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Cephalopods equipment and fishing
The vast majority of the equipment used to track cephalopods comes from Japan. Rod, lures, braid, reels and accessories, everything is designed to track these marine animals. There are some for beginners and occasional fishermen as well as for the most confirmed experts.
Cephalopod fishing is called Eging. This term comes from the ancient wooden lures, the "egi", which were used to catch squid in Japan. They have since given their name to the lures (egi) and the fishing technique
The Japanese love to fish for cephalopods. Cephalopod fishing is really part of the culture in the land of the rising sun. They've developed all the equipment for cephalopods.
The decoys
Lures are called squid jigs, egi, calamarettes or jigs.
Instead of hooks, there is a "basket", a set of barbless, forward-facing spikes that prick the tentacles at several points, preventing the flesh from tearing. The force is distributed at several points, which allows for a better distribution of the load. With traditional hooks, the load is concentrated in a single point, which causes the cephalopod's skin to tear in 95% of cases. Octopus (or octopus), with its harder skin and firmer flesh, can however be fished with a simple leaded head and a soft lure.
The surface of the jigs is often covered with tissue, so that cuttlefish and squid will easily grab and carry the lure into their tentacles.
Pectoral fins, often feathered, provide a planing, stable and slow swim on the way down, and allow for lively animation and movement during animation with little resistance.
The ballast is often located at the front, under the head, which makes it possible to put the lure on the bottom without the basket settling.
The different forms
Depending on the targeted cephalopods and the type of fishing that will be practiced, we will choose among the different forms of jigs existing:
- Jigs to throw are the classic shape for fishing from the shore. They often have a large shrimp silhouette, a ballast under the chin and two feathers as pectoral fins. They are jigs that sink slowly or very slowly. They only animate in very slow line or with very dry animations or jerk, in bichi-bachi (we will come back to this).
- Tataki jigs are, for their part, floating and used for boat fishing. They are small in size and several are used on the line. They replace a little bit the mackerel guns but this time they are used to fish for cephalopods. The line is ended by a pear lead or a heavy lure (jig, madai-jig...). They can also be used alone or in pairs in drop shot mounting when fishing from the shore.
- There are also jigs swimming fishes . They have the same shape as a classic swimming fish, but in the tail there is a basket to sting cephalopods and not fish. They are mainly used for trolling.
- Jigs for vertical fishing look like the jigs you throw. They are, however, very weighted at the head to allow for deep, hollow vertical fishing.
- Finally, there is mention of jigs for octopus . These are jigs vaguely imitating a crab or shellfish on the bottom. They have a basket little furnished in spades but these last ones are on the other hand very strong of iron and only turned upwards. They are flowing jigs.
The sizes
Jigs come in several sizes. It is an index (a number) which corresponds to a Japanese unit (1 egi = about 3cm) very often between 1 and 5. Size 2 corresponds to a small jig (6cm) and size 5 to a large jig (about 15cm). Tataki jigs are the smallest. The most common and regularly used sizes are sizes 2.5 to 3.5 (7 to 10cm).
The colors
Cepaholopods are very good at distinguishing contrasts but not very good at distinguishing colours. Fluorescent orange, pink or green are basic colours, especially at night. During the day, the natural colours are excellent and often forgotten.
The glow colours (phosphorescent) are highly visible in turbid water or at night, which makes them particularly attractive.
Imitations of all kinds of prey can be found, but it is the imitations of shrimp that come up most often.
Animations
For casting from the edge, the Japanese use the technique of the bichi-bachi . It is a matter of throwing your jig, letting it sink to the desired depth and making really violent cane strokes so that your jig spins from left to right and from bottom to top. The movements attract cephalopods from afar. We intersperse these brutal animations with pauses, a semi-tense banner where we will accompany the jig as it descends so that we can feel the strokes.
If the Japanese style bichi bachi is too violent, you can simply print jerks, as you would do with a minnow or jerkbait type swimming fish and control your lure during the breaks and descent phases of the squid jig. The pause phases are important because cephalopods attack very often during these phases where the lure moves slowly.
Try to prospect at different depths because cephalopods can be high in the water layer as if stuck to the bottom.
