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2014年05月30日

Introduction to Ajing

Definition of Ajing: to fish for horse mackerel using lures.

Introduction to Ajing

Introduction to Ajing
Horse mackerel considered by many as a bait fish has become a popular target in japan for lure angling. The main reasons why are, the populations are really big, they can be found in almost all Japanese waters with relative ease almost year round in some cases, and they are a popular food item for a lot of Japanese. Alongside of those reasons we now have many specialized lure tackle for this.

So why fish for these with lures when you can catch them with a sabiki or any number of other ways? The main reason is they are larger than the average fish caught on sabiki. But other reasons are that they are very fun game fish. They are very selective of position, current, color, movement, and many other things. Also on light lines and tackle they are tons of fun as they run comparable to many other pelagics like small amberjack or mackerel or even bonito.
Introduction to Ajing

I want to share one of my latest trips and introduce this unique and fun game to you.
The wind was coming in too strong from the south for us to really fish our main point effectively so I chose a point that was facing north. The wind normally at this level would be almost impossible to bear with our ultra-light tackle, but because of a wall to our backs we found was more than comfortable.

While I set up a simple 0.9g jig head and soft lure only rig on my AJ 610 UL on the 1.7lb fluro line I was thinking of my approach. I figured that the timing wasn’t the best seasonally and the fish were probably not feeding on the usual bait. I also had set up a 0.9g split weight with a 0.4g jig head rig on my GRF-TR 68 Strange in case of strong winds curling around my position.

Introduction to Ajing
For the JH only rig I chose soft lures that have the shape of either a small bait fish or small crabs both are baits that are found in this particular point. The split weight rig was setup with a lure to mimic a group of plankton. I usually prefer clear lures with red, black or silver flakes to imitate plankton. The red or black makes it look like small shrimp or crab eyes grouped together. Aji like many other fish love falling bait. We tend to keep weights anywhere between 0.3g~1.8g for soft lures and anywhere from 1g~30g for hard lures.
Night is usually the best timing for horse mackerel as their bait (plankton, fish fry, small crustaceans, squid fry, etc.) are attracted to the lights and they stay close in shore and do not stray away as quickly as in the day. They usually stay relatively low in the water column and the preferred methods are usually to bottom bump or lift and tension fall along the bottom. Of course this depends on the currents which determine where is the easiest place for the fish to stay lying in wait for the bait to drift in for them to feed. As with any predatory fish they will want to use the least amount of energy to feed on bait which has the most calories.

It was a little after 9pm, using the jig head only rig I cast up-current counting down to the bottom and I would drift it along with the current along the bottom. It helps to imagine the bait rolling with the current along the bottom. After a few exploratory casts I found a spot where the water curled around an underwater pile of rocks and that’s where I found my first fish. As soon as the rig came out of the current and it slipped into this area where the water didn’t feel as heavy I felt a slight lift in the line tension which was unnatural I set the hook and landed the first fish of the day.

Introduction to Ajing
One thing about ajing is it's not about sensitivity in the traditional sense. Just because the rod is 99% carbon with a high carbon weight (most ajing rods are using around 30t~35ton carbon solid tips in other words high elasticity) doesnt mean it's sensitive. Yes you can feel an ON bite (when the fish takes and turns with the lure) but you won’t feel on OFF bite (when a fish sucks in the lure but just stays there) without a balanced tackle setup. It has to be a perfect balance of flexibility in the rod tip to load up with rigs under weights even as low as 0.3g while maintaining enough sharpness through the belly of the rod to hook into the hardest part of an ajis mouth.

Introduction to Ajing
The sides of the fish’s mouths are paper thin. Hook into this part and most likely you will lose the fish. Hook into the top center part of the mouth and you will have a hard time unhooking the fish after landing. That’s a big difference in toughness and to hook into that part you need to know when the fish first sucks that lure into its mouth. That’s why you need that OFF bite sensitivity. Some tackle is made to feel that in the tip while most others are made to feel that throughout the rod through its overall balance.

This is why we use flurocarbon lines because they are much easier at feeling the OFF bites than other line materials. They are also stiff enough to transfer the ON bites as well. If you are using heavier rigs then ultra-thin PE that may be fine as well but remember, that the slower the approach is most of the time a better one to take with Aji, as when using PE which is buoyant you need heavier weights to get the line down to the bottom as well as to keep tension on the line. Aji are so sensitive to drop rates that even 0.1g can change whether you get bites or not.
Introduction to Ajing

Horse mackerel usually feed by sucking in water with sand then spitting it out very quickly usually this is very quick and if you get good with the right tackle setup you can feel that ‘OFF’ bite and hook into the top part of the mouth with pretty good accuracy. Remember these fish aren’t the largest fish and you are trying to hook into a small triangular section in the top part of its mouth.

Anyhow back to the trip. So as I added a couple more fish the tide reached its peak and the water just wasn’t moving as much so I set up my reaction bite setup. I attached a Breaden 13vibe metal vibe to PE0.4 with an 8lb leader to my GRF-TR 85PE. Using this I let the lure sink all the way to the bottom and lifted the rod quick enough to feel the vibration of the lure and let it sink back down with the rod tip still up and tension on the line. Right before the lure hit the bottom on the drop midway through the 3rd cast I felt a slight tap on the lure. With a sweep I was into a fish. It wasn’t big but I had caught it exactly the way I had planned. I knew where the fish would be right at the edge of where the light and shadow met toward the bottom, and I had gotten it to bite exactly the way I imagined it would. I added about 2 more fish this way before the tide started to move the water again.
Introduction to Ajing

This time I wanted to try a slower approach with the split shot as the wind was picking up a bit and it became difficult to keep the line tense with even 1.5g jigheads. The other benefit of a split rig setup is that you can present the lure much slower than jig head only rigs because of water resistance as well as the jig head at the end is usually fairly light. I cast down current and let it free fall to the bottom. With a couple of twitches up I would pull the rig to me very slightly keeping the line taut. Takes can be sudden jerks in the line, OTD (on the drop), and even small repetitive taps at the end of the line. I started off at the bottom but didn’t get any fish so started to fish higher up in the water column I would count down and subtract 2 or 3 seconds from the last cast before lifting and falling. Midway through the column I started finding the fish. I added another fish before they stopped biting and I had to change tactics yet again.
Introduction to Ajing
Introduction to Ajing

The sun started rising and we started hearing the fish at the surface feeding on something. So we all started trying to catch whatever was feeding at the surface. My friend Aokin started to catch some fish on 0.9g Jazz dengeki D jig heads. So I rigged up the same but with a Mama worm Dart squid lure. After the rig touched water I would count down maybe 2 seconds and would twitch the rod to dart the lure back and forth. The lure shape made this easy, and would keep the tension on the line while the lure dropped. Within seconds I would start feeling light taps on the line and bang we were onto some really good fish.
Introduction to Ajing

While this was going on my girlfriend Kanako was casting the metal maru on light PE lines and she started catching some Maru Aji. In japan we have several different types of horse mackerel. The standard smaller ones are the ones that stay inshore most of their lives. Those are flatter and short these are called Ma-aji (true aji or true horse mackerel) in Japanese. The ones that started biting now were the rounder longer ones who migrate more and move much quicker than the ma-aji. These we call maru-aji (round aji). They are more aggressive and they are larger than their flatter cousins. They react more to metal jigs, spin tails and darting lures much more, so that’s what we all started tying onto our set ups.
Introduction to Ajing

Unfortunately I didn’t get the kinds of reactions I wanted and saw small bait fish right in front of us so I opted to switch back to the darting soft lure closer to the surface. I found a pocket of bait and started pulling up some large maru aji and let me tell you on 2lb fluro line it's tons of fun to fight a 35cm+ aji. You wouldn’t imagine the amount of power these guys have.
Introduction to Ajing

As it was getting close to the time when the ferry would come to pick us up we started packing up. All in all it was a great day of fishing for all of us.
Between the 3 of us we caught around 40 ma-aji and 15 or so maru-aji. I unfortunately lost an accurate count. After divvying up the spoils of battle we each headed home with some of the tastiest fish in the sea. After a quick nap I cooked up some ceviche and some sashimi.

Introduction to Ajing
Introduction to Ajing
Introduction to Ajing

I hope this game does take off in other countries as it is highly rewarding, and challenging game. You can really see the difference in who is a better angler as results can be as different as 10 to 1 in catch rates depending on how flexible you are and how quickly you can adapt and find the fish.
Well until next time keep your lines tight and your drags screaming.

Tackle data:
Rods: Breaden GRF-TR 68 Strange, Breaden GRF-TR 85 PE, Luxxe Coastline AJ-610UL
Reels: Daiwa ’10 Certate 2506, Shimano 10 Stella C3000HG with 2500 spool, Shimano Soare 1000PGS
Lures: Breaden Bee Vibe, soft lures from bait breath, Jacks LRF UK, berkely gulp 1” minnow, daiwa gekka bijin ajing beam, and assorted others.




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Posted by yaminomusuko at 00:00│Comments(1)
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Hello! I'm from singapore, thinking of going to japan during december. Are there any recommendations for places to try out some light rock fishing? been using 2.5-3g jighead with storm gomoku bulky rigs to catch seabass.

Thank you for your help!
名前: Luke
Posted by luketxq@gmail.com at 2016年07月08日 20:01
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