As you now know, I’m back from Japan. It was all I’d hoped it would be, and more. Much of what I said last time was confirmed. The Japanese bass angling industry is one where things are tweaked and made better. They don’t reinvent the wheel. They make it rounder, and they figure out ways to use it more efficiently.
The first thing that struck me about the country was their tackle shops. In America most independent shops are relatively small, and for the most part, they’re stocked with things that are useful in their local market. Not so in Japan.
I visited four brick and mortar shops and two that were on marinas. They were well stocked, well organized and loaded with goodies. They’d have freshwater tackle on one side and saltwater tackle on the other. Everything was displayed by size, color, species or in some other logical manner. That’s an indication of how serious they take their fishing, and they should take it serious. Anything less would be a total disaster.
Never, in all my years of fishing, have I seen pressure like I saw in Japan. Here in the U.S. we have no idea what pressure is really like compared to them. In the middle of the week there’d be a couple of hundred boats — everything from small jonboats to high-end professional style bass boats — on the water. It was unbelievable.
But let’s get back to tackle.
I have samples of everything you can imagine, and a lot of things you can’t imagine. They’ve developed new swimbaits that look more like the real thing than the real thing itself, and the actions they’ve developed are like nothing I’ve ever seen. Some are hard but a lot of them are soft with all sorts of new types of internal rigging and harnesses in them.
Their real thing, though, is with the Neko rig and the drop shot. That seems to be what they’re the most interested in right now. They have nail weights with skirts as well as inserts that will make even the biggest and heaviest plastic lures float up off the bottom. It’s a dynamite combination. They also have a whole host of hooks and gizmos — mostly pins and collars — they’ve developed to hold the hook in place so that they get a good hookset without constant snags.
I haven’t seen any of this, and I’m a tackle junkie. I mean, I’m telling you there’s stuff out there you won’t believe until you see it — which you will in the coming weeks. I’m going to share all of it with everyone who reads this column between now and the Classic.
For right now, though, I want to mention the punch shot. It’s a combination of a punch and a drop shot. I’ve attached a picture so you can see it for yourself. I’d describe it, but I confuse myself when I do that so I can only imagine what it’d be like to read about it cold.
The idea is to get the advantages of a horizontal presentation at a fixed depth in heavy cover. That’s no easy task, but I think this rig is going to do it. We’ll see anyway. I’m going to fish it on Table Rock this weekend and see how it does in the submerged timber. I’ll give you a full report next week.
Mike Iaconelli’s column appears weekly on Bassmaster.com. You can also find him on Facebookand Twitter or visit his website, mikeiaconelli.com.
