I have walked past a number of these pay per fish fishing ponds in and around Tokyo and my weak will finally got the better of me and I had to give it a go.

There will be no photos of me engaged in this activity.

While walking towards the fishing park it was almost as if the fish were mocking me and I was still asking myself if this was such a good idea, what if someone I knew saw me?


At this park you pay 500 yen and that gets you a ticket that you can swap for one spot for one hour, a rod (a piece of bamboo with some fishing line tied on the end), a seat, some bait and a net.


This park’s pond was divided into three separate areas with a number of people engaged in the gentile art of fishing. The bait consisted of a flour and fish meal mixture that you squeezed onto a small, barbless, suicide hook and suspend 60 centimetres below a float. After getting some guidance, in Japanese, on the way to bait the hook and where to put the bait it was time to get the line wet. The takes, when they came, were subtle. After one hour I had netted 3 fish and missed any number of others. As to the size of the fish? Well, who said it was a competition and who was counting anyway (does that give a hint).

After spending an hour there watching the serious guys with their hand crafted bamboo rods, rod holders and fishing boxes I could feel myself believing that it would be a good idea to buy some equipment that would allow me to do this style of fishing whenever I liked. I managed to escape before that idea took hold.

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