Life Is All About Choices...And So Is Bass Fishing

Have you stopped to consider all the bass-fishing "rigs" that are out there today? I searched the Internet for all of two or three minutes earlier this morning and came up with the following assortment: Texas Rig, Ned Rig, Carolina Rig, Drop Shot Rig, Owner Jig Rig, and Recoil Rig, to name only a few. There also was one that--at face value--sounded a bit off-colored: Dangle Berry Rig was it's name (Ever heard the slang term "dingleberry"?).

And then I further stumbled across the one pictured here. Called the Tokyo Rig, it doesn't appear to have been around much, if any, before early 2019.

It's very possible--perhaps even probable--a lot of anglers already talk about this Tokyo Rig. If they do, though, I never have been privy to those conversations, or I may have just forgotten 'em (and you can save the wisecracks, 'cause I don't have the market cornered on old age--LOL).

I found a Jan. 7, 2019, Bassmaster eNewsletter article by Seth Feider, in which he described his fond desire to visit Japan. Said he, "I love sushi, and I love fishing tackle. My plan is to go over there with just a big empty suitcase and one change of underwear and buy a ton of lures that we can't find in the U.S.

"...While we live in the birthplace of bass fishing, I recognize that many of our best techniques come from Japan. One of the latest is the Tokyo Rig."

This rig "takes a conventional rolling swivel, adds a wide-gap hook to it, and then also extends a wire out from it. Some come with a weight already on that wire and the end bent to keep it from coming off, but the one I use from VMC comes without a weight. You add your own and then bend the bottom to keep it in place. I like that better because it's infinitely customizable. I'll put a BioSpawn VileCraw on the back of it, almost always green pumpkin, because we flip a lot of clear water."

I would add here that, during my research today, I saw a video with an angler who likes to add two weights, vice one, to his Tokyo Rig, so that the weights bang together for more underwater sound.

Continued Feider, "You might not think that this setup would be any more effective than a Texas Rig or a jig or a drop shot, but I assure you that there are times when it's dominant. I fish a lot of team tournaments here in Minnesota, and my partner and I stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the front deck. Historically, we've matched bites one for one, but once I switched to the Tokyo Rig, I really put it on him. The mismatch in the number of bites was insane. Now we both have it on the deck, virtually every time we go out, and we consistently catch fish behind other anglers working the same schools.

"You can fish a wide variety of cover with the Tokyo Rig, but it's at its best in submerged milfoil. The grass starts growing on the bottom and may come up to the surface, but the first foot or so off the bottom is where most of the fish live. It's all stem at that point. The grass doesn't start to leaf out until it's a bit off the floor. You can flip or punch the Tokyo Rig in there and just sit there and shake it. You don't have to stroke it or yo-yo it, because that will take it out of the strike zone.

"While you may fish it in the same areas as a Texas Rig or a jig, the bite is a lot different, and you'll need to get used to it. When I first started experimenting with the Tokyo Rig, I felt like I was getting bites, but than I'd set the hook, and there was nothing there. I suspect it was the wire hitting a blade of grass or some other cover. They don't crush it like they do with a jig. It's more of a pressure bite. Once you dial that in, the hooking and landing percentages are through the roof.

"One other nice thing about this technique is that you don't need specialized gear to fish it. I use a 7-foot Daiwa Tatula Elite baitcasting rod, paired with a high-speed (8.l:1) Tatula SV reel. I spool it up with 30-pound Sufix braided line, with a leader of 20-pound Sufix fluorocarbon. That's what works best for me, but you probably have something in your rod locker that will do the trick, without spending a whole bunch of money.

"I've already had some success on tour and around home with this versatile presentation, and I've circled the Cayuga Elite Series event on my calendar. I expect it to be a major player there, and it won't be far from my reach during many other tournaments," concluded Feider.