Guides
Guides
Safety, etiquette, rules and how-to. Read them before you need them.
Etiquette
Safety
Fishing safety basics — the life jacket, and knowing when to leave
Falling in is not a question of whether you can swim. How to choose a life jacket, and when weather, swell, or footing means you go home.
Dangerous fish and animals — what to do when you are stung or bitten
The fish that hurts you is not the big one; it is the 20 cm by-catch you did not want. Venomous spines, teeth, gill covers — and what to do afterwards.
Rules & law
Yugyoken and fishing rights — the sea and the rivers are governed differently
Sea angling in Japan normally needs no permit. Rivers and lakes do. And nothing about the sea means everything in it is free to take.
Closed seasons and size limits — how to find the numbers, which differ by prefecture
There is no national number. How to reach the prefectural rule that applies, how the length is measured, and what to do when you are unsure.
How-to
Sabiki fishing for beginners — where almost everyone catches their first fish
No casting, no strike timing. Pack the cage with krill, drop it in, shake the rod, and wait.
Chonage for beginners — reading the sand twenty metres out
Cast a light rig a short way, drag it back slowly. Whiting, goby, flounder, rockfish — the cast changes with the season.
Eging for beginners — snap it up, let it fall, and wait on the fall
Bigfin reef squid on a shrimp-shaped jig. No bait, light gear — and the fall, not the jerk, is what catches.
The first three knots — the line breaks at the knot, almost every time
Clinch, blood knot, figure-eight loop. Those three cover nearly all shore fishing in Japan — and all three want the same thing: wet it, and tighten slowly.