Hello Fun! Japan members! I live in Hokkaido, northern island of Japan, and I want to share one of the most exciting winter activities in Hokkaido. Have you ever hard a kind of fish called “pond smelt”? We call it “wakasagi” in Japanese. It is very small fish and the length is about 15cm at largest. Smelt fishing (wakasagi turi) is very popular activity in Hokkaido. There are some tours for smelt fishing. My friends and I go to smelt fishing in winter and I will share about the experience.



Actually you can see pound smelts many places in Japan and it is not special for Hokkaido. You can also fish smelts all year around. So what is so special about smelt fishing in winter of Hokkaido? Hokkaido is very cold in winter and thick ice form on the water of lakes. Ice gets thick enough on the end of December to early March so you can do fishing on lakes. There are many smelt fishing spots in Hokkaido and some are near Sapporo. But we usually go to Lake Shimarinaiko which is in northern Hokkaido. It is a man-made lake but very huge and its’ area is 30 times larger than Tokyo Disneyland.



We went to Lake Shimarinaiko from Asahikawa (the second largest city in Hokkaido). It took about 2 hours to the lake. We left our house at 5 am in the morning when it was still dark. You can fish smelt well in morning and it gets very hard to fish in afternoon. We arrived at Lake Shimarinaiko at the time of sunrise. The view of sunrise on the lake was so beautiful.

You need to pay 1100 yen to enter the fishing area and parking fee is 300 yen. Those fees may change from year to year. We have tools for smelt fishing but if you don’t have them you can rent them. A set of tools for fishing cost 600 yen for a day. It includes bait for fishing and chair you can use during fishing. You should also rent a tent to protect yourself from cold wind and snow. The cost for tent depends on size but you can rent from 1000 yen for 3 people type. There are some fishing areas you can fish smelt without admission fee but I recommend you to chose places you pay because you can rent almost everything and there are facilities like lavatories. Especially in Lake Shimarinaiko, all you need to do is to wrap yourself well and come.

First thing we did was to find a place to fish. Good places for fishing are a little far from parking and we decided to stay near place from parking because we went there just for fun. Then we drilled holes on ice of lake. There is a tool for drilling hole and thicknesses of holes are about 1m50cm. After we drilled holes, we pitched our tent and then we started fishing.

The way of fishing is very easy and even kids can do it. You use worms for bait and drop the line under the water. Then you just wait and if you feel move of the line you reel the line. If you get a good place to fish and go early in morning, you get more than 100 smelt. This time I got about 30 it was enough amounts to eat with family.




We take the fish back to home and cooked tempura (deep fried fish). You can rent a cooking space so you don’t need to take them to your hotel. They have everything you need to cook tempura. Even if you don’t get any fish, don’t worry! There is small dining place you can eat smelts.


(Photos of smelt are from another day when we fish a lot!)

If you come to Hokkaido in winter and want to have special experience, smelt fishing is one of good choices! It is hard to get there by yourself if you don’t get used to Hokkaido, so I recommend you to take a tour for fishing. Many Japanese friends from outside of Hokkaido ask me to take them fishing on ices and it is special experience for even Japanese. So I believe it will be very exciting and fantastic experience for you!