Keitech, the Quality Lures Thoughtfully Produced by a Legendary Angler

Have you seen the soft lure labeled as “Keitech,” in the stores near you? Do you know that they are one of the best soft lures, made in Japan?

While many of you have heard of or even used Keitech’s high performance lures, there is not much information about its history and background of developments.

In this article, I will introduce some of the best selling soft lures of Keitech, and then the history of the company and the people behind it will be introduced.

Keitech products

The first and foremost is the Swing Impact.

As the above picture of their official site is showing, it is the most famous swim bait. The most important characteristics of this soft lure is the design of the tail. This simple disc shaped tail is catching the water and swings, in combination with the proper thickness and softness of the back body. It can swim well not only in slow speed, but also  in faster retrieve. While, for the other swim baits, the tail tends to be flipped back in the fast speed, this Swing Impact has no such issues. 

It can be used as a swim bait, to let it swim horizontally, but as it makes good actions at various speeds it can be used with a jig head.

This Swing Impact was launched in 2008. Since then it expanded the sizing to 6 sizes, from 2 inch to 4.5 inch.  Currently, as a variation, there is Swing Impact Fat. 

In the site of Bassmaster archive, Brent Ehrler shows Swing Impact as his choice for the competition in Lake Oahe, in 2018. 

The next lure is the Crazy Flapper

Amazingly, the development concept of this craw worm is that the bass bites it just falling down in the water. They boast that this lure is carrying their policy the “Ultimate Lifelike Action.”

As you can see from the photo above, the hands (or claws) have the flaps or paddles to catch the water. They bring the good vibration produced by the whole body. 

Keitech’s perfection for its quality gave birth to the interesting method to make sure every piece of worm swims as intended. It is what they call the Factory Lock.

During the transportation of the product, these soft hands can be easily twisted and the soft plastic can have memories. With such conditions, worms do not swim as intended. Keitech’s solution is to have this Factory Lock, as well as the packaging with trays.

The arms on both sides are another feature to make unique action, to keep the lure staying belly down posture, and to avoid the snag. 

There are 4 sizes of this clawed creature, from 2.4 inch to 4.4 inch.

There are a lot of thoughts in their products. I think Keitech lures are packed full of real Japanese quality, in its well stowed soft lures.

The history of Keitech

The slogan of the company is, roughly translated into English, “The Experience for the Quality.” In other words, the fishing experience contributes to their final quality of the product performance. As you saw above, their attitude for the quality is strict and it raises the performance that users experience with. 

This spirit was brought into life by the founder of the company, Mr. Keiichi Hayashi. The name of the brand “Kei”-tech comes from his given name. He was one of the most important figures who brought the bass fishing culture to Japan. 

Mr. Keiichi Hayashi

He was one of the top competitors of B.A.S.S. of Japan, and one of the first competitors in JBTA (Japan Bass Tournament Association, current JB, which held first tournaments in 1999).   

Born in 1959, in Tokyo, he got into bass fishing in his university student time, beginning 1980’s. His interest led him to join the fishing tackle company, Tiemco. While he finished his career as an employee of this company in 1995, he had been a very active tournament angler, and a very good lecturer for the non tournament anglers. It can tell us that he had a lot of knowledge about bass fishing and his knowledge was organized enough that he could teach it to others.

In 1996, he established the Keitech company. His first products were Custom Leech, Custom Trailer, Little Spider etc. 

He foresaw the future of the soft lure, and developed the biodegradable lures and launched it in 2003. It was called “Bio-Mix.” Unfortunately, it could not gain good popularity at that time for some reason. I assume his serious thought about the future of bass fishing made him develop this lure. 

In his blog, he reviewed his Bio-Mix lures. He had considered that the environmentally friendly characteristic could have been the good selling point to allow the small compromise in actions or fishing performance. But the result was adverse, and this lure could not sell well. He was convinced that the lure must have been the product to inspire users to catch more fish, and his Bio-Mix lures were missing it. 

After this failure with the new materials, without any regrets according to his words, he continued his developments. He introduced the Swing Impact in 2008, and Swing Impact Fat in following years, He launched the Tungsten resin jig head in 2008. 

His development continued and bore the renewal of the original Custom leech in 2015. But this streak was stopped in February of 2016, by his death at the age of 57. It was a big loss in the Japanese bass fishing world.

After Kei Hayashi passed away, mourned by a lot of bass anglers in Japan, the spirit of Keitech was kept on moving under the new CEO, Mr. Hisashi Maji.

A new leader of Keitech

Mr. Maji had been working with Mr. Hayashi for a long time. He had seen Kei Hayashi developing the Swing Impact.

According to Mr. Maji, during the course of Swing Impact’s development, there were 8 samples which had had the different amounts of salt contents. The more the worm material contains salt, the heavier and harder it becomes. The less salt, the softer and lighter. Though Kei thought that the heaviest one should have been the best, but the actually the least salt content material was showing the best swimming action. Mr. Maji witnessed that even Mr. Hayashi, with his vast knowledge, could not see unless it would be tested. 

It gave the Keitech an important lesson, that the preconceptions or conceited ideas cannot tell the way. Eventually, the best selling lures are the best performer in users’ fishing. 

With carrying this Keitech spirit, Mr. Maji developed lures such as the Crazy Flapper.

And the challenges of Keitech for the lures to present the true experience of its quality, for the enthusiats are continuing.

I feel the Keitech lures are the real reflection of Japanese quality lures. These were made with serious and industrious developer, with his hard work. And they are trying to deliver the superb quality in the best condition. All have been well thought and perfectly presented, without any fluffy or excessive elaborations.