Young Master Hachimitsu san decided to explain how to catch unagi, freshwater eel to the Kamiyama Students.  Hachimitsu san is like a combination of Ray Mears and Bear Grylls (but Ray would win in a fight) with equal parts Mifune.  He’s written books about his life and he’s been fishing eel for 20 years;  he’s 24 years old.  I imagine one day the TV networks might latch onto him and he could be forced into becoming a celeb, but I hope not.  He wouldn’t be interested anyway, I’m sure about that.
I’d been told when I was a child that freshwater eels are very special creatures but I couldn’t remember exactly why.  I did a little research and the life cycle of the eel is absolutely amazin’.  They are truly enigmatic, fascinating (delicious) creatures. They are catadromous, their guts dissolve and they change shape and colour, crawl across grass fields and spawn precisely at the Suruga seamount.
The kit included a fish box with a battery powered pump to keep the fish (an Eels favourite is a small Roach, and also worms but worms are also everyone elses favourite so you could catch something you don’t want to.  Using Roach is a better way to target Eels) alive, a couple of rods and some shrimps and worms.  We were at the river by 6.30pm and stayed there until around 9.30pm.  It was dark and we were all sat on rocks above the water.  We caught two catfish but no eels.  It was almost a full moon.  Some people say fishing is boring but I really enjoy captive time – the time when you have to wait for something and you don’t know how long you are going to have to wait (but you musn’t have any deadlines otherwise it doesn’t work).  So it was nice relaxing on the rocks listening to people chat and laugh in the dark.  We saw fireflies too.  I re-learned how to make bird noises with my hands and make grass screech.  In a way, I am really glad we didn’t catch an eel.  After reading about them and the remarkable journey they make it doesn’t seem right to do anything but leave them be.  Unagi is delicious though… maybe only once every 10 years (and I have to catch it!) would be ok (not sure if I can resist unagi for that long…)