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The report of the International Sport Fishing Show 2010 in Yokohama

Feb 12-14 2010

Yokohama, Japan

Reporter: Jun Sonoda, Kayo Sonoda

We are reporting the 2010 International Sport Fishing Show, held in Yokohama, Japan. The show is the largest in Japan, and the most important for us to know the new trend in sport fishing, as well for fishing tackle manufacturers to unveil new tackle to public. This year, manufacturers are releasing a lot of attractive new tackle. Among them, personally customized bait casters from Daiwa subsidiary and also customized production of Megabass reels are very interesting. And I felt they will be the break through for the shrunken freshwater sport fishing tackle industry.

Let's start with a real sized photo of a big tuna, which was placed at just the side of entrance. The tuna attracted the nation wide interest at the end of the 2009. The angler is a famous actor, Mr. Hiroki Matsukata, who is also known as a big game angler. The detail of fishing or tackle is unknown, but a "price" surprised public on November 26. His catch, 325kg black fin tuna "Maguro", was priced at 4,371,000JPY, or about 50,000USD, at Tokyo Tsukiji fish market auction. The price was about 5 times of ordinary tuna auction price, because of celebrity premium. High-class Sushi bar might have bought the Maguro fillet. By the way, Mr. Matsukata is famous for TV samurai program, where he is an samurai enforcer punishing the bad with katana sword.

The number of booth looked about 30% less from last year, maybe due to severe down turn of economy. Despite the relatively meek atmospheres, lacking some kind of passion from small booth, Daiwa is appealing strongly with high-floor booth, which I have never seen on a fishing tackle show.

	Among new Daiwa tackle, Daiwa Z series bait casters and new Certate caught my eyes. The Daiwa Z reminded me ABU '80s 1021 bait casters. The "cosmic" low-profile design might be controversial for the popularity, though. The solid cranking feel and details are quite similar to Ryoga (Pluton), and a rep explained the Daiwa Z is a low-profile version of Ryoga. I can't wait for testing the new Magforce 3D system on them. Ryoga small version 1016 is coming out. And Daiwa will finally replace the Millionaire CV-Z model.
Daiwa rep holds Ryoga 1016	Daiwa Z2020 reel (above)
Daiwa Ryoga with red spool and knobs	Daiwa Ryoga 1016

The new Certate looks very nice, as well it unveiled new magnetic sealing technology to prevent saltwater get inside from rotor bearing. I am convinced the advanced rotor design is only possible by the magnetic sealing.

I found carbon frame guides displayed, wow! It's high-end inshore rods have carbon frame guides. It is not intend to sell the guide to other rod manufacturers, a Daiwa rep said. It is 40% lighter than Fuji Titanium SIC guides, and I assume the price will be by far expensive. Is Daiwa planning to escape the ruling of Fuji Tackle?

Daiwa new Certate	Daiwa carbon-frame guides

A Daiwa subsidiary exhibits several attractive fishing reels, custom painted Daiwas. I asked a sales rep when it will sell the white with purple pearl AEDO, but his answer was "not yet, but we are working to do so." I saw a reel with gold-green glittering, looking like TD-ito as well. Hope these exotic models come out soon in market.

Purple pearl Aedo	Mazziora Alphas

	Mazziora Zillion (above)
	They are working to sell these in near future, and we shall wait!

Duel ladies smiling, passing out catalogs. These two chicks are the champions in the show. Costumes are boldly cut at waist and back. Please visit the show next year and you'll see what I mean if they are still there. Sorry, photo is not good enough to tell their beauty.

Shimano is renewing its high-end spinning reel, Stella in this year. The new Stella has X-ship gear designs, which improves the efficiencies of gears, as well smoothness. The desk exhibiting new Stella is surrounded by crowds, and I could only touch a 2000 model.

Shimano booth with Stella X-ship panel

New Shimano Stella 4000XG	Shimano Scorpion XT1001

Scorpion XT 1000/1001 looks great. A few of 1000 has already arrived to us yesterday, but 1001 is planed to come out in April. Black frame handle with red accent gives the reel solid looking. Its small palming body fits very well to my hands. New Scorpion has clicking drag and offset gear box, and it will be the best selling bait caster.

New Calcutta Conquest DC100 looked like the previous model, and I didn't find much difference in exterior. The Conquest design is sophisticated and Shimano did not change it. The new DC+ control system is advertised to require no thumbing when it is well adjusted. Now Shimano has 2 DC sytems, DC+ for Conquerst and I-DC4 for Metanium MG. I am wondering which DC sytem will be employed to a coming high-end bait caster replacing Antares DC. It was released quite a few years ago, and Shimano should replace it by new one.

New Shimano Calcutta Conquest DC101

Megabass, a unique lure manufacturer is energetic offering custom fishing reels this year. I assume it is collaborating with Daiwa for new reels. Daiwa Steez based IS and Daiwa Alphas-ito based Zonda will be for sale soon. There are a few more reels as prototype, and I look forward to Daiwa Millionaire IVC based Big Bang to come out. Star spork side plate is sexy.

Megabass booth	Beautiful exhibit of Megabass lures
Megabass Zonda reel	Megabass IS reel
Megabass Big Bang casting reel with line counter	a lot of colors

Freshwater lure manufacturer Jackall Bros. booth, professional anglers demonstrate its new lures in its exhibit tank.

There was an interesting booth, carp fishing.  The booth exhibits European style carp fishing, supported by Daiwa, Shimano and some other bait sellers. We have traditional carp fishing, but it is considered not much cool, associated with old man, waiting for fish bite from day to night. It is great to see an effort to float spot fishing industry by importing new style from overseas.

In saltwater fishing, new techniques have been invented to catch wide range of target, like red snappers, cods, yellow tails, and etc and more investment is in the offshore/inshore, saltwater fishing. We will introduce more saltwater tackle this year, as I see a lot of attractive offshore tackle from both large and small manufacturers.

For freshwater fishing, products for enthusiastic customers will be more interesting, and we will work hard to dig in the area. Of course, Shimano, Daiwa and a lot of manufacturers are offering new tackle, and we will deliver the best, new models.

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Hope you have great fishing.

Jun and Kayo Sonoda