Cold days, clear skies—and fewer aji at Nogama

I found myself missing those days when the fish seemed to bite endlessly. Our catches were down to a quarter of what they had been.

What would happen as it became colder still? I did not know.

An acquaintance had two very poor trips in a row—seven small aji in four to five hours—and finally gave up on the spot.

I was less likely to catch the small ones, so unless the fish really stopped biting, I planned to keep testing this place throughout the year.

But by the end of December, the catches had become very sparse.

A very small target on the rising tide

Our session here ran from before high tide until about three hours into the ebb.

On the rising tide, casting just anywhere produced very little. In practice, there was only one productive place, and it was extremely small.

We had to land the rig inside a circle about 1.5 metres across.

But if we reached that patch, bites came one after another, two to four seconds after the rig hit the water. Most of the time, we could hook a fish before it reached the bottom.

That was how we fished for roughly the two hours before high tide.

Following the fish on the ebb

Once the tide began to fall, the aji moved.

That was where things became difficult. At first, I was rather at a loss.

My wife kept finding clues, which was always a help. Eventually, we worked out our approach for the ebb tide.

After that, it was mostly a matter of applying variations of that approach. The rig stayed the same.

This is a record of the winter fishing described in the article first published on 29 December 2021 and last updated on 3 January 2022. Its original title also stresses the importance of clear weather in the cold, without giving further weather details in the body.