Yaminomusuko's fishing in Japan

Hi and welcome.

For those of you who want to know details of my fishing adventures in Japan, as well as tackle reviews, points, tips and tricks you have come to the right place.

I currently reside in Tokyo so most of my fishing is done around the Kanto area (Tokyo, Kanagawa, East Shizuoka, Chiba, etc.)

I only focus on lure fishing because I have found that with a little perserverance, knowledge, strategy, imagination, and sense of adventure you can easily catch larger and more than most bait fishing types.

Not to say that bait fishing isn't effective, but that almost all fish have feeding times. Whereas with a lure you can actually force a fish to bite out of reaction. This could be for territory or any number of other things.

One of my favorite types of fishing is light rock fish game. Mebaru in particular. Sebastes cheni, Sebastes inermis, Sebastes ventricosus.




I will also be delving into Sea Bass, Aori squid, Sea Bream, different types of mackarels, and many others. Since my birth place is out in Nagano I also do a bit of stream fishing for native trouts.








But I digress, the fun part about Mebaru game is that they are almost everywhere in Tokyo bay area. You can easily have a pack rod and go on a small excursion anytime you want after work or a light trip on the weekend.

For their size Mebaru (the name in Japanese means "bulging eyes") are great fighters. They are also very picky in what they eat, have huge eyes so they are hard to trick and are very nervous fish. The larger they get the more these traits are accentuated.

They are also great food. If you like to eat what you catch this is a very good fish to go after.

Most Mebaru are caught on a small jig head 0.8g~3g, and small worms. Most people use 1~4lbs Flurocarbon, 7lbs braided multifiliment, or 2lbs nylon. I personally use a 2.28lbs flurocarbon from Breaden. Cost per meter and usability are by far the best I have ever come across.

An ultra light trout rod or bass rod will do but the best is a dedicated rod. The great thing about going ahead and spending some money on a dedicated rod is that you can use it for other types of fish as well.

Mebaru rods are typically categorized in two types, solid tip and tubular tip. Solid tip is what you want to use when fish are biting very lightly or when you are using very small lures. They are very flexible and therefore dont give the fish any sense of something being wrong. Hollow tips are usually stiffer and are very useful for heavier rigs and small hard plug type lures, as well as metal jigs, and metal vibration lures. The tubular tip usually gives more control and you get a very distinct signal from the rod when a fish hits the lure.

I actually have 4 different rods for light game. All are categorized as Mebaru rods but I use them for all kinds of different fishing.

Here is a list of the rods that I use:

Breaden GRF-TR83 Deep
Varivas Violente VLL-73T (Tubular tip)
Varivas Violente VLL-73S (Solid tip)
Wando Vacance mebaru 83 (tubular tip pack rod. for when i want to go to far away places and i dont want to carry alot of gear. I also use this for stream trout)

You usually want to go with a smaller reel preferabaly a 1000 size reel.

As for lures, most beginners will find the standard jig head and worm an easy place to start. If the fish are there they usually will bite. Mebaru are most active during the night so get your head lamps on.

For soft lures, 1.5" to 3" worms are used. Shad, baby sardine, sandworm, curly tails are the most popular. Colors are all up to the person but the standard theory is the clearer the water the more natural you go. Glow is very popular but the fish usually stop biting very quickly. The more realistic colors have shorter bites but you can fish longer.

As a good search bait I use pearl white or pink when in dark areas. When there is light present I generally go with the realistics like clear or brown or clear with flakes.

Hard lures are going to be another long discussion. So until next time, I wish you all great fishing.

Y.

Mebaru
light game