Today was my first bass fishing trip in Japan, and a memorable one at that. Kazu, one of the RAs in my building, is a fishing addict. Once he found out I also share the vice, it wasn’t a question of if, but only of when. Well, for better or for worse, “when” turned out to be 5am this morning. As I waited for Kazu to bring his car from the lot, it was obvious that only four hours of sleep takes its toll on a man.

After 45min of winding roads, hair pin turns, and the gas pedal firmly mashed to the floorboards of his Honda Civic, Kazu pulled onto a small side road that fizzled out in front of a creek and pronounced us there. In the predawn twilight we bushwhacked through 30min of weeds and giant spider webs before finally arriving at the rocky shores of a large impoundment.

As dawn broke just after 6am our first casts hit the water and I excitedly waited to catch my first bass in Japan… and waited… and waited. In the meantime Kazu landed his first bass of the day, and before I knew it America was down 1-0 in the first ever Pan-Pacific Bass Fishing Championships.

Unfortunately, we had only been at this first impoundment for just over half an hour before all hell broke loose. Suddenly, people came pouring seemingly out of nowhere. First two dozen or so kids on bikes all packing rods zooming across the dam towards their favorite spots on the bank, and then lagging behind them another forty or so adults on foot hurriedly followed. In a span of 5 minutes the lake went from quiet and tranquil to a fishing madhouse with a person every 15ft or so along the bank.

I had heard horror stories about elbow-to-elbow bass fishing in Japan, but I had always taken them with a box of salt. We quickly realized that as today was a holiday, a local fishing club was holding a tournament on this lake, and we had just witnessed the shotgun start. Disgusted, and with Japan still leading America 1-0, we packed up and headed for quieter water.

Tucked away in a little village up in the hills of Oita prefecture, our next site was a small impoundment in the midst of several rice paddies. The water here was very clear, which allowed me to dejectedly watch bass after bass approach, nudge, and then lazily swim away from my evidently repugnant plastic worm. As my hopes of catching anything today rapidly dimmed, Kazu bagged several more bass with his clearly superior worm choice and presentation.

At this point we had now spent an hour fishing this small pond and my hopes had all but evaporated while watching Kazu land 3 bass and having not even received so much as a bite myself. I conceded defeat and began essentially practicing my casting while giving only halfhearted effort to the lure action. Naturally, if you know anything about fishing, you know that you always catch fish once you’ve given up. So out of nowhere, some idiotic fish decided that my worm looked tasty and a minute or so later I landed my first Japanese bass, to Kazu the guide’s very relieved exclamation of “finally!”

Thirty minutes later neither of us had had another bite(meaning, Kazu hadn’t had any more bites, as I was getting none to begin with), so we packed up once again and moved on to another pond…

And promptly got lost. Japan has an often infuriating habit of not naming any of their local roads, just the highways. So, if you don’t have a map(and we didn’t) and you happen to get lost, good luck. As we wandered down country road after country road searching for a major thoroughfare we came across a lime green scum pond. At this point we were desperate to get out of the car and we gave it a shot. This thing was nasty, and neither of us was expecting anything but some momentary respite from the cramped confines of the Civic. After a few casts though I spied with my little eye a ripple by a raw sewage pipe(seriously, raw sewage), and tossed a worm on top of it. Immediately I had a hook up and to our mutual shock landed a nice, healthy, and thoroughly slimy green 14″ largemouth. In the next 30min Kazu managed only a beastly 5 inch bass, so we trudged back to the car and continued onwards. Twenty minutes or so later we finally reached a highway and having oriented ourselves on a map at the nearest gas station, headed off towards the final destination, a huge impoundment in the mountains with a reputation for big bass.

What the reputation neglected to include though, was that the lake had virtually no shoreline access. While it was quite pretty, we were only able to crawl, slide, and hop down to maybe 1% of its shoreline tops. Nevertheless, we fished it stubbornly and unsuccessfully until the afternoon sun forced us to concede defeat. Exhausted, scraped up from fighting through brush, and disappointed at our failure, we stumbled back to the car and finally headed home. By final tally, I had been defeated 5 bass to 2 at the masterful hands of Kazu. Out of brazen American pride, I’m going to chalk this one up to home field advantage and confidently declare that next time victory will be mine. All in all from the time my alarm clock went off until the time we returned to APU, it was a 10hr trip. Weenies we are not.

We are already planning our next trip, and in the meantime I am having some hand-picked tackle sent over from the States. The game is on…