In the past seasons autumn produced more of those smaller fish to 40cm, but this year we caught fair number of bigger fish in 45-48cm in Sept - Oct.

Late Sept is the month we can fish in pleasant condition under blue sky. Still the water remains warm at 20c, wet wading is joy.

Helped by the discovery of neearby venues, number of my bream outing increased by 50% YOY.

Number of the catch increased proportionately, almost reaching the magic number 100, keeping that as a challenge task for the next season. And of course, I shall continue my search of new bream fields. Often enough, El Dorado lies near, waiting to be discovered by keen eyes.

- End

Fakie Dog DS is the bullet I trust.

7cm long, 8.2g in weight - just big enough to comfortably cast a distance, yet small enough for the breams to chase and smash.

Late April, in a river that runs alongside my workplace.

Density of Breams is well known here. My fishing pals and I often caught them on lures, but the muddy river bed was a concern to sightfishing. So I thought.

One of the big fish, 48cm, caught in Seno river, literally only a mile away from home.

Another discovery we made this year is a technique to instigate the seemingly inactive fish floating in big groups.

In such situation we flyfishermen tend to go small - sizing flies down to #24 midgets. But the key was going big. Throw big bad crab fly hitting their head!! It worked. Well, sometimes!

We noticed the fish here in muddy location are less cautious, more eager to bite.

Sayuri agreed, saying she had never seen such easy going breams before elsewhere.

From mid Aug to early Sept the rivers suffered from typhoon floods making sight fishing difficult. But it ticked breams' hunting instinct for baitfish flushed out. We only had to adjust our method.

When the condition was right, bream on top water was an easy game even for the 9yrs old.

The key was always to position myself slightly above the muddy, incoming sea water i.e. Instead, stand in the clear, fresh water coming down the river.

Hungry fish willing to feed often venture up into the fresh water part, where sight fishing is as easy as in any other clear water location.

July, we made several visit to our home waters a little farther away.

Fish there were more finicky as we know them. But wet wading in clear water gives us a pleasure that muddy water cannot.

And the finesse game - teasing the hesitating big fish like this one, 48cm in length, with very fine rhythmical twitches and solid strike, gives us a sheer pleasure.

On Bream games

The first outing of the year was on April 8.

The air in the afternoon warmed up to 18c but the water only to 16c. Breams were not hungry in cool water, shying away from my offering. But persistence pays - often odd individuals willing to bite.

Hiroshima boasts arguably the highest density of Breams in Japan, yet, finding them in locations suitable for sight fishing takes due amount of field research - the integral part of the game.

Sight fishing for breams made the main pillar of my fishing again this year - at least in the warmer months.

While I regularly visited my favourite jaunts, I managed to discover two new bream fields in my neighborhood, with that I call my '21 season a big success.