy. He is the typical Japanese fisherman for which finding the best fishing spot is a matter of pride and ... food. Because fishing is a sport. That was hard to believe for me since it looks so boring. Holding a fishing stick for hours waiting for a stupid fish to eat a worm. Well. It is a sport as I will come to know during my three days in Nagano prefecture.
On our way, Noriyuki, suddenly take a small road (in Japan, roads average 3 meters wide so when I say a small road, it is a 2 meters!) that climbs for twenty minutes to a construction field. Large rock mountains. You won't believe there is a little river there?! Hiking the rocks to a small dam, we find the most hidden river in the Aichi prefecture. A little dam. It took 15 minutes to fish three trouts with a small fishing rod. I was quite amazed. He told to never tell anyone about this spot or he kills me (just kidding or he was serious?!).
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Back in the car, it is still early. Only 10 o'clock. Well, when we wake up at 3 am, that makes days pretty long. No? So we continue and enter finally in the Nagano prefecture. Beautiful. Again, we curve another little road and his mini-car gets all the rocks it can gets. Up and down two mountains, we stop at a more crowded river this time. There is another dam and 5 guys fishing there since the early morning. We decide to go for bush fishing. The same small fishing rod but this time, we fish a very small river all the way up to the top of the mountain. Combined hiking and fishing. Wow, I am getting sleepy, of course, and tired by the exercise. No fish at all. Well, nothing ever shaked my line for four hours. It is tough. Trees and bushes have the tendency to stick the line that we must free out every time. The rod is retractable from 40 cm to about 3m. The technique is to lock every extensions by twisting the rod. Because we cannot walk the rod fully extended, we have to retract and extend the rod at every pond where we want to fish. Fyuuu. So nothing. Luckily we had our 3 trouts from his hidden spot. |
It is now 4 pm. We have not eaten yet. We continue to Iida city popular for its large river and canyons. We eat yakiniku (cooked beef), camping style. We go to a Onsen (hot bath and sauna) and bed in the tent build on the river banks. It is raining hard all night long.
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The morning sky is blue but the water flow of the river has increased dramatically. It is thus impossible to fish today in the large river. Anyway, we are both fearly tired so we sleep and relax. Cook the 3 trouts and go shopping for the best Nagano wines and ... raw horse (Basashi, the sashi part the same as sashimi, raw fish). Yes. Raw horse, the prefered food for Nagano people. It is excellent with ginger and soya sauce. Men. I thought I had eaten every impossible thing before. Well, I also ate tokoroten, sticky noodle that must eaten with only one chopstick and fried insects (inago or sauterelles in French) which have really sweet taste. Small fishing in the mountain with no result. Tough for the fishing spirit. |
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Day three is the big day for fishing the Japan salmon or Ayu (fish names are hard to translate, sorry) in the same big river whose water flow has slowed down since the rain fall. This time, it takes professional with licenses and a mega 15 m fishing rod that costs 2000$. The bottom part of a diving suit and a multi-purpose coat that contains all the necessary tools. Because when you are stuck in the middle of the river and your line has broken, it is hard to come back on the banks. Noriyuki will fish during the morning while I am walking in the village. During the afternoon, it starts raining again. Everyone must stop because it is dangerous for the thunder. We decide to cook some tempura and come back to Kariya. The roads are crowded but Noriyoki knows the detours like nobody else and we make the trip in four hours. Ouf! Tired and the skin pinky. |
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Ready to go back to work and tell all my stories in Japanese...
