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That second floor is largely dedicated to apparel and accessories.

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There are also fish attractants and chum.

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I know crafty Japanese readers who turn some of these into bait by making them into dough.

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This second floor also had some speciality finesse fishing tackle, such as these hooks.

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Speciality line and leaders as well, both mono and fluoro.

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And strands of straight fluorocarbon with colour markers for Ayu fishing, but don't know exactly how these are used.

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All very interesting, but back to the first floor for more familiar stuff....

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Reels are placed inside display cases that form a big square, with employees always present inside this square to hand reels to customers and answer their questions, making it essentially the "midtown" of the shop. On top of the display they had the same 2025 catalogues of various brands that were being sold at the show, but they were discounted here by up to 50%.

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Going around that square....

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Daiwa, Shimano, and Ocean Studio Mark conventional reels among others.

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Baitcasters.

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Quoting the late Marlon Brando; STELLLLLLA! The 2019 SW version that is, selling at discounted prices.

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A few remaining 2020 Saltigas, discounted too.

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Actually, pretty much everything is discounted. I can only recall seeing a handful of spinning reels selling at full price.

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Bottom left is the imposter Spheros SW, next to a bunch of 2023 Daiwa BG SW, all beneath 2023 Caldia SW reels.

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Some of the more expensive conventionals and the electric reels.

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These look like fly reels but they aren't. Rather these are raft reels, sometimes called "drop reels" or "inline reels". A hybrid of various reels types, they often multiply the spool speed, some have a free spool function for fast deep drops, many have complex capable drags, all in a simple form similar to a fly reel. They are popular for ice fishing. You get a better look at this type of reels later on.

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Custom parts by Daiwa's SLP works, and these were not discounted at all. Actually some were selling at a premium above the manufacturer's official price! It's a well established rule that finding an honest politician is easier than finding SLP Works' products at a discount.

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Custom parts by the very prolific LIVRE brand.

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Cheap reels are placed on racks around that centre display, fully accessible without requiring the help of an employee.

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Beneath those cheap reels on racks, even cheaper ones are piled in baskets on the floor as seen at the bottom of this photo.

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Like so, and they're even pre-spooled with mono.

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From the cheap racks, this 2017 Daiwa Windcast was priced at the equivalent of US $99. I'm very familiar with it, and found it to be a well constructed reel that would cover +95% of common long-cast needs despite not even being a hundred bucks. Actually I could've had it for only US $89 as I'll explain in a minute. We are still living in the definitive golden age of spinning reels, and I wish this era never ends.

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Do you know that thing where you ask for a reel and they tell you they'll see if they got one in the back? That's "the back" of this store, which I followed the sales lady into as she checked something for me.

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I was figuratively salivating as I stood there surrounded by boxes and boxes of delicious spinners.

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They are everywhere!

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Time to take my purchases to the cashiers' counter, where I was about to take advantage of Japan's absolutely superb tax-free scheme that's based on the honour system; if the total purchase is 5560 yen (US $38) or more, a tourist presents their passport to the cashier, who enters the data from the airport sticker into a computer then immediately deducts the amount of "consumption tax" from the total. That tax is 10% on everything except food & beverages that will be taken out of Japan whose tax is only 8%. There is a misconception that the minimum purchase required to benefit from this scheme is 5000 yen, but in reality the total paid AFTER the discount must be 5000 or more in order for this scheme to apply, hence the 5560 yen figure so that when 10% is deducted the total paid meets the 5000 threshold. This means that on top of all the already discounted prices I've seen there, I could get an extra 10% at the cashier if my total is 5560 yen or more.

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This system is superior to the garbage tax-free schemes of the EU or similar places, where one pays full price everywhere then at the airport an inspector checks that the goods are leaving with the passenger then stamps the receipts and sends the passenger to be robbed by what in my personal opinion are the lowest group of humans I'm aware of, slightly beneath pimps and human traffickers; these are private companies that processes the tax refunds at airports, but I personally believe that their business model is elaborate theft by means of charging obscene processing fees, adding undeclared charges, and forcing currency exchanges at their own exorbitant rates plus an arbitrary markup even when no currency exchange is needed and even if the passenger specifically insists that they do not exchange currency in the process. My guess is they rely on the fact that their customer is about to depart a country that he/she doesn't reside in, and it's unlikely that anyone would mount an expensive international legal challenge to retrieve the $500 or $1000 stolen by those repugnant filth.

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Considering those horrible experiences, you can only imagine my elation seeing Japan's tax refund system, sending me on the mother of all shopping sprees in which I probably bought enough lures, braid, and hooks to last me until the child I'll have with that morning TV girl is old enough to take him fishing. I had to buy as much as I could on this trip because we live in a world where degenerates must ruin everything that's good; while there I learned that this tax-refund system is about to get cancelled and replaced with one similar to the rest of the world, because sadly overseas crooks have been recruiting and sending mules to Japan to buy expensive goods at the 10% tourist discount, then they leave these items in the country where resident associates of the overseas criminals sell them in their own businesses and pocket that illegally obtained 10%. Unfortunately the honour system the Japanese came up with does not work in a world of dishonourable slime.

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Anyhow, not going to inflate this already gigantic article with my shopping spree details, especially right after writing something similar merely 3 months ago, but I'll be showing a few highlights of the more interesting purchases....

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.... like this sweetheart, which is what the sales lady was getting me from the back; a 2011 Shimano Super Aero Activesurf, type 5 (thick thread), meaning it's the highest capacity of the 3 models available. Priced a bit above 9,000 yen but I paid roughly 8,000 yen (~ US $54) after tax deduction. Since I remain a child at heart, I couldn't wait to get back to the hotel and immediately unwrapped my new toy and played with it in the subway. Check out the oil injection port behind the rotor, a distinct feature of Shimanos from those gone days. How nostalgically beautiful. 

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A better look back in my room. I have no real need for it, but being a spinning reels' fanatic I needed to get one on this Japanese expedition as a souvenir to add to my permanent collection. Made in 2023 in Shimano's Malaysian plant, yet it's so characteristically Japanese I found it a great choice for a memento from that country. What's more Japanese than a Kisu fishing long distance caster that has no drag? The absence of drag is due to these fish being too small to pull line against any sort of resistance, and the spool is very shallow because you only need as much line as your cast can reach, since no fish will be pulling extra line and running away. I'm not catching any Kisu but I might give it a go against Whiting from the beach. I'd quit fishing in shame the day I need a working drag to land a Whiting, which my tiny grand-niece lands regularly on her pink rod/reel combo.

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Anyhow, to make this article a useful guide to Osaka's big tackle shops, I'll give each of the 4 I visited a score and a rank. Fishing 8 main shop near Nagahara station would rank at #4 from a saltwater fishing perspective. It's a very large place with an amazing collection, but the 3 other shops had more extensive offerings in my view. Price wise, discounts were everywhere in this place, but none felt particularly special to me. The one win I'd give this shop is premium offshore casting rods, which were more numerous than in the other 3 places. Overall 7/10 stars from me, which is still fantastic but the other shops were just too good.

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Still unable to navigate Japanese cuisine, I resorted to the familiar once more and went to a KFC in a big station/shopping centre. I'm actually a KFC connoisseur of sorts. I always seek it out, I ate it in more than 50 cities in 4 continents, and I rate each experience on two criteria; the taste, and the severity of diarrhoea I suffer afterwards. This time the taste was a bit strange with strong hints of flour and only little traces of that KFC mysterious flavour, but the chicken itself was very fresh and free from the usual symptoms of rigor-mortis or signs of soaking in a strong vinegar bath to hide the decay of the flesh. Also I'm happy to report that I suffered no diarrhoea afterwards.

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By the time I finished eating, my fingers had become very oily and I had used up the wipes and tissues and they were no longer useful, so I needed to go get more tissues from the counter. The problem is, I had taken my wallet and phones out of my pockets before I sat down, I also had a bag of almost a thousand dollars worth of perfumes and gifts I'd just bought for friends and family, and grabbing these with my greasy fingers would've been a nightmare. I was sitting on the solo eaters' counter with about 5 other people next to me, 4 or 5 tables behind me with maybe a dozen people on them, yet I did something that would've been unimaginable anywhere else; I counted on the civility of the Japanese people and just left everything and went to the counter....

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There were people ordering so I lined up behind them having to turn my back to where I was sitting, and I wouldn't have been able to watch my things anyway because they were behind a black divider as seen in the photo above. About 6 minutes later it was my turn, asked for tissues and cleaned my hands, then made my way back to find my stuff perfectly untouched. Basically, leaving my things in that crowded Osaka restaurant was as safe as leaving them in my own bedroom, or even safer since I once dated a chick who stole a card from my wallet as I slept and went partying with her deadbeat sister. But that's a story for another time. This is Japan in a nutshell, and the fact that we can not all live like this everywhere means that we failed as a civilisation no matter how many gadgets we invent and what GDP numbers our economies produce.

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Not wanting to make the entirety of my stay about fishing tackle, I dedicated a morning to an actual touristy activity; coming out of the subway station my brain once again struggled with the abnormality of large stretches of streets without a single piece of trash in sight. I'm not used to that.

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Why does everyone build these wheels? They are slow and boring, and if someone in your cabin had eaten cabbage or beans for breakfast you'll be trapped inhaling their methane discharges and exchanging awkward looks for 30 to 45 minutes.

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Being a fisherman, my toursity side trip didn't veer too much from my passion; the Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan, whose facade changes to reflect their current star occupant. I wonder what that big creature is.

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I'm here for the fish. Why am I seeing ducks?

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Yeah, seals are cool and all, but where is the fish? By the way, I initially wrote a dad-joke here about seeing normal seals but no mag-seals, then I figured readers using online translators would be confused since in other languages the animal's name and the waterproofing device are not the same word. This is how much I love you, my non-English speaking fellas. I'm willing to drop an opportunity to be corny for your sake! 

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Seriously, are there even any fish in this aquarium? I want my hard earned 2700 yen back.

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Still not a fish, but we're finally getting somewhere.

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Now that's a fish. A very curious one, who came staring at me as if I was the exotic creature and not her.

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That's one fish that drank way too much last night.

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Lots of juicy steaks in this babe.

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And this one seemed to be in a contemplative mood. I respected the moment and walked away quietly.

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Fresh bait.

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Eaten the wonderfully flavourful Japanese sea bass before, but this is the first time I've seen it alive. That's one elegant fish.

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such an aggressive stance. These giant crabs seemed more willing to eat me than I'm willing to eat them.

And here is the star of the show, the one depicted on the facade of the building....

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The Whale Shark. It's not a whale, rather a shark that was named "whale" due to its size. It is the biggest fish in the world. I don't know how much this one at the aquarium weighs, but it's so gigantic I chuckled imagining how if I hook it on my heaviest gear it would continue swimming and living normally without ever noticing that some dude is up there trying to stop it with a reel that's emitting heavy smoke and dripping molten metal.

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As I stood there with everyone admiring this beast and forming a small crowd, someone kept asking us via the aquarium's speakers system to keep moving not to block the passage, both in Japanese and English. I wanted to watch it a bit longer, and being a developmentally stunted rube who should've never been allowed into civilised Japan I just shrugged my shoulders and continued to stand there, thinking to myself it's just a voice from a control room and they probably can't even see me all that well. That was the exact moment I turned my head left to see that right next to me stood the aquarium's employee who was giving the instructions I just ignored via a headset, and she obviously saw my dismissive shrug and was looking at me as if she was seriously considering slapping me across the face. Felt totally mortified and immediately looked down and walked away mumbling apologetic words, feeling both humiliated and deeply in love! I only saw her eyes because she was wearing a mask, but her angry glare pierced right through my heart who saw her as the cutest girl alive. Actually her strictness is exactly what I want in the woman who'll raise our children. I mean having sent me running scared, what child could ever ignore her instructions to put down the phone and do their homework? I knew right there that the TV girl was just someone whom I projected my desire to find my soulmate on, but now I've found that soulmate for real in the aquarium. Stay tuned, because someday somehow I'm going to be marrying this woman and coming to invite those of you who are able to bring good gifts to the wedding. That's a cataclysmic digression though....

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This chart illustrates the sheer size of the whale shark, seen at the top, compared to the great white shark right beneath it as well as other sharks below,

and if you look closely you'd spot a male diver for scale. Imagine seeing that thing coming towards you while diving.

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This diver though has nothing to fear. Cleaning a tank and making sure its piping isn't clogged, while tourists stopped and watched in admiration because his diligent and meticulous work was something that most of us aren't familiar with in our lazy entitled cultures. 

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Actually everything there was impeccable, be it the spotless cleanliness of the place, the thoughtfully sloped floors for the comfort of people in wheelchairs and mothers pushing strollers, or the fact that everything in that aquarium worked flawlessly. Not a single bulb was out, not one screen was off, and no interactive buttons were out of service. Seeing all of that I couldn't stop painful comparisons coming to my head....

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Comparisons to this, for instance; Whipsnade Zoo in Britain about a year ago, where I walked into the hippopotamus enclosure with my great-nieces and nephew only to find the animals living in a disgusting pool of faeces that I guess hadn't been cleaned in months, emitting a stench so foul one of the kids started gagging forcing me to pull everyone out half a minute after walking in. And that's just a snapshot of the neglect and disrepair we saw all day such as footpaths covered in mud from previous day's rain, messy toilets completely out of toilet paper and any sort of soap, or the fact that I found no security or workers to speak to when I spotted a dude hanging outside the girls' toilet seemingly videoing or photographing them going in and out. I had to step in myself and ask him who he's waiting for, to which he pretended not to speak English and walked away all alone without children or a family or a good reason to be there. That's how absurdly chaotic things have become. In contrast, one does not need to be very perceptive to come to the realisation that in Japan everywhere is clean and safe and everything works to absolute perfection because the people love their country and community and find satisfaction in fulfilling their duties. Decades ago most of the West was like this, now very few care anymore and the majority are cynics living purposelessly and their work ethic consists of doing the bare minimum needed to get paid and go home.

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No, I didn't digress this time. The civilisational and societal abyss we're quickly careening into is of such paramount urgency it renders any other subject the actual digression, not the other way round. So, let me digress back to whatever nonse I was discussing....

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This section was too dark for photography, and it was made this way because it housed small marine creatures that live in extreme depths where it's totally dark. I could not read the Japanese information labels, but the tanks' walls were of such unusual thickness I deduced that they were highly pressurised to mimic the conditions near the deep ocean floors. They had wiring and pipes going into them that could very well be components of the hydraulics creating the pressure. I can't be sure, but if my assumption is true then it would be an engineering marvel allowing us to see living creatures that we previously could only see in videos filmed by deep submersibles.

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I'll have some of these, deep fried with chips please. Thanks.

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On the way out, the aquarium apparently wanted to blow the minds of people who've just seen the enormous whale shark by showing them an even bigger fish; the extinct Megalodon, whose length was approximately 14 metres (46 feet) and weighed 45 tons, making the Whale shark look like a toddler next to it. We're going to need a braid with way more strands than 17 and Daiwa and Shimano need to work harder on their next generation ZaionFinite-HydroCoque-DuraMax-CrossLeg-HyperLoop-LetGoMyBoob technology in order to have a chance at stopping that thing. FG knot would still suffice though.

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And this is a fire extinguisher, photographed with great interest simply because I've never seen a Japanese fire extinguisher before, and neither did any of you so be thankful and stop rolling your eyes.

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Near the door, saw a questionnaire to measure visitors' satisfaction before they departed. Let me tell them how happy I am with the place....

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Err.... Nope, we're not doing that. 30 years ago the West let that "others" thing slide out of niceness, and because of that we now have to sail through +55 options of hallucinated existences to fish ours, only to find it attached to a nonsensical "CIS" in some cases, and I bet you that in 10 years even this will be gone and we will become the "others". Not completing that questionnaire, and hopefully they'll wake up and reverse course before they irrecoverably destroy their population's brains with this lunacy as Europe and the Anglosphere did.

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Port of Osaka is mere steps from the aquarium's exit, and of course the sea draws me in like a magnet.

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The mysterious beauty of open water. I wished I could cast a bait and sit next to it for a whole day taking in the view, but not in February though because the low temperature coupled with the wind made my soul scream and I couldn't stand there for more than a couple of minutes.

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A "FamilyMart" on my way back to the station, which along with "7 Eleven" and "Lawson" from the trio of the most popular Japanese convenience stores that are practically found around every corner.

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A typical residential street. Concrete and rebar apartment buildings with cables everywhere in the air, built for space efficiency and earthquake protection instead of aesthetics, and bikes are left unsecured and some garage doors left open without worries of theft or break-ins. Quiet and spotlessly clean, and I certainly wouldn't mind living in one of these for the rest of my life. I mean unless that aquarium girl prefers to raise our 12 future children in a single family house or something.

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I understand that this is highly artistic, but no thanks.

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More mysterious beauty. Let me have a closer look....

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Charming.

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Don't know what this plump lady is doing, but her pleasant smile reassures me that it must be something good.

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This country has a unique ubiquity of vending machines, and underground stations have a particularly good concentration of them.

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Not just food and drinks. They sell all sorts of crazy stuff as long as they can fit in a bag....

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Fancy a "Back to the Future" car? Insert your money and you'll get one in a second. I was not exaggerating when I said CRAZY STUFF.

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And some art to make commuters smile. Put that in a Chicago or NYC subway and in 2 hours it would become part urinal and part drug injection den.

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Next stop is "Fishing Max" near Namba.

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A straightforward 5 minutes walk from Namba station, heading South down an unmistakable wide road. Just follow the main traffic and you'll be there before you know it.

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This shop is the smallest of the 4, yet its many aisles are packed full and well stocked. 

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I'm not going to show everything to keep this article from becoming a 12 pages saga, instead here are a few highlights;

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Excellent offering of rods, and as my eyes scanned the prices I could tell that this place had even better discounts than the previous one. 

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Daiwa's offshore rods next to their counterparts by Major Craft, who chose an interesting name for their rods; no catch and release, no touching the leader and calling it a landing, no nothing. If a fish is caught on that "Giant Killing" rod it's going straight to the funeral house. Heard that Major Craft's next rod series is going to be named "Fattie Bludgeoning", but that might just be a rumour.... that I started!

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I had decided that Shimano Grappler meets my criteria for a decent travel rod that doesn't cost much. Originally released as a 2-piece, they added a line of 3-piece Grappler in 2021 that fit in an even smaller case, and that was the one I wanted to buy. This shop had them at an astounding 50% discount, so I went through the various models looking for the spinning type PE5 250g, but unfortunately this particular one wasn't in stock. The very nice staff went typing on their computer to see how fast they could get it for me, but turns out it would take a few days and I only had two days left in Japan. The discount was so irresistible I was tempted to grab the PE4 one instead, but it felt too light to be a versatile rod for emergency situations when I land somewhere and find no suitable rods awaiting. I can live with a rod that's too stiff for the job, but not one that's too light that would absorb pull energy in bending instead of sending it to the lure. It was too painful to walk away from a half-price opportunity, but I had no choice.

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Premium hook brands that I know, next to brands I'm not familiar with whose prices are lower. Had I lived there I would have methodically tried out those other brands to see if there were any hidden gems in there.

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Assists.

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Swivels and swivels with snaps, also familiar and unfamiliar brands.

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They had more jigs than all the shops I've been to in the entirety of 2024 combined.

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Sliding racks filled with jigs that when pushed aside expose more racks of jigs behind them. Great use of space.

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Why do these have an Italian flag on them?

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A pasta fork too? Such an offensive cultural appropriation. The Italian-Japanese community should take to the streets now and demand an apology for this farce. Has no one learned anything from all the reckoning we've been reckoning'ing in the past few years? 

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Some of the prices are insanely good.

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Only 550 yen (US $3.7) for a perfectly usable 300 grams jig? I wasn't intending on shopping for jigs, but these prices are just too alluring. Hmmmm

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Surface hunters were also irresistibly discounted

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These are all factory made polymer ones.

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The handcrafted wood stick baits were not behind glass here, allowing me to feel them and relive the times when they were indispensable to me.

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My personal take on this, which doesn't necessarily have to be true for everyone else, is that wood casts better than any plastic because of its natural density that's evenly spread across the lure, something that plastic lures weighted with lead can't perfectly match. Also, the buoyancy of wood makes the action in water different in a good way; when doing the "sweep and reel" routine the wood feels lighter and more agile in movement. Its disadvantages are the higher prices, lesser availability, and that when fish repeatedly strike it and pierce the finish the wood absorbs water throwing out the lure's balance unless it's quickly treated. In the past, one had to settle for these drawbacks, but now I feel that plastics have advanced enough, thanks to computer aided design and manufacturing honing their casting aerodynamics and swimming characteristics, that wood is no longer necessary despite still having a slight edge in certain aspects. If I remember correctly, the last wood plug I bought was in 2018 or about. I would still buy them in the future, but only as collectors' items to admire their beauty and craftsmanship, not to abuse them in salt with toothy brutes.

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Due to its smaller size, this shop does not have the square shaped central display for reels, and instead they are placed in vertical glass cabinets. Surprisingly, all these cabinets were unlocked and opened when I was there, but I'd imagine that they would lock them if things get busy or they spot suspicious characters.

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Access to these reels isn't a big deal for me since I buy and fish them all the time, but for most people being able to hold and spin those + $1000 pieces is a remarkable experience, particularly for fishermen visiting from countries where these are too expensive to be imported as normal stock and are often only obtainable by special order. I've been to countries where the biggest shops in the capital cities never had a Stella or a Saltiga, and the most expensive spinners on display were less than US $200. These open cabinets therefore certainly delivered much pleasure to countless visitors.

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They, too, had a few remaining pieces of the 2020 Saltiga.

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Everything is discounted.

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Just like the previous shop, the cheaper reels are not enclosed and the even cheaper ones are in buckets on the floor.

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That was a pleasant surprise. Right after the show Daiwa sent out samples of different 2025 reels to shops, allowing customers to drool all over them and place pre-orders. I was quite happy to see some of them again this soon instead of waiting months for their release before I can get my hands on any of them once more. And, of course, the 2025 tackle catalogues seen to the left were yet again priced differently to our previous encounters. The concept of catalogues for sale remains totally foreign to me. I lived my whole life picking all sorts of catalogues for free, be it fishing related at the likes of EFTTEX and ICAST, or at events such as SHOT, IWA, or SCI on the hunting front. I mean Holland & Holland and Browning used to issue elaborate premium catalogues that cost a lot to produce yet gave them for free at their galleries or show booths, but the giant industrial powerhouses Shimano and Daiwa are demanding $1.35 for theirs?

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Original Daiwa reel bags/covers, in case yours now stinks of fish and bait and the wife keeps yelling at you to keep it out of the house.

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And ones by Shimano as well, to finish up the visit.

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Fishing Max near Namba would rank #3 on my 4 shops tour, only because its size limits the amount of stock it holds notwithstanding the superb job they did putting as much tackle as humanly possible in every bit of available space. It gets a solid 8/10 from me, and it lands a win in the price category since, overall, it had better discounts than the other 3 at the time of my visit. Another win for it is the staff, who provided a most welcoming atmosphere both with the open cabinets and their readiness to find me anything I wanted and get it for me quickly if it's not currently available. Everyone I met in the 4 shops was magnificent, yet the people of Fishing Max were somehow a cut above.

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Back to the hotel to drop my loot before I go for lunch, and without a doubt the highlight of my purchases that day were a dozen or so jigs weighing 100 and 125 grams, priced as low as a shocking 326 yen (US $2.18) which goes down to US $1.96 after the tax-free deduction. For that price I wouldn't care if the finish wears off after a few fish, but I don't see a reason to believe that this would happen and they certainly look perfectly decent to me. The Japanese domestic market is not known for featuring low quality goods.

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For perspective, before I went to Japan a friend had just returned from Vietnam bringing me a dozen of what were then the cheapest jigs I've ever had, each costing around 85,500 dong (US $3.28). Meaning that, unbelievably, the jigs I later bought in Osaka were considerably cheaper than jigs bought from one of the cheapest markets on earth. That's something, isn't it? For an explanation of why I use the cheapest jigs I could find that meet minimal usability criteria, please check this article.

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Returning to the subway, now acting more like an Osakan and less like a tourist, having gained enough familiarity with the network to move without looking at maps. I was greatly aided by those arrows on the ground in the distinct colour of each line, essentially guiding me to my desired line just by keeping them in my prereferral vision as I walked. Brilliant, isn't it?

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And how wonderful is this? When arriving at a station, screens in each carriage display its position in the train, show the locations of escalators, lifts, and handicap facilities relative to each specific carriage, as well as the local weather so passengers would know what's awaiting them outside.       

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The true beauty of the network though is not the electronics, rather it's the people using it who sit quietly, act politely, and keep the trains spotlessly clean. No rubbish or discarded cups or cans, no rude youth yelling and laughing, and no one is FaceTiming his cousin at the other end of the world to discuss the new well dug in their village or some other nonsense that we don't need to hear about.

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I know I sound overly excited about Japanese public transportation,but that's only because I come from a world where a man could get butchered with huge knife on a London train, a woman could be burned alive while the murderer fans the flames on full view of passengers in NYC, another could be yanked at random and have her clothes torn off then get fully violated in a crowded carriage as tens of people just watch and film, where unsuspecting innocents keep getting randomly pushed under the wheels of incoming trains, or if they don't stand near the edge of the platform to be safe from pushing they could still get stabbed in the eye. Taking a ride in a safe Japanese train should be an unremarkable event, but it has become something to write home about thanks to the strange societal suicide of the West making such a ride a potentially deadly endavour.

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Anyhow, I was quite intent on eating proper Japanese food that day, because I kept thinking that if I tell people back home that I ate nothing but chain fast food in Osaka they'd think I'm retarded. Thus I headed straight to Dotonbori, the city's busiest district and the ultimate destination for foodies 

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Another surreal moment of being physically in a place that I had captured days earlier from a map in my bed 10,000 miles away, map to the left and my photography to the right.

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This place is beautiful, pure and simple.

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Order, colours, delightful food smells, and a happy kitten on a building. What more could one ask for?

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That's my chosen entry point to the food quarter. Not a barrier in sight despite being a busy major attraction.

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I mean these ugly steel and concrete barriers that sprung everywhere in Europe and many US cities in an attempt to stop deranged murderers from mowing people down with cars. To add insult to injury, while photographing the barriers I accidentally captured a large trash bag thrown on the ground (right bottom), because some fools don't know how to live in a society and they only care about getting rash out of their shops and letting it become everyone else's problem. Walking in beautiful clean Dotonbori I couldn't fully enjoy the moment because I was haunted by the thought that I'm returning to filth and vehicular homicide in a few days. I'll spare you those thoughts though.

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Look at that huge hootie on the building!! No, not talking about the lady, I mean the crab. As much as I love cute women, none of them stands a chance against food, my true, deep, and lasting love. Let's see what that shop has to offer....

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60,000 yen (US $400) for a crab? That would have to be a special kind of crab that regenerates itself after being eaten so it could be eaten again and again, otherwise I'm not paying Saragosa SW money for a meal!

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Stepping into this stretch I was instantly attacked by gorgeous food aromas from every direction. I need to stuff my face soon before I choke on my own drool.

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What have you got in that bag buddy? Can I have some?

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Finally something I knew, only because I saw it in a video the night before I flew; traditional Kushikatsu, which is a mix of deep fried meats, seafood, and vegetables on skewers. Originally considered the food of the working class because it's cheap and filling, now it's an icon of Japanese cuisine. Takes time to prepare though. I need something that will be ready in less than a minute or I'll lose my mind. The smell of food in the air was too intoxicating.

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Great teeth mate. You must be flossing daily.

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That would make a good Japanese movie monster; Furious Crab vs Rodan, or something.

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That's the friendliest mascot I've seen so far. Maybe I should try some octopus, if it isn't raw.

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Yep, eventually I got octopus cooked in a special batter called Takoyaki, and I hated myself for not finding out about it earlier and eating it every day. That thing was exceptionally savoury, and I had 4 different sauces and toppings on mine to mix my own flavours.

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Went to eat it on the nearby canal, right in front of the Glico Running Man.

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Peaceful and relaxing. Reminds me of how Amsterdam canals used to be until the early 2000s before everything began to fall apart. Anyhow, now that I'm no longer hungry, let's find who that stunner in the big advertisement is so I could suddenly discover that she's actually the one and only for me and that the aquarium girl was merely a fleeting spring crush.

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That's an interesting one; a rucksack completely unattended on the ground with no indication that its owner is standing nearby. My brain is trained to perceive this as a potential danger that requires police intervention, and I was indeed about to make the call when my deception detectors stopped me. Something about it didn't seem right or natural. Its location in the middle of the street seemed designed to attract attention, something that doesn't fit someone trying to do harm or someone accidentally forgetting their rucksack. In the latter case it would be near a wall or a bicycle rack or similar. Ours being the times of unprecedented idiocy, I became convinced that it was most likely left on purpose by a moron who's now hiding and filming it for a "viral" tiktok video about the honesty of the Japanese people who wouldn't take it. Can't be 100% sure, but that's what it seemed to me. If you ever find such a video featuring this bag in this location please let me know.

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With the sun about to set I felt like having a beer before heading home, but I had no idea where to go and didn't want to unwittingly walk into a "hostess bar" kind of place. In those bars everything costs more because waitresses wear skimpy outfits and treat men in a flirtatious manner, and I no longer support businesses where women sell their femininity in any shape or form because in principle it's all prostitution even if they haven't yet hit the bottom of that slippery slope. When I was young and stupid I enjoyed that sort of thing, now my instinct is to protect the girls from doing this to themselves.

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Anyhow, I spotted a group of 4 foreigners who seemed familiar with the area, asked them if they knew any actual bars, turns out they were New Zealanders two of whom lived there and were going out for a drink as well. They invited me to tag along, the Japanese wife of one of them joined us later, and we ended up having a ton of fun and laughs even though none of them fished. For some reason I was under the impression that every male in New Zealand was a pro fisherman. At any rate, one of things I learned from my extensive travels is that Kiwis and Aussies are some of the most trustworthy and easy going people one can ever meet. Once they sense that you're not a bad person they'll strike friendships immediately, and in an instant someone you've just met becomes a person who will have your back without hesitation. Always found them the most wonderful people, and this encounter was no different.

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Heading home later on, the area looked even more beautiful at night with lights shining bright and thousands of people coming out for a bit of fun at the end of the day. I stood on the bridge for a little while looking at the city and its vibrant people, and it was right then that I realised something that I had already suspected for a long time; Japan is not at all a country of joyless, depressed, lonely, and overworked population as we're led to believe by media and art. I've interacted with some Japanese people during college and in work and business settings, none ever gave me those negative vibes, which led me to suspect that we were being propagandised about Japan for some reason. Despite the suspicion, I reserved my verdict until I got to that country myself, and while this wasn't technically the first time I ever set foot in Japan, it was for all intents and purposes my first proper visit and actual stay where I got to spend meaningful time and get a real sense of the population. My final verdict is that the Japanese are very content people who love their country and fellow citizens, and they love life with a passion and often find unique and quirky ways to enjoy it even more.

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Anyhow, time to go home and jump into bed, because I still had a lot of exploring to do and a good night of deep sleep was needed to replenish my energy.

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