I have been in a hiking rut these last few months, mostly sticking to my old familiar climbs close to my apartment in central Sapporo (Maruyama, Moiwa, Asahiyama, Sankakuyama). So I started researching some peaks a little further afield, but still within a few hours biking distance. I came upon Hakken-zan (八剣山) via The Hokkaido […]
Last weekend we cycled down to the Toyohira River, amongst the urban sprawl, to try and catch some yamame. The few times we bait fished on this stretch last year saw moderate success: a few yamame, some ugui, some sunburn. This time our result was unlike anything I have experienced this close to the city. […]
We decided to head three hours north to escape this year’s mild Sapporo winter and try out some ice fishing on Lake Shumarinai. This was unknown territory for everyone in our group, so we had the facilities at the lake set us up with a rental tent, simple rods, and bait. Our main objective would […]
A big part of my day is my morning and late afternoon commute. This year both of the schools I am posted at are within 30 minutes walking time from my apartment. My pledge has been to refuse to take public transport and walk each day, regardless of the weather. Until recently that hasn’t been […]
Sapporo has had, until just recently, a rather marked decrease in snowfall from seasons past. In order to get our snowshoeing habit fulfilled, we had to take a trip south to Jozankei, the hot spring resort that falls within Sapporo’s city limits, but close enough to the mountains to get significantly more snow than downtown. […]
I have done Western style fly fishing since I was a teenager. Not well. I can barely tie my own flies, and my casting technique has been flawed. But I stuck with that method and managed to land some decent fish through the years. Then I discovered the Japanese method of tenkara, and immediately threw […]
Most of the my time fishing, in terms of quantity of fish landed, is a utter disappointment here in Hokkaido. Several years back I did get into the high teens on my yamame count out near Akaigawa, west of Sapporo. But most of those were fingerlings barely worthy of that description. I was dying for […]
Our camping season picked up right where it left off last year – three days of continuous rain. Although the rain wasn’t quite torrential, it swelled Hokkaido’s rivers in the Tokachi Subprefecture enough to put the kaibash on any potential fishing we had planned on doing. Instead our camping trip turned into a food tour […]
The Toyohira River is the major tributary for Sapporo. Although it snakes its way through much of the ugly urban concrete jungle, there are often a surprising amount of anglers on the water, especially on the weekend. I’ve had moderate success landing a handful of yamame in the upper reaches, close to Makomanai Park, where […]
Sometime the weather here in Hokkaido fails to cooperate with our fishing schedule. Rain started early last Saturday as just a light drizzle, but quickly turned to a steady downpour. Although we were ready to push through the rain, to a degree, the small Bifue River’s flows quickly surged and basically kept us from any […]