Soare Kakegami: the first fishing test

The Soare Kakegami had gone on sale that month. I took it out for a fishing test.

This thing really caught fish.

Starting with 1.3 g

I tested 1.3 g and 1.8 g at our strong-current spot, with a fairly heavy split sinker attached.

First came the 1.3 g, paired with Brilliant and several other soft lures.

The tide had only just begun to ebb. The fishing was rather slow, and none of the few anglers around me had caught anything yet.

One cast. As the rig sank below mid-water… hooked!

A tiny aji.

Another cast, another fish. The same small size.

After four fish, I switched to 1.8 g.

Hmm. No bites. Several more attempts gave the same result.

At that spot, for me: 1.3 g worked; 1.8 g did not.

I planned to try 1 g and 0.8 g next.

There were two metal arms projecting from the jighead. I wondered whether a smaller head would bring them closer together, leaving too little room to thread a lure unless it was slender. Would that be a problem?

When larger aji arrived

While waiting for the size of the fish to improve, I tried other rigs. The fishing was still difficult.

Up to that point, only the 1.3 g Kakegami had produced fish.

The sensation when a fish was hooked was clearly different from what I normally felt in ajing. It seemed to catch fish I would not ordinarily have hooked.

Later, medium-sized aji of more than 24 cm moved in.

With my usual rig, I could let it reach the bottom, give it a little movement, and catch a fish almost straight away.

In those conditions, I tried the Kakegami again.

The 1.3 g began hooking aji just before it reached the bottom.

The 1.8 g, however, produced nothing, either before or after touching down.

Perhaps that had something to do with the heavy split sinker. Hmm… In any case, that was how it went.

The next test

Next time, I intended to change the way I fished a little.

Even at this strong-current location, there were gentler flows if I changed position. That was where I wanted to try 1 g and 0.8 g.

The original briefly says “18 g” at the first change of jighead. This is rendered as 1.8 g here, following the repeated 1.3 g/1.8 g comparison throughout the same article.

Continue to part two: searching on the fall.