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My brother told me a funny story. Near his house by the lake (in New Zealand) there's a small ramp. One day he went down there and someone had launched their boat and just left their car and trailer right there, figuring, I guess, that was the most convenient car park right there. Everyone else had to just drive around the lake to the other boat ramp. Now thats inconsiderate, or probably just plain dumb. Maybe he got towed in the end, don't know.

Sorry the reply took a while. I was going to reply yesterday morning when I saw your post but decided to get straight out fishing as I only had a couple of hours before work. Good decision actually, I went to the only pond I fish in that isn't a farm pond. Its next to the river and in flood becomes part of the river. I started out throwing a rubber jig with a rubber 'worm' actually I dont know what its called but its like a grub with two legs and does a nice frog imitation. Throwing it into the deep spots with lots of weed cover and wham, raigyou, in English 'snake head' (??) first one I've landed, though I caught a real big one in the same pond before that broke me off on my light rig. This time I was using my heavier bait rig and managed to haul it up on the shore but man, these things hit hard and fight like all hell. After that I tried the shallow area with a top water pencil bait (heddon) and wham, this time it was a bass, my biggest ever at 53cm, I was stoked. Guess where I'm going today Thats interesting about catching the chinu with tube baits. I guess they're immitating baby squid? I noticed in the latest Salt and Stream mag there's an article about targetting chinu with minnows but it seems a bit strange to me, theyre not real 'fish eater' fish. No, I've had no problem night fishing for bass. Some locals might check out what you're up to but thats probably because they think you're dumping your trash or something, when they see you're fishing I doubt anyone will care. I fish anytime between dusk and 1 or 2 in the morning. try casting small worms around the edges before using the bigger stuff. As I said before the jig head spinner bait is my most productive night bait but your mileage will no doubt vary. And of course be careful with aggressive casting, its real easy to misjudge the distance at night, as I've discovered quite a few times. I use a head torch but try to use it as little as possible, to change a lure I move away from the water and face the other direction so as not to spook the fish. Tell us how you go.

I've been here about 7 years. One year in Nagoya, one in Gifu and now five in Ise City. Now I'm married to a Japanese lady. I haven't seen the shrimp imitation you mentioned but I'm basically trying to buy no new lures at the moment. I've collected up so many of the things over the last 2 or 3 years. Just have to get out and use them as much as possible. I also do a bit of bait fishing, like trying new things, keeps life interesting. Japanese fishing is so technical. I'm trying to pick up as many skills as possible (and gear) while I'm here. This year I want to get into the black snapper (kurodai, chinu, kaizu... tons of names for that one too)

thanks Nick_Barr Scot - Yes there are a bunch of bass fishing shows on tsuri-vision, some are good and some I don't like so much. But the best show is 'salt-ken' which is the new version of 'sea-ken' (short for kansai seabass kenkyuujou) basically a couple of very amusing Osaka blokes who go around catching lots of seabass, and now various other sea fish with lures. If you can find someone with videos of that show youll enjoy them. As for the seabass, there are all sorts of names for them depending on fish size and region - seigo , fukko , hane , suzuki are just a few of them, I prefer to just call them seabass ( like there aren't enough Japanese words for me to remember without remembering 10 different names for one kind of fish). I fish for seabass usually in the evening and nighttime around the rivermouths and beaches here in the evening and at night. Of course you can catch them in the daytime but I think more tight around man made structure nearer deeper water, tetrapods are good and a bit of wind and wave action is always good. My favorite seabass lure is called 'sasuke' by Ima. Now they sell bigger ones but I've only used the 9cm sinking one, white belly with yellow back works great for me at night, slowish, straight retrieve. Seabass also love those spin tail vibration baits. The one caled 'kuru-kuru' is very popular but I like the one made by duel with a plastic coating, cheap too, only 800yen. Seabass are good at throwing these lures but apart from that they work good. I'm not sure about the soft plastics, I mean i'm sure they can work fine but most people seem to prefer hard baits. Keep trying with the seabass, it also took me a lot of tries before I eventually started catching them. When you do catch one be careful how you handle it, you can grab it in the mouth like a bass but they have very sharp parts bellow the gill covers so be wary. good luck.

Thanks for the reply, few questions about your post. By 'farm pond' do you mean 'nouike'? Are 'grass carp' 'coi' or the longer, thinner fish called 'nigoi'. I often catch nigoi in the river (miyagawa) and they certainly put up quite a fight for awhile, I also catch catfish at night in the river when I'm trying for seabass. Also I'm not too sure what you mean by "gary yamamoto shade shape plastic", is that the 'senko' one or the 'cut tail' one or something different? I've been having some luck recently with the cut tail one hooked through the middle with no sinker or with a nail sinker inserted (neko rig) btw what's with that name? is it 'cat rig' or am I missing something?? . I get most of my bass fishing tips from watching the fishing channel on Sky Perfect TV, and more recently from reading this site. Anyway I might just go fishing now

Hey there Scott, I'm also based in Japan and this is my first post here on this forum. I'm from New Zealand so didn't grow up with bass but I've been enjoying fishing for them for the last couple of years (along with some other types of fishing). I'm living in Ise City in Mie prefecture and just fishing the ponds around here from the shore. Where are you based? Last year I caught most of my bass at night. Noone is ever fishing around the ponds at night here. I put that down to superstition about ghosts or some such thing but I have no complaints about fishing alone at night, especially in summertime when the bass seem easily tricked by my clumsily presented offerings. My most productive night bait is the small jig-head spinnerbait with a grub (dark colors best) and no skirt. I agree with you about the price of gear here but I'm just not willing to pay those prices for a lure so I buy some second-hand, luckily I have a shop nearby for used fishing gear, and I also find a lot too. Around this time of year they start draining some water out of the ponds for irrigation and if you put in a bit of time you can find all sorts of goodies. Its also fun because you can try out lures you'ld never think to buy yourself. I usually carry a rubbish bag with me and pick up the trash I find around the pond. When other fishermen see me doing that they look at me strange. I dont want to harp on about it but I just can't understand how so many people have no problem with poisoning the environment they enjoying fishing in with cigarette butts, cans, plastic bags, used line etc. The result is predictable, Bass fishermen have a bad reputation here. I thinks that's part of the reason for the attempts to ban catch&release. Of course bass have damaged native fish stocks and a ban in some river systems and lakes is necessary, also an attempt to reduce the bass populations. But people have to have places to go bass fishing. Small ponds like the ones I fish in don't have any population of these native fish (I think).