A Different Kind of Fishing?
Recently the TV had a short piece on a kind of fishing that I had never heard or seen before. Apparently it's fairly well-known here in Japan, though.
You start by taking a live ayu (鮎), which is a small freshwater fish, and put a little hook in his nose, then run lines in a kind of harness over his body so that a small treble hook dangles behind him. Then you use a long pole and line to put him in the river, so he is swimming in it.
The trick is that other ayu see him and come up to fight. Apparently they are territorial, and having a strange fish come swimming into their space -- well, they charge up in the preferred position from behind, and go to whack this intruder! Except when they do, they hook themselves.
I'm not sure what to call that first fish. He isn't really bait. More like the red cape a bullfighter waves to get the bull running. A challenger?
On the show, they caught several fish this way. You do have to be very gentle pulling them in. From what they said, the fish that you catch this way are not hooked very well, so if you jerk them too fast, you are likely to lose them.
I wonder if the ones who have been hooked once and got away are less likely to challenge the next fish that invades their space?
You start by taking a live ayu (鮎), which is a small freshwater fish, and put a little hook in his nose, then run lines in a kind of harness over his body so that a small treble hook dangles behind him. Then you use a long pole and line to put him in the river, so he is swimming in it.
The trick is that other ayu see him and come up to fight. Apparently they are territorial, and having a strange fish come swimming into their space -- well, they charge up in the preferred position from behind, and go to whack this intruder! Except when they do, they hook themselves.
I'm not sure what to call that first fish. He isn't really bait. More like the red cape a bullfighter waves to get the bull running. A challenger?
On the show, they caught several fish this way. You do have to be very gentle pulling them in. From what they said, the fish that you catch this way are not hooked very well, so if you jerk them too fast, you are likely to lose them.
I wonder if the ones who have been hooked once and got away are less likely to challenge the next fish that invades their space?