DEPS, the lure brand of the big bass hunter, Mr. Kazumasa Okumura

There are a lot of people who have heard the name, “DEPS,” but not so many people know the name of its founder, Mr. Kazumasa Okumura. Though he is not as popular as tournament oriented Japanese pro-anglers, he is one of the most famous black bass anglers in Japan.

In this article, I will show you about the founder of the brand, as well as the history of the brand with some iconic products.

Mr. Kazumasa Okumura

He was born in Kyoto, in 1969. Kyoto is about 10 km from the south end of the Biwako Lake. This lake is the biggest lake in Japan which had the world record bass in 2009. 

Taking advantage of this environment, fishing was very close in his youth. It is said that he started snakehead fishing when he was in elementary school, and started bass fishing when he was in junior high school. Then he became into this fishing.

In the middle of 1980’s, bass fishing was booming in Japan. And it is a great gift, for us now, that Mr. Okumura got into bass fishing then.

After he had been away from fishing, he resumed fishing and got a big bass. It drove him to search for the big sized bass. 

He had been focusing on the big ones and making a lot of good results. Gradually it made him famous, firstly in the western Japan. And after he was featured in fishing magazines in the 1990’s, he became famous nationwide. 

As you can see, he had not taken part in fishing tournaments. 

While many famous bass anglers in Japan became famous through winning in competitions, Mr. Okumura was not of this type. 

His fishing style is purely for the large sized bass, and not pursuing the results such as a total catch that is required in competitions. 

As he became well known, he established DEPS in 1996 in Kyogo. 

Below, let us see the history of DEPS with some key products.

B-Custom spinnerbait

Among the first lures produced by Mr. Okumura, with DEPS on his shoulder, there was a spinner bait “B Custom.” This spinnerbait is still sold after it was launched in 1997.

The effectiveness of this spinnerbait is also mentioned by other Japanese bass pro such as Mr. Katsutaka Imae (founder of the brand, “Imakatsu.”) He realized that the weak vibration from this lure was effective to activate the well-fished big bass, according to his blog article.

According to him, he made this spinnerbait because he wanted to realize what he really wanted. In the middle of 1990’s, heavy slow roll spinnerbaits were getting popular, and they were used to shoot the shallow and weedy areas. Then Mr. Okumura saw the chance to get a big bass, using lighter spinnerbaits tracing the open water or deeper water. It brought him good successes in catching big fish. After this experience, he came to want a new spinnerbait which was suitable in his style of using it. 

To develop his new spinnerbait, he made his original blades as there were only imported blades in the market at that time. He looked at blades because he felt that he could not make different characters in his spinnerbait only with the different shapes of heads. Eventually, it allowed this spinnerbait to have the unique well turning blades.

To bring his blades into production, he had to order 100,000 pcs. Because he was sure about its success and definitely wanted to make it happen, he went to the Japanese biggest wholesaler, Taniyama Shoji Co., Ltd. to ask for help. This wholesaler kindly agreed to buy the final products, and it appeared in the market eventually. 

(These comments are introduce by himself in this video https://youtu.be/k9d3-RE859Y?si=zhpJo44qI2q4zjmS )

Death Adder

In 2001, the first soft lure from this big bass hunting brand hit the market. It was the Death Adder. Since Mr. Okumura caught so many large bass with this lure, many anglers had come to have a strong trust in it. So it had allowed uncountable anglers to get their big fish, to change the trust into almost assurance.  

It has been almost two decades after it appeared in the market, but it is still the popular choice and it has expanded its series products with unsalted version in 2023. 

The background story of the development of Death Adder was explained in this video.

https://youtu.be/MA7Jo7bDe8g/ (in Japanese)

Here is the brief summary of what he said in this video.

After the success of B-Custom spinnerbait, in 1997, there were requests to make the soft lure under DEPS. But Mr. Okumura was not keen on it. 

After a while, he got a chance to produce his soft lure. One soft lure factory approached him to ask him to produce one soft lure. It made him start considering the development. At that time, the popular rigs for bass were Stud 5in of Gambler with 1/16 oz jig head. Then the bumpy surface soft lures were said to be working well, and he felt the same. Another popular choice was Senko of Gary Yamamoto. 

Looking at the popularity of these lures, he was bluntly feeling that it would be catching more if there were more bumpy surfaces with longer pintails. And he, expecting nothing special, drew a brief sketch of the lure and gave it to the factory, who approached him.

After a while, he received the first sample of the sketched soft lure. That was much bigger than he had expected. But it turned out that the size, 6 inch, was to be the very first Death Adder. When he saw the sample, he was struck by a positive surprise that the outcome was much better than his original sketch. 

Immediately after he received that sample, in January, he went to Biwako lake. There he caught a few over 50 cm bass. He felt something special in this lure and became sure of its success with this lure. Testing this new lure revealed that it could be used in various rigs, jig head, no-sinker, wacky jig head etc. 

At that time, 6 inch was recognized as too big for many bass lakes in Japan, but after this Death Adder was in the market, it inspired the market to see more big bait direction.

Silent Killer

The next is the Silent Killer. In 2016, as the first big bait lure of the brand, it was introduced in the market. 

The development history was explained by Mr. Okumura himself, in this video (https://youtu.be/g9JKMXAl6aY?si=a8tMpq_DV3SfYNZz , video is in Japanese.)

Once, he heard of the Castaic Trout lures used in the U.S. to target over-10-pound bass. He knew about the lure, only being displayed in the store shelves, and he was hard to believe it catching well. As he got these lures in his hand, he used them in the Biwako lake and Ikehara lake and caught big bass. He was convinced of the effectiveness of such big baits. After a while these American big baits were coming into the Japanese market and gradually some Japanese brands started their own ones. What Mr. Okumura was thinking of improving it without using the soft material, and that the wood multi sectioned baits could miss the lively feeling. Then he started to search for the soft but hard to break material. He reached his conclusion to use the frog material on the surface with a hard core. The Silent Killer was the end result of this material combination. 

(Note: the new Silent Killer was further improved with plastic material. He said that the new material has the better and stable quality in production.) 

DEPS is driven by the ingenuity of Mr. Okumura. His ideas and vision has been leading the brand and entertaining the anglers, keeping the big bass in its heart.