A friend in Numazu sent through a shore-cast mahi-mahi measuring 135cm from a charter in Suruga Bay. Bright midday sun, calm blue water, a mountainous coastline behind. I wasn't there — but a fish this size is worth watching from afar.
A Facebook post about the USS Constitution sent me back to a night in Boston — walking from one spot to another with a local angler named Eric. Turns out that route passed within fifty meters of the oldest commissioned warship still afloat.
A Nissin Tenkara starter set on the shelf of a shop that stocks the full range — from soft-hackle wet flies and spoons for headwater creeks to boat-cast rigs for tuna, plus camping and survival gear. One stop, all real brands.
Fishland is a local Hokkaido tackle chain. I went expecting something polished like Okinawa's Sealand. The presentation let me down — but the local-only gear was a full education in fishing I'll never get to do in Taiwan.
The Toyohira River runs straight through Sapporo, and it holds yamame and sakuramasu within a 15-minute walk of the department stores. The hookup came off — but the fox family on the green belt made up for it.
First day in Hokkaido — deer standing in the middle of mountain roads, a fox by a vegetable patch, then a 3:30 dawn into a fog-bound Furano river running the colour of pea soup. The wildlife was loud. The water wasn't.
One Kyushu trip, two species of sea bass — the black sea bass and the common Japanese sea bass. Neither was big, but the spot that produced the ヒラスズキ was the story: a narrow saltwater channel that reads like a river but flows like a tidal race.
A bright midday session on a sandy shore. The plan was a wide flatfish — what came up was a small tongue sole on a gold jig paired with a hot pink skirt. Different fish, same family, an honest result on the sand.
A shallow brackish canal in Sasebo, Nagasaki — at a glance the dark backs in the murky green water read like tilapia. Look again. They're black seabream, holding tight to the urban tidal flow.
Offshore tairaba in the Goto Islands. An 80g Yudomaru dropped 90 metres on braid that fell perfectly vertical — current softer than its reputation. Steady retrieve, held the rhythm through the tap-tap bites — a spotted grouper from deep structure.
Offshore off the Goto Islands, Nagasaki — flat water, clear skies, and a solid amberjack on the deck. The lesson isn't a new lure; it's running the one you already know cold.
An Israeli backpacker came to Taiwan with no fishing gear and a sleeping bag in the car. I lent him two old rods and a tackle box — and ended up seeing my own coastline through someone else's eyes.
The plan was black seabream off the rocks at Aodi. A frustrating morning, a phone call, and an hour later — three kanpachi over 1.5 kg each, on a seabream rod and 0.6 PE. Sometimes the day reroutes itself.
A brand-new live-fish net left on the balcony lost its floats to the sun before it ever touched saltwater. The replacement turned up where nobody sells anything — on a winter beach, in the marine debris washed across the strait.
Third Okinawa trip, family by day and fishing by night. Wading the Onna reef flats for Taman, then grinding the Naha canal for black seabream. The fish were there — they just weren't mine yet.
Arriving in Okinawa with the kid asleep in the car and the sun four fingers off the water, I walked the hotel beach to a coral-and-sand seam and pulled the first fish of the trip — a blackspot snapper on a battered ABK spoon.
A 40 cm spotted sea bass (七星鱸) taken from the north breakwater of Taichung Port, hooked clean on a pink-purple metal jig under hard winter sun. It came up coated in sand — self-seasoned. Good timing for the holiday.
An overcast day on the tetrapods, an inflatable vest, a spinning setup loaded with a small metal jig — and a deep-bodied silver fish that hadn't shown up in a while. 2.7 kg on micro jigging.
A pair of 紅甘 (kanpachi) taken on shore jigging from a rocky shore — silvery-blue flanks, that telltale yellow lateral line. Once the fish are landed, the second half of the work starts: the patience of aging.
A few gap sessions in late autumn, three species: a 瓜瓜 (pompano-type jack) on micro-jig off a concrete pier, an 午仔 (Spanish mackerel) at a location nobody would expect, and a hairtail that showed what autumn does to that fish.
A friend's tip, a shore-cast hairtail run — numbers up, fish fat, three-finger bellies. Soft plastics to read the depth, minnows to cover the water. The timing lined up.
A storm-bound day spent sorting old photos brings back a summer night chasing cutlassfish offshore. A wall of small fish at 30 metres, the occasional better one at 50, and a half-night that was more than enough.
A nighttime hairtail caught in the window after the kids were asleep — an hour or two under the pier lights, and one fish with fang-lined jaws earns its place.
A storm-bound day spent sorting old photos turns up something unsettling — a cutlassfish with its tongue replaced by a parasitic isopod, the tongue-eating louse. A close look at one of the sea's stranger passengers.
A storm day spent sorting old photos turns up a sunny session — a juvenile trevally (銅鏡, Carangoides hedlandensis) taken on a micro jig off a concrete breakwater. Light tackle, clear water, bright sun.
A flatfish landed from the shore in Taiwan, taken on a micro jig and fought right up onto the wet gravel. The eyes drifted to one side, the jig still in the mouth — a demersal fish hooked off the bottom, daytime, overcast light.
A work trip to Manhattan turned into a planned dawn bass session in Central Park's ponds. A 0.8 PE travel setup, a slow-sinking jerkbait, and a first New York largemouth — here's how the lake woke up.
A two-week run that folded a US/Japan work trip and family travel into one challenge: land the signature species of the US East Coast and the Tokyo area. Six targets across saltwater and freshwater, two very different fishing cultures.
A shore-fishing spot guide to Boston's Pier 4 and the adjoining Fort Point Channel — where the foot traffic thins out, where the depth break sits, and where the striped bass move.
After the morning jetty battle, I moved to Steeplechase Pier chasing summer fluke from shore — a first for me. A long sand walk, a borrowed Japanese rig, two flatfish, and a 50cm bluefish on the last cast of the day.
First fishing stop on a New York trip: a Coney Island rock jetty, chasing bluefish and striped bass at dawn. A bottom-bouncing rhythm, a savage take, a screaming drag, and a PE line ground off on the navigation buoy structure.
A nine-day family trip from Nagoya north to Kamikochi, Shirakawa-go and Kanazawa, with a stripped-down lure kit packed for whatever windows opened up. The target was simple: Japanese seabass at the river mouths.
A shore-fishing spot tucked along a working harbour channel in South Boston. Two visits — one at high water by night, one at the bottom of the tide before work — chasing striped bass that mostly stayed out of reach, plus the best breakfast of the trip.
A spot-by-spot breakdown of Castle Island, Boston's most accessible shore-fishing ground. Where the main channel drops off, why the tide dictates everything, and the moment a striped bass slipped between the pier pilings at my feet.
A work trip to Boston meant every dawn and dusk spent working the harbor's shore spots. The stripers hadn't arrived yet — but the reconnaissance was worth more than a catch. A breakdown of the estuary, the structure, and where the bass should hold.