A pile of wazao deadstock

As it happens, just the other day, we were able to take in a large number of wazao as deadstock. The terms may be a little rough, but it does mean we are now in a position where we can try out a wide range of casts. (If you have wazao or bamboo lying around in a warehouse, or know someone who does, please get in touch 🙇‍♂️) On top of that, we had a few rods just made by a Kishu rod maker, and a few we received from rod makers of the Edo Wazao Guild — rods we had been waiting to try. We had to test these too.

We wanted to try full-casting lures around 10 to 20 grams. This is a world the wazao has not visited before, historically speaking. The point of the trip leans toward testing, so it would be good to encounter as many fish as possible. To that end, Ogaken-san of TULALA, who has long looked out for us @ogawakentarou, introduced us to Gussan @jrkmysculb and Ai-san @ai1and of the Tulala family, who run a fishing boat at Ishigaki Island.

We brought more than twenty wazao. Honestly — we ourselves doubt when, or how, they might break. Some had been sitting in a warehouse for over fifty years; the variation between individuals is wide. We cannot place complete faith in any spec sheet. We do not want to. What matters is critical thinking. We do not believe that the wazao is for everyone in the first place. We want to keep an even, level eye, and from there, speak about what is good in the wazao.

Ishigaki ESCAPE

We arrive at Ishigaki. The fishing boat's name is ESCAPE. A hello to Gussan and Ai-san — both deeply tanned. Gussan, in particular, is not just tanned; he knows bamboo rods deeply. We're sorry for the prejudice, but we hadn't expected someone making tackle for tropical island fishing and running a charter boat to know so much. Asking around, it turns out he is originally from the Kishu region, and grew up around bamboo rods and artisan work from boyhood. So very reassuring.

The target species are mainly miibai (grouper); the waters around Okinawa hold many beautiful kinds of grouper. Across two days of wazao trials — never mind the rod, our skills aren't there yet (laughs). Gussan teases us, gives us his patient and gentle care (lectures), and we set off. The basic rhythm: full-cast a metal vibe, drop it near the bottom. When a fish takes, before it dives into the rocks, the rest is a power match. The drag is locked tight.

The rods we used:
・An Edo wazao with marubushidake shaft and a glass tip — a Yokohama-zao-style sand whiting (kisu) rod @hitoshi3641091
・A seabass rod by an Edo wazao rod maker, with hotei bamboo shaft and glass tip.
・Bass rod and trout rod by a Kishu hera-zao rod maker, with koyachiku shaft and a glued madake tip.
・An all-bamboo rod by Kurokawa, the Fukuoka wazao workshop @kurokawahegan, in hotei bamboo.
・Various deadstock shakuri (jigging) rods.

Wazao that can be full-cast

We had Gussan use them too — without holding back, working them hard — and we met a fair number of beautiful Ishigaki fish. During an Instagram live broadcast on ESCAPE, one of the all-bamboo rods snapped with a sound like a kendo shinai splitting; aside from that, no problems at all. Sensitivity was good, and we found that they could withstand a full cast. This was outside our expectations. We had thought more would break, and had some hope of collecting situations where they fail. The bamboo will, naturally, take on some bend, but with hi-ire from a rod maker, it is not a problem. Astonishing — these wazao.

As a way of measuring the potential of the bamboo rod, this was an extremely good chance. We may well be the first humans to do lure fishing with a wazao from a charter boat in Ishigaki.