General

Carp fishing… the Japanese way

After an unforgettable week with mate Sasaki in Hungary, it was time for some fishing in Japan again. Arriving at Osaka airport after a 10 hour delay, I didn’t receive the tube with all my brand new North Western rods!

What a start…

Our schedule should have been to go from the airport directly to the northern area of Japan to compete in a huge carp fishing competition in Lake Kasumigauri the next morning. So we told the airport luggage service to send us the rod tube directly to the lake. On the highway to the northern Kanto area, Yoshi explained to me the Japanese competition rules and to be honest, I become confused as I expected similar regalement as the European.

Most differences are in choosing the swim by yourself, already preparing and occupy the swim days before start. No limit on bait and keeping the biggest (in Japan that means the longest) fish netted until the end of the competition. Cruel isn’t it?!

As well as that; there’s a 5 rod limit, no minimum distance to neighboring anglers, moving during the competition is allowed, boat allowed ( not on every competition) and only proper carp count, no grass carp or black carp.

Arrived with delay, heavy winds and temperatures close to 0 degree C welcomed us. The winter season has been similar to the European and spring wouldn’t come. Usually, it should be warm and dry as the time we chose for the trip is called the Golden Week - a few days national celebrating to welcome the warm season until the raining season starts. Not this year though.

The lake was beautiful and a huge 20 square kilometres in size. The average is depth is 2m and there are no water grasses but many weed fields. Seemed to be perfect for big carp and in fact, carp in this lake are more European (fat) style than anywhere else in Japan. But where to settle down? Mr. Ishigaki, our good friend and boss of the national carp magazine, picked us up and gave us a short introduction to the lake. We decided on a swim close to a well known spooning area, hoping for warmer temperatures. Thankfully my rods arrived next day and the weather changed into a mixture of sun rain and hail showers.

First take on my rod after only an hour’s fishing resulted in just a good size catfish. Strange looking animals and crazy for boilies! After landing 5 more catfish I to change from The Source to a Tigernut snowman setup. During the 2 days competition we have been surrounded by interested Japanese carp anglers. They studied the European magazines and received all information for the new style of fishing and baits we have been using for years. Hard work but it would be worth doing it as Mr. Sasaki and I started a business selling boilies and boilie tackle with our own company ( NG-carp Japan). Now, I realised that I was invited as the competition’s star guest and everybody wanted to meet up for a few words… Busy time… Saturday evening we met our guide for black carp fishing. He is known as the most successful and popular black carp angler in Japan. What a honor! He came with his typical Japanese style carp angling car and stayed overnight offering a good dinner and a good time until late night.

Carp were jumping but not feeding. Also, to our right side, were about 30 anglers surrounding the last year’s winning swim!

The following morning we couldn’t believe our unhooking mat had turned frozen white! Finally we landed some good carp during the last night, but we did not know it would be enough for rank 6 out of 550! Using Dynamite Baits Monster Tigernut shelf life 20mm snowman again with Korda components but using their new square inliners. We stopped fishing earlier as we needed some time to prepare our stand beside the final ceremony promoting our boiliefishing equipment and baits.

Rank 6! Unbelievable, as we had the delay, no time to prepare the swim and stopped earlier too…

As we received the final ranking list we could read that we have been the only ones fishing with boilies. All the others that ranked under the best 30 had used hair rigged snails as bait. These are a special black hard shell snail that are fished on rigs similar to our bolt rig, but with no chance for the fish to lose the lead after breaking the line! Different also is the use of size 2 to 5 hooks that are put into a big powder ball, close to the method feeders in Europe!

After packing up we moved to the Tone River where we tried to catch a black carp on boilies. We followed our black carp specialist to his favorite swim. However, it was also still too cold for the black carp fishing. Most important for me though was experiencing fishing for the huge carp and relaxing after the busy competition and flight.

Tone River is maybe the world’s best black carp area. The record is 177cm and was landed close to our swim. We had a wonderful time fishing there, meeting a lot of carp anglers that visited us and enjoyed the cooking qualities of our guide who took better care of us than our mothers would!

During this time we had long discussions about the differences between European and Japanese carp fishing. That was THE question I wanted answers to during this 4 week trip: So, what’s the biggest difference so far I see in the Japansese style of fishing?
1. Using a boat. Japanese anglers still don’t use a boat and sonar for checking the bottom and long distance fishing. It might be because of their use of long telescopic rods that don’t appear to be capable of fighting a fish from the boat.
2. No use of tents. Just using their carp vans they are not able to set up on swims far away from parking areas.
3. No use of boilies and tigernuts. The typical Japanese set-up consists a heavy lead that is either fixed on the line or stopped inside a loop covered with a special powder ball with hooks inside. Their bait is mostly beans, corn or paste in the south. In the north they use snails to get away from small carp and catfish.
4. Feeding tactics nearly zero. Just casting out the powder ball or feeding loads of snail with a special throwing stick is the only way they feed a swim.
5. The importance of measuring a landed fish instead of recording weight.
6. Go fishing on their own and not in a team of two anglers. This is another reason why they don’t use boats as most of the lakes are huge and high waves can pick up within minutes.
7. Go fishing for short term sessions. Mostly weekends or after work.
8. Using multipliers for about 90% of their fishing combined with single rod rests that become fixed into the bottom with a rubber hammer.
9. Bite alarms are totally different to European models. They just use a clip system that would not react to a back drop but indicating up to 10 miles to their receiver. It is funny watching them use a small inflatable bicycle to make their way quickly from their cars down to their rods! Sometimes some hundred meters away!
10. The Japanese anglers are traditionally minded but very open folk. Not easy to explain the advantages of European style but on the other side the Japanese are perfectionists more than any other country in the world.

It is not easy not to hurt their proud souls explaining a better way. But the results that my mate Sasaki, our friends and I have already had during the last few years fishing boilies and a more modern style, let them think about a solution. Some items like the use of spods for their snails and particles, the Method feeder, throwing sticks and the hair rig already accepted. Others like the ‘short’ rods and spinning reels, boat and tent will need more time to be accepted. Sooner or later there will be the same revolution that we’ve seen in Austria 20 years ago or in Hungary 10 years ago. I’m sure in Japan it will be faster than any of us expect.

However, I definitely don’t want to let Europe believe that everything the Japanese do is bad! There are a lot of things we can learn from them too! Still remember the first time watching their landing nets and handles? Brilliant! Just think about why European match anglers use round types rather than the triangle type. I even used a big round pike landing net for my fishing in Europe but sadly they’re not available any more. The Japanese round landing nets are 1 or 2 times foldable so they’re small enough to transport easily and much stronger than any triangle type. Even huge black carp over 160cm have been landed in those! The mesh is also handmade and stronger than anything else I’ve ever seen before.

And don’t forget! Japanese carp anglers have been using hair rigs with snails for many generations now. So, has the genius of the hair rig been developed and used for the first time in Japan and not in England?

Their style of fishing and behavior during a trip is something we should think about too! They really enjoy fishing and meeting up with all their friends to have a good time on the water. Cooking, drinking and having fun means much more to them than landing bigger and bigger fish! You should see their hospitality and kindness to each other; not just to me, it’s a pleasure to see.

Using bad language or shouting is a sign of somebody’s mental weakness in Japan! I’ve never heard a single f**k during all my visits! They rather find solutions and a talk to each other. Since I’ve had close contact with their style of fishing I see my own fishing and almost my life through different eyes.

Ok; after fishing the Tone River for 5 days we drove back to Yoshi’s apartment (18hrs one way!) and we prepared the next competition.

Osaka. It was strange fishing under high scrapers in the heart of one of world’s biggest cities. The Osaka River is popular for its head of real fat carp that are unique in Japan but again, we missed the start and had a one day delay. We weren’t really lucky with the swim, but met a lot of new friends and again received a stand during the final ceremonies.

Last point of our schedule was fishing Yoshi’s favourite spring swim in the Yasu River. Just relaxing and getting prepared for my departure was exactly what I needed. The weather remained cold and water temperature wouldn’t reach 17 degrees. Again close to a spooning area we waited for the carp moving from the lake to the shallow areas of our swim.

Golden week turned into a colden week and we could not keep up with last year’s catches during the raining season. Anyway, we have had some decent fish and a good time. Collecting loads of new information I can not wait to fly on the other side of the world again to smell the typical taste of sushi, green tea and Japanese koi!

Thanks for your attention and best wishes!

Erich Unger