High Sierra Topix

Several of my international geology friends are avid fishermen, which isn't a surprise given the outdoor nature of the field of geology. Recently, after an exchange of emails that began scientific (I submitted an abstract to a session my friend, Tatsuki Tsujimori, is chairing at Dec. AGU Meeting in SF) and verged fishier, as I sent him some of my summer 2014 fishing photos, Tatsuki sent me a photo of a fish he caught in a small stream near his hometown, which is apparently far enough away from the university he works at such that he visits there on time off. Thus he says something to the effect that he's now off in his hometown, followed by a statement that his first activity upon returning home is to fish a little mountain stream nearby. In any case photo is of the primary Japanese native trout, Oncorhynchus masou ssp. (apparently landlocked O. masou masou), sometimes known as the Yamame trout. He says its 25 cm (10 in), which isn't a bad size for a small stream. Like rainbow and cutthroat, these trout originated as a sea run species but there are many drainages in which these fish are strictly freshwater, similar to our cutthroat and rainbow.

aka Cherry salmon, right?

Just yesterday it occurred to me that I didn't know what trout the Tenkara system was initially developed to catch, so I did some research about trout in Japan and learned about the Yamame.

Beautiful fish! Love the big leopard spots.

Andy

Your friends yamame has some distinctive side banding. Just lovely.
From memory there's also the Iwana or white spotted char....another beautifully marked
japanese native that loves small mountain streams.

ofuros wrote:Your friends yamame has some distinctive side banding. Just lovely.
From memory there's also the Iwana or white spotted char....another beautifully marked
japanese native that loves small mountain streams.

Yes, the Iwana (Salvelinus leucomaenis)is their analog of the North American brook trout (S. fontinalis), so it is their native char. I figure the leucomaenis species name is connected to the "white spotted" part of the common name. Some photos I've seen show a dramatically orange belly as well as some pink side spots (no blue halos, though) making it look very much like a brookie, indeed. I have not fished in Japan, but I visited an aquarium there once and I recall seeing both the Yamame and Iwana. I recall that the Yamame in the aquarium was fairly similar to the one my friend photographed, whereas the colors on the Iwana in the aquarium were somewhat muted (seem to recall only the white spots on the gray background).

Was he using Tenkara?

TahoeJeff wrote:Was he using Tenkara?

I'm not sure what Tatsuki fishes with. My guess is he uses spinning gear but I could be wrong.