After moving from Tokyo to an area near central Japan known as Shizuoka Prefecture, my wife and I were quite near the ocean. We fished for black bass in Tokyo, as heading for the ocean could mean several hours in traffic. In Numazu, which is the city we moved to in Shizuoka, Suruga Gulf lies in front of the Pacitic Ocean and is a 10 minute drive away.
Black bass fishing was quite enjoyable, and it always amazed me that bait was not needed to go after them. Knowing when to use jigs, lures or rubbery worms usually brought good results and hardy tugs and pulls on the hook before the black bass were landed. But the ocean was in front of us and neither my wife nor I had ever tried ocean fishing.
We headed for a local fishing supply store one fine morning to get the essential rods, line, and hooks. Being frugal by nature, I opted for lugworm as bait instead of the frozen block of shrimp as my wife suggested because the block looked so big, and I couldn't imagine using all the bait in one outing.
The fishing area we selected was near the entrance to Numazu Port. Numazu is known in Japan as a mecca for horse mackerel fishing, and the dried fish is said to be the best in the country. Horse mackerel was what I was expecting to catch, without realizing that my bait would not allow it to be my target fish.
The air was sweet and fresh, the sunlight was warm and soothing, the ocean was flowing smoothly in deep blue, but even after an hour had passed, the fish were not biting. I can still recall that day after well over 20 years have passed, along with my wife commenting at that point that we should have bought the shrimp as bait.
The strangest thing happened a few moments later. It felt like someone banged a wire hanger against my fishing pole. I did not know how to cast my bait on my first ocean fishing attempt, so all I did was to hold my rod with the lugworm bait underneath. The shock of feeling the bang disoriented me for an instant before I realized that it was a fish. Oh my, I had one on the line!
My first fish from the ocean turned out to be a sillago, and not a horse mackerel. This fish widened my eyes to golf balls because the largest sillago I had ever seen was at a restaurant and was about eight and a-half inches long. This beauty was well over 12 inches. Catching a dozen more would give me a sillago tempura dinner for two. But as it turned out, none of its friends came by for the tempura party. I kept the big sillago swimming in my bucket of seawater, and decided to release it at the end of the day, The fish got its freedom back, while I ended up being hooked.
This outing was a valuable learning experience. The big mistake on my part was not choosing the shrimp for bait. Little did I know that horse mackerel are not known to go after lugworms, but sillago are. Another mistake which I later realized was that the hook I was using was much too large. I was in the habit of using large hooks while black bass fishing, but using a smaller hook would have led to catching a number of sillago, instead of just one monstrous fish.
There were many more mistakes along with things learnt with each ocean fishing quest. But that's all part of the excitement and adventure. I can hardly wait to tell you more.
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