Since the flight conditions are getting back to normal since lockdowns, we could again have a chance to visit one of fishing tackle brand in Japan – ValleyHill, who leads game fishing industries and supplies unique and special gears from Japan to all over the world.
And today, we are so pleased to introduce thier interesting new fishing gears, and fishing session one of our staff had in Japan.
What / who is ValleyHill?
Some of you may already know but let us introduce about ValleyHill first.
ValleyHill is one of game fishing leading company in Japan, who used to set offshore fishing as a main target.
Now their targets become wider and wider time by time, including shore / offshore fishing, from freshwater to saltwater.
One of the offshore squid fishing method – TipRun Eging is the one they originally started.
They also have couple of specialized sub brands – whiplash Factory and KAMIWAZA for rock shore fishing.
(Ja-do, the brand for seabass game fishing also used to be one of them but now indepenedent renamed as Ja-do Products, announced at 1st May 2024.)
Everytime when we go to Japan they invite us to their company base and this time, we found more interesting products coming out very soon.
Boat Flatfish Tackles – Rod and Lures
The next target they are expanding this year is that – flatfish fishing from boat.
Especially in this Australia flathead is one of the biggest, common and popular target for game fishing as we have Flathead Classic each year in Gold Coast.
And flathead – “Kochi” in Japanese – is also becoming really popular target in Japan these years and therefore, they are releasing specialised tackles for flathead.
It is interesting that the flathead fishing method in Japan is like this – go out to bay area with sand bottom, around 20m depth.
Then when the skipper finds the possible fishing spot, then you cast 4 – 5″ softplastic rigged with around 3/4 – 1 1/2 oz (20 – 40g approx.) jig heads.
When the rig hits the bottom then “wind” your rod wider, to jerk the rig up then tip down to make line slug, so that the rig can dart and slide sidewise. Then quickly wind the rod again to jerk quickly and speedy, repeat for 2-3 times to let the rig dart and slide to fascinate fish, then let it sink to the bottom and stay for a bit. Then repeat winding – bottom stay again and again.
This is called “Wind method”.
Now those new products are mainly made for this method.
BayDrive Saltwater Boat Game – Boat Magochi
This is the boat game fishing rod especially for “Magochi” – flathead fishing, with 2 models: BDS-74MS/MAGOCHI and BDS-74MHS/MAGOCHI.
As of the name the both length is 7’4″ / 224cm, and has lighter model “M” and heavier one “MH”.
This rod is quite interesting and unique – whole rods are mainly made to cast up to 40g / 50g rigs, so the blank is hard, however the tip section is made by carbon solid blank.
Therefore the butt – middle is strong, and the tip is quite sensitive.
As of the bent-curve above, the rod is made as fast-pitch, which is quite common type for solid tip rods.
But the butt is quite strong, that can have good enough power to bring up 80+ flatties for sure.
Personally, I liked MHS model – BDS-74MHS more as the tip is not that too soft and therefore you can use this for versatile more.
Cast weight is 10g – 50g, which you can even use 3/8oz jig heads, up to 50g jigs / heavy sinking pencils, which I can think of lots of way of use like light soft plastic bottom bumping with 3/8-5/8oz jig heads, 10-20g minnow, shad, crank bait etc, jigging up to 50g, or even for heavy soft plastic bottom bumping with up to 1 1/2oz jig heads, for variety of targets such as bay area flathead, bluefish, bream, trevally, cods, seabass, sea bream / snapper, or even mulloway / jewfish.
We are super keen to try this out and review as soon as possible.
Bay Drive Dart Shad / Dart Curly 4″
These are the soft plastic lure especially for the flathead “Wind” method.
The body base is the same but have different tails as of these name, shad and curly.
The fat body shapes as triangle, that you can set the flat face up and down as you like, which can make different action at falling.
The tails are slightly smaller than normal soft plastics, so that they won’t wobble or swing too much to make quick jerking actions, but still does work as their characters.
Shad tail makes smoother, natural wave at darting and / or swimming, and curly tail makes wider, bigger and stronger wave.
We think this lure can have potential to work for a lot of different species.
Bay Drive Swarp Head
This is also made for wind method, matched up with those Bay Drive Dart Shad and Dart Curly cleary.
This has 3 different weight – 28g/35g/42g pack of 2.
Of course you can use this as a normal jig head though, it has coupe of different characteristics from others.
The shape is triangle, and designed as the flat face comes down so it stays still and will hardly comes upside down at bottom stay, so that the main hook can stay on top, and the soft plastic can keep wiggling as desired.
The flat face also gets water pressure at falling, which could make random falling action slightly.
Secondly it has extra eye for trebble hook tuning, and / or flashing blade tuning.
If you wish to have flashing to gather fish more, or if your target loves flashing, then you can attach the flashing blade at this eye.
Or, if the bottom is totally sand and you want to have assisting trebble hook setting, you can do with it.
If you are interested in these products above, stay tuned with us and we will make a review movie in future at our Youtube channel.
Fishing Session in Japan – Seabass Fishing
Firstly, we are sorry to inform you guys that we could not take movies nor photos while we fished to keep the point unofficial to the world.
After new product introduction, we went seabass fishing session together, again.
The spring in Japan for seabass fishing is one of very hot season, which is called “Bachi-Nuke” that the sandworms comes out from sand and swim everywhere to spoon, and seabass goes everywhere aggressively.
So, if you go in the right timing, in the right season, you could have a big chance to fish on.
However, unfortunately, this time when we went, it was a little too early for the season and the tide was not really good.
While we chased seabass, once again we realised that how delicate seabass fishing could be, and how much attention to detail anglers put into their fishing.
Canals / rivers are popular area of fishing and night time is popular too, for seabass fishing.
They then go under bridges or somewhere with structures, then watch the water flow carefully to read what’s happening under the water, then narrow down the spot by those information that they read.
They also check what baits exist, how they swim / hang around and how seabass could target them. Think, think and think, then simulate many times in their heads to make today’s possible methods.
Then, try, rethink, plan again, then try again.. It was really fun time to listen what they think when they go fishing.
At that time, the tide movement was real small, therefore we expected the current could be really slow, which was not actually good for fishing. If it was too fast, then it could make fishing too hard, but if it was too slow, fish won’t eat baits much either.
So we targetted only for the time of maximum current could occur after sun went down.
Then got the spot where fish could be, which has reverse current from the bridge polls.
Then we casted slim sinking pencil Ja-do Envy 95 to the point.
It was quite windy but we were required of long but accurate casting with perfect line mending to trace the desired line, which was quite tough.
Amazingly, they do that naturally!
Our staff were also taught about casting a lot from them, which were also really happy time.
After a bit while, one of those casting hit the perfect spot, then.. Bang!!
The moment we desparately waited has come – and this.
Well yes we know, it’s just a tiny baby haha… But we were told that the condition was not that good, and season was not in yet, so it was quite hard season to catch one by just one time.
Ultimately, a lot of times were for casting class but it was quite nice, enjoyable time to hear how they establish strategy and tactics to catch one fish.
And this is the answer here..
The one staff from ValleyHill, who taught us about “how-to-fish in Japan”, went to the same place and did the same method next day, and made this result.
How different!!
On each session we have with them, we always realise how seriously they face against fishing.
“Purely enjoy fishing” – we look forward to seeing their future products embodied this theme.
