I've never understood why people go fishing -- why would you go fishing if there is the possibility of not catching anything? Would you buy a ticket to the movies if they told you that you might not be able to watch the movie? Of course no one would buy a ticket, unless maybe it was to see a movie about fishing.

So when Rikimatsu-san, an old guy with a mop of white hair who docks his boat just outside my house, offered to take me fishing with a guarantee of catching hundreds of fish, I took him up on the offer. Rikimatsu-san is 75 years old and has been fishing for most of them. He has a special fishing spot place for fishing for sardines, "aji" (horse mackerel) and "mama kari," a Seto Inland Sea specialty. At 6 a.m., he called to my house from his boat in that loud voice fisherman have perfected for shouting to each other over distances of water, and told me he was ready to go.

When we arrived at the special fishing spot, the Seto Inland Sea was just coming to life. Boats appeared amongst the morning mist and the pink glow of dawn. At the fishing grounds were two other boats. Rikimatsu-san dropped a fishing line with 12 hooks spaced out along it, but within five seconds was reeling the line back in. He must have forgotten something, like to bait the hooks, I thought. But when the line came back in, it was full of fish, one attached to each of the hooks. These were the dumbest fish I'd ever seen.