From Passionable Fishing, our Japanese-language journal.

29 October. Wind at 6 m/s, with spray coming over the breakwater.

“This is going to be impossible. What shall we do?”

For now, I decided to try for nerigo—young greater amberjack. My wife started ajing.

“Oh, a bite.”

“What? Hmm…”

While I made about ten casts with a Zenaq Sonio 100 and a 30 g metal jig, she had already caught four fish. Quite good-sized ones, too.

A lesson in fishing the wind

The wind was too strong, so I left my usual Yoihime EX 74 in the car and set up a LUXXE EG X 89, a squid-fishing rod with a solid tip.

My wife explained how she was fishing in that wind, and I took a lesson from her. Her reasoning was quite thorough.

I did as she said… hooked one!

The feeding spell lasted about an hour. After that, we caught the occasional fish.

A final encounter with a nerigo

At the end, I hooked a nerigo.

It began with a strange bite, as though a tiny aji were being unusually persistent. Tap… tap-tap… “Oh, give it a rest!”

“How about this, then?” I struck. Yes, hooked!

But it was incredibly heavy. Then the drag started singing.

“This is bad. If it keeps running like that…” I loosened the drag.

Had it come off? I reeled quickly to put tension back on the line. Then the drag went again: zzz… zzz…

“Again? This isn’t good.” I loosened it once more, and the fish seemed to disappear again.

Hmm? I wound in quite a lot of line. Ah—it had been swimming towards me. Classic nerigo behaviour.

I thought it would dive into the rocks and break the line. Instead, the nerigo managed to twist and straighten the hook with its jaws, and escaped.

When I reeled in and looked at the hook, I was impressed. The soft lure was gone.

Originally published on our Japanese-language site, Passionable Fishing, on 30 Oct 2022. Translated for Avantgarde Fishing. These are the author’s personal observations at the time of writing. Product availability and fishing conditions may have changed.
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