The next person we’d like to introduce you to is Akihiro Hoshino (Aki). He’s become a great friend and is a wonderful ambassador for the greater Nikko area and its long history of fishing. Aki started with bait fishing at age ten. By twelve he was reading books about fly fishing and lure fishing at a relative’s house. By thirteen, a friend’s father had him tenkara fishing on the river that ran practically through his backyard.
That friend’s father, by the way, was exceptional teacher. Aki describes watching him catch trout in near-total darkness. “I was amazed to see him catch so many trout using the tenkara method, even in the pitch darkness at night when it was almost impossible to see,” Aki says. “That’s what made me realize the appeal of tenkara fishing.”
Home Waters
Aki was born in Nikko City and still lives there today, with his wife, their child, and two cats. Nikko is where his entire relationship with fishing and the outdoors is rooted.
His true home river is the Kurokawa, a gentle stream that winds through the rural landscape of the area. It’s prime cherry salmon (yamame) water. And Aki, as a member of the local fishing cooperative, helped establish what is only the second tenkara-only catch-and-release area in Japan on that river. Conservation plays a large role in his outdoorsmanship.
As Aki explains it, the Nikko region is the birthplace of fly fishing in Japan, with roots stretching back roughly 130 years. Fishing in Nikko is less a hobby and more about continuing his hometown’s legacy.
What He Fishes and How
Cherry salmon and char are the primary targets, though Aki has added large autumn and winter rainbow trout to his rotation in recent years as more rivers have opened up to that kind of fishing. He finds it thrilling in a way that keeps things fresh. He’s also not exclusively a tenkara angler by any stretch. He enjoys fly fishing, bass fishing, smelt fishing, ayu fishing, and sea fishing with his wife while camping as a family. He’s definitely a multi-purpose angler.
His rod of choice for most tenkara situations is a lightweight 390cm Nissin, dropping down to a 310cm Daiwa when he’s pushing into tight headwaters. He uses number 3 fluorocarbon level line and about 60cm of tippet when he’s on the longer rod, and in the headwaters, total line length sometimes drops to as little as a meter. He’s after simplicity and function.
Aki ties his own flies, leaning toward traditional Nikko patterns using fern dubbing and pheasant feathers, but he’s equally comfortable reaching for a sakasa kebari when it suits him. He matches the hatch when the situation demands it and fishes what he feels like when it doesn’t. There’s no dogma in his approach.
One thing he says really shifted his perspective early on: he used to assume tenkara was at a disadvantage compared to fly fishing simply because you can’t cast as far. He eventually realized that was backwards. The shorter line gives you a softer, more controlled presentation and drift than you can typically achieve with a rod and reel.
Ametsuchi
For a long time, Aki and his wife ran an outdoor shop together and guided anglers from around the world in both tenkara and fly fishing. That evolved into Ametsuchi, his guide service operating within Nikko National Park, which offers tenkara, fly fishing, trail running, and trekking. He has since transitioned into working for the prefectural government while his wife handles the shop, though Ametsuchi continues to operate. When he’s not fishing or working, you’ll find him trail running or snowboarding.
He’s also, for the record, an angler who studied tenkara under Yuzo Sebata, one of the true masters of tenkara. Sebata was the real deal, and having learned from him gives Aki’s fishing a kind of lineage that most of us can only read about.
Coming Full Circle
If you read the Colorado piece from 2023, you know Aki as the member of the group who quietly displayed technical precision that left Matt and me standing on the riverbank just watching. It was a cold October day in Rocky Mountain National Park, the fishing was slow, but Aki meticulously worked every plunge, pocket, and riffle unphased.
What I didn’t know then was the full backstory behind that trip from his perspective. Aki was there as part of a government project to develop tenkara fishing experiences in the Nikko region into actual travel products. He came to Colorado with Hiro and Takashi specifically to understand how tenkara communities operated overseas, and to meet the people running them.
Aki caught his first American brook trout on that trip on the Big Thompson. He explained to us that the brook trout stocked in his home waters in Nikko were originally descended from Colorado eggs transplanted about 130 years ago. Standing in Colorado, catching the fish that started it all in Japan. “I was deeply moved to see the original fish,” he says.
Regardless of what you think about stocked trout, be it in US or Japan, that’s so cool!
“I was also incredibly grateful for the kindness of the tenkara anglers, and I was touched by their deep understanding of and passion for tenkara fishing,” he adds. “I definitely want to visit again and I look forward to fishing with the tenkara anglers once more.”
Contacting Aki
If you want to follow his fishing or get in touch about Ametsuchi, Instagram is your best bet at @ametsuchi.nikko, or reach out directly at info.ametsuchi@gmail.com. There’s also a short film a filmmaker friend made when Ametsuchi was just getting started, and it’s worth watching.
You’ll be hearing more of Aki in the trip content ahead. He was a key part of our time there, and having him with us on this adventure made a real difference in how we experienced our time in Nikko.
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