If you came here to see two mayfly mating, shame on you!

Thursday morning a 592 pound (269kg) tuna sold for a staggering $736500 USD (56.49 million yen) at Japan’s Tsukiji fish market. It has been reported that the cost of this tuna would mean that a single slice of sushi could cost as much as 5000 yen, but the firm plans to sell it at a more regular price of up to 418 yen.

via Yahoo

So if you want a couple of free pins mailed right to your doorstep all you gotta do is leave a comment on this post. Why not use this performer from Harajuku as your muse.
We’ll pick winners next saturday!

Pieter Franken shot this Harajuku performer in Tokyo. He say’s, “He’s a regular who I see often on a busy day in Harajuku. The hat is made of a toppled ceiling lamp shade. Real fish. Totally Harajuku.” To see more of Pieter’s photos go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/nokton/sets/72157625953913586/

via Majirox News

And the winner is… Everybody! Check your email cause we’ll be asking for your mailing address.

Let’s make 2011 the last year of the dolphin slaughter, better yet let’s make 2010 the last year and stop it before it even starts this year.

via TakePart.com

Japan is just in the beginning of the long term recovery effort from the earthquake that struck off northeastern Japan on March 11. The crisis alert level from the damage to the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant has now been raised to the highest level of impact, the same as the Chernobyl Russia incident 25 years ago. Searchers continue to look for the dead, displaced Japanese live in shelters, protests continue over use of nuclear power, Japan’s economic engine may be disrupted, the massive cleanup of debris is just underway, aftershocks are feared and many continue to mourn those who were lost. The photos collected here are from one month to the day of the quake and beyond. — Lloyd Young (36 photos total)

Boston’s Big Picture- Japan’s Crisis: One Month Later

via BCC Breaking

Update! Now with live video from MSNBC.

There are several other horribly depressing news stories about the death toll that I cannot bare to post right now. If you have friends or family in Japan I hope they are alright and in a safe place.

via New York Times.

ShelterBox is now shipping their disaster relief product to Japan. They really managed to pack these full of all the essentials people will need in the heavily affected areas. A whole ShelterBox costs about $1,000 dollars, but you can donate any amount from one dollar and up.

• A custom-made shelter tent that fits up to 10 people, designed to withstand extreme temperatures and rain. It even has privacy partitions inside.

Thermal blankets and insulated ground sheets.

• Water purification system that runs for six months.
• Industrial-grade steel mini stove that can use wood or any other fuel, for heating and cooking.
• Cooking utensils.
• Bowls, mugs, and other containers.
• Toolbox with hammer, axe, saw, trenching shovel, hoe head, pliers and wire cutters.
• A children pack with drawing books, crayons and pens, to keep the kids distracted after losing all their toys.
• And of course, the heavy duty box can be used to store anything, from food to water.

via gizmodo

I don’t mean to diminish what is happening in Japan right now, but please don’t forget about Haiti. They were struck with a massive earthquake not long ago, and are a far poorer country without the means to prepare themselves for earthquakes and building earthquake resistant buildings- and still remain wildly unequipped to do so.

Not unreasonably, most sport anglers want to catch trophy fish; the bigger the better (indeed, we all know anglers whose catches continue to grow in size long after the event, growing bigger with each recounting of the story of the fishing trip). However, this is Japan, where miniaturization pervades all aspects of life, in gardening, art, computers, electronics; we all have seen the clichéd ‘capsule’ hotels and bonsai pine trees you can pick up with two fingers. This also applies to sport fishing, in one of the oldest angling traditions in this country: tanago fishing.

Tanago is the generic term in Japanese covering the small freshwater fish of the Rhodeus, Tanakia and Acheilognathus genera; there are probably a dozen or so species that are considered sport fishing targets. In English, these fish are generally referred to as bitterling. Some species of tanago grow up to 15cm in size, although 5 – 10cm is more common. During spawning season, the males tend to develop a very striking pattern, a mixture of red and iridescent metallic colours, while the females, although ‘drab’ in appearance, develop a very long ovipositor, sometimes the length of their own body. A full description of the different species, and their very unusual mating habits and life cycle, is outside the scope of this text, but to me tanago are interesting fish for both ichthyologic and angling reasons.

Tanago are cyprinids, the carp family of fishes, and are generally omnivorous. They thrive in the waterways and channels surrounding rice paddies and lotus fields, sometimes in ditches no wider than a couple of feet or requiring a long slog through bamboo or reed thickets. I usually head to the lake system of Kasumigaura, a short journey north from Tokyo. Finding the spots holding tanago is part of the fun of the fishing, and there is always the distraction of the local flora and fauna if you do not; I have spotted a huge variety of waterfowl, and once even remarked a peregrine falcon – something most Japanese ornithologists can only dream of. Tanago are not fussy feeders and will take baits like bloodworm, commercially available starch or gluten-based pastes for carp fishing and even boiled egg yolk, on a simple float rig with a single hook. The main difference is of course, the size of the tackle, which is scaled to the size of the fish targetted.

Tanago anglers hold the belief that the smaller the fish landed, the greater the testament to the skill of the angler, and seek to catch the smallest fish possible. The prized catch of the determined tanago angler is the fish that can ‘fit inside a one yen coin’ i.e., is less than 20mm in length. After six months of tanago fishing, this prize still eludes me. A fishing buddy has taught me the ‘secret’ of sharpening one’s own tanago hooks: this is done under a microscope, with a watchmaker’s diamond file. It is not surprising then that most tanago anglers in Japan are considered eccentric, if not outright lunatics. Indeed, I once met a man who used to be a professional bass angler, but after winning several national competitions it ceased to amuse him.

He sold all his trophy bass gear to take up tanago angling on bamboo rods; now he travels the country year-round in the solitary pursuit of this new game. Tanago rods are made from bamboo and are usually 50cm to 1 metre in length, and the hooks 4 or 5mm long. In the Edo Period, the line used for tanago fishing was usually a single human hair, preferably taken from ‘a woman you love’. Allegedly, female hair has just the right level of elasticity and sinking characteristics necessary for tanago fishing, although perhaps a more prosaic explanation would be that the technology of the time could not spin silk thin enough, and that women wore their hair much longer than men did. Whether you choose human hair or the more readily available nylon, you can fit all your fishing tackle in a small pouch, or indeed your shirt top pocket; the rods usually break down in several pieces to about 20cm. There is a historical reason for this. In Edo, sport angling was considered a gross indulgence and in some periods, proscribed by law; one could hide a tanago rod easily in a pouch or bag slung from the waist. However, much like the use of hair as fishing line, history is subject to fancy, and whether the objective was to hide the rod from censorious authorities, or just to avoid the remonstrations of a scolding, non-fishing wife, is unknown.

In summary, tanago fishing has proved for me to be a most diverting form of angling. For those used to battling mahi mahi or tuna on a high running sea or epic plays with feisty trout on a fly, it may seem a highly eccentric past-time. I thought the same, until I tried it for myself. In the meantime, I have taken to making my own bamboo rods for tanago fishing, but that is another story, as is the various ways one can eat these fish. I have come close, once, to the holy “one-yen fish” but when I do succeed, I will be sure to remember it, and it will be one catch that does not become exaggerated in size with time.

On a lucky day in Tokyo

- Adam Guy

Adam, thank you very much for you entry into our 2010 Contributor Contest. Your amazing contribution has won FIRST PLACE in our contest and you will receive a one-of-a-kind Sportsman Trophy Plaque, as well as a copy of Fins & Skins magazine!