The Traditional Lure Fishing in Japan? From the history of Katsuo Fishing

Katsuo (Skipjack Tuna, or Bonito, Katswonus pelamis) is one of the most popular fish in Japan, as for the Japanese cuisine. For fishing, it is one of the favorite targets for boat fishing, while it may be second to tuna in terms of the popularity for target fish.

As one of the most accessible and delicious fish, it has been a very important fish for a long time. What is notable about this article is that one of the best ways to catch it is to catch it with a strong whip rod, using artificial bait.

For this article, I introduce this way of fishing bonito, presently done, then I will show some histories of such artificial baits used for Katsuo fish. 

Current style of Katsuo fishing with whip rod

The rod length is 4.5 to 6 m, one piece rod, and the material is glass fiber (FRP) to make it strong. The thickness is 3 to 3.5 cm diameter at the butt and the tip is 0.5 to 1 cm. I suppose you can imagine the strength of the rod. 

The length of the line is about the same as the rod length. They use natural baits as well as artificial bait. In order to make the catching process quicker and to minimize the damage to the fish, the hook is barbless.

There are a lot of kinds of rod actions. Depending on the target types and sizes, these commercial fishermans are picking up their rods among the action types as below.

Tying the 30 to 70 gou thickness (it is from 0.90 mm to 1.40 mm thickness) nylon line on the rod tip. 

(For the line thickness, you can get information from this blog article of mine.)

At the end of the line, a lure called Bake or Kabura is attached. It is made of the head die casted from tin, hook, feathers and fish skin. 

It looks really like a feather jig head. For the fish skin, there are various kinds. Some fishermans say that the skin of mahi mahi (dolphin fish, Coryphaena hippurus), and others say that commonly available mackerel skin or balloon fish skin is good. 

Another unique thing in this lure is the shape of the hook.

As you can see in the video in the beginning of this blog, the caught fish is hooked and lifted out of water immediately after. Then the fisherman does not have to touch fish to unhook. It allows the fisherman to fish one after another, with high speed.

It is possible with the special shape of the hook. It does not have any barbs, the bend is not round, and very small bite to have the hook point towards nearly the side, not up. 

Until the fish lands on the boat, the hook has been holding the continuous weight and it keeps the fish deep inside the shallow bite of the hook. Once the pulling force gets weak and the line is loosened, the hook is released easily from the bonito's mouth.

The myth of the bonito fishing

According to Kawashima’s book, there are myths around the origin of lure fishing in Japan. One of them is like this. While the Emperor Keiko (said to be born in BC13) was traveling on the boat, he dropped the tip of his bow made from antler of deer into the water. Then bonito bit it and he could land the fish on the boat. Then this emperor guided local fishermen to use this style to catch more bonito.

Another story is about a ruling god, Mishima Daimyojin. Once he dropped his religious book into the sea and tried to get it back with his bow. Then, suddenly a bonito came up and bit on the tip, to land the fish safely. He told it to people and it went successfully, eventually, to bring prosperity to the people. This god is worshiped in Mishima Taisha Shrine, in Shizuoka.

As these myths tell us, the early types of these lures were made from anglers.  

According to the book of fishing equipments published in 1926, there were several types of such lures made of antlers. 

You may notice that these angler lures already have the same shape of hook, which is used for the modern Bake lures. Therefore, it is quite likely that that time (around 1900) had already had this fishing style established. As the translated word for antlers is Tsuno, this type of antler-made style lures are called Tsuno lures.

These Tsuno lures were made from various materials. Antlers of deer, horns of cow, shells, horseshoes, baleens, bones of whales, bills of billfish or sailfish, etc.

Though the modern lures for bonito fishing are mostly the jig-head style, it does not mean we do not have the Tsuno lures. Below are the lures used for surf long cast and trolling. It is reflecting the traditional styles of antler lures.

We know that the very origin of bonito fishing lures were Tsuno lures. But what made the jig-head style majority now?

To explore the reason for it, let us see the history of this style of bonito fishing.

History of bonito fishing

It is said that this style of bonito fishing, catching it with a fishing rod, was born in the Inami Wakayama, in the beginning of the 17th century. Then it spreaded out to the surrounding fishing towns, such as Wakasa, Ise, and Shima. Then it further expanded to the Kyushu island. In the north, there was a record that it had reached the Miyako bay, and Tsugaru strait, in 1654. It means that, by the Edo period, it was one of the popular ways of catching bonitos, in the wide areas of Japan.

During the Edo period, the bonito became one of the favorite fish among the people, and the fishing pressure had become bigger. By the time the Edo period was over or starting of the Meiji era, the fishing boat had to travel further away from the shore to catch bonitos. Around the 1880’s, it is recorded that these fishermans traveled to Amami island, Okinawa or near the coast of Taiwan.

The selection of tackles and the history

We can see that fishing became the different one in the Meiji era. They came to need to travel further and it meant that they had to be better organized structurally and economically. The economy drove them to be more efficient. 

I suppose it gave the pressure to select more on the jig-head style Bake, rather than Tsuno, antler lures. At that time, plastic was not invented, and the only available material for Tsuno was the hard natural materials such as horns or antlers. Note; the fully synthetic plastic was invented in 1907, and it increased its mass production during the first world war. Compared to the Tsuno lures, Bake, jig-head type, is much easier to produce, or to mass-produce. For the long distance fishing trip, fishermans had to bring a lot of rigs with them. And naturally the choice of their lures became the Bake lures. 

Then, even when the era of plastics arrived, these fishermen did not pick the plastic Tsuno lures. By then, they needed to travel further and their target fish size included much bigger fish (even tuna fish.) They had to catch whatever was available during their trip using the same ship equipment. 

As you are an angler, you can easily guess that the Tsuno style lures may not be strong enough. Most Tsuno lures do not have the wire through construction. And at the same time, as there is no line eye to connect to the main line, the way to connect it is not strong enough. And because of this construction, the movement of lure is restricted, which makes it easy to lose fish. 

I think these are the reasons why the modern bonito fisherman uses jig-head style lures, while the Tsuno style lures have the advantages of high appeal with its movement in the water. 

This is about commercial fishing, the one to catch fish with a rod and a line. In these styles, there are strong connections between leisure fishing and commercial fishing. Some modern lures in Japan are reflecting the techniques brushed up by history. If you have some Japanese lures, they may carry some pieces of Japanese traditional fishing behind.