entry nº 55 // 20190503

so, irie-san knows a guy, a big fisherman guy, not like, physically big i mean, but like big into fishing, and possibly even sometimes a fishing teacher? if i understood correctly what everyone was talking about. and you see this guy’s got a spot out in yobuko, ’bout an hour from here, a bit of a secret spot, which i guess is maybe a thing with fishermen, and if we promised to keep it mum we were invited to head out there for the day and get some fishing in. 

so we four pile into irie-san’s mini-van around 6am or so, and head out there, an hour or so west of here. the spot itself was basically just the side of the road next to a, i dunno what you’d call it, an inlet? i guess it’s an inlet. real nice inlet, though, real peaceful, a house sitting quiet across the street, car or two passing by every so often, the day feeling stilled, stopped in its tracks. 

and hey, want to get tons of fish to come over to where you are? use this big plastic paddle that looks like one of those things dog owners who don’t want to bend over use to pick up and throw the tennis ball with, and dip it into your white plastic 5-gallon bucket (classic) of fish food, and just kind of whip that stuff out over the water. i guess that’s just one way they do it out here. maybe they do it that way in the states, too? but the last time i went fishing was probably middle school, and so i can’t say i’m particularly aware of or up-to-date on what people are doing out there. but for now, it’s, yeah, just every once in a while whip a bunch of food out over the surface of the water and let those fishies make their way over. 

of course the big surprise for me, also, was that you can actually catch fish out here? which, again, i dunno, my image of fishing, based on my handful of experiences as a kid and then, i dunno, pop culture? is that you don’t really catch fish when you go fishing. but here? wow. the pro fisherman guy would sometimes even put two hooks on his line and catch fish on both of them, really just a big “f you” to us amateurs out there, struggling as we were with the basics and shit. just kidding, that guy was super nice. everyone caught a good amount of fish, mostly mackerel i guess is what they were, along with some fugu, enough for us to fill a small cooler up, which (the cooler) we brought home, and then unloaded those fishies, dressed + cleaned them, made sashimi, aji-fry, all sorts of goodies. irie-san was very gung-ho about the fried fugu, but we were all like “no way you maniac there’s poison in there,” but on the other hand that guy seems to really know what he’s talking about, as far as sea- or inlet-life is concerned, and more particularly which parts of it are edible.