One kibinago's worth of bait. The Jado Egi's buoyancy is designed around that weight
Jado Egi®, the egi for targeting spear squid and Japanese flying squid from shore in midwinter, is designed to balance with bait on its back, and the reference is the weight of one kibinago. Load on too much and hook-ups suffer, the egi lies flat on the bottom and snags increase. Keystone evangelist Kubo shows the whole preparation, from choosing the bait to salt-curing it, packing it into a container and keeping it in the fridge for one to two months.
What the Jado Egi® is
Jado Egi® (Haifukugata / Jado Edition) is an egi built to take bait, for targeting spear squid and Japanese flying squid from the breakwater in the dead of winter, December through March. It combines the mobility of an egi with the fish-drawing power of bait, to create a situation where a squid that has once grabbed hold will not let go. So half of its performance is decided by how the bait is prepared. The egi is designed to balance with bait on its back, and the reference is the weight of one kibinago. Keystone evangelist Kubo went through the whole preparation at the bench — which baits to load, and how to salt-cure them and pack them into a container.
Field Data
- Target
- Spear squid / Japanese flying squid
- Lure
- Jado Egi
- Size
- 3.0 V0 · V1 / 3.5 V0–V3
- Method
- Jado eging (bait-wrapped)
- Angler
- Keystone evangelist Kubo
Choosing the bait, and the salt-curing steps
First, the bait. The first choice is kibinago (silver-stripe round herring); supermarkets around Kitakyushu stock it, and where it cannot be had, frozen ones from a tackle shop will do. Other options are chicken tender, strips of mackerel (saba) or saury (sanma), and squid cut into strips. Lately some people wrap prosciutto, beef jerky or chicken-tender dog treats. Any of them will catch, but the reason Kubo recommends kibinago lies in the design. The buoyancy is tuned on the assumption of one kibinago's weight: anything lighter and buoyancy wins, anything heavier and the balance breaks down. Wrap on two or three kibinago, or chicken tender more than 1 cm thick, and hook-ups get worse, the egi falls hook-end first, and it lies flat on the bottom so snags increase. Chicken tender or fish strips are fine as long as they are cut to the size of one kibinago — whatever bait is cheap and easy to get where you are.
Next, salt-curing. Kibinago and chicken tender both hold a lot of water, and wrapped with wire as they are, the wire cuts in and they soon come off. Draw the water out with salt and they will not come off just because a squid has nibbled a little or a pufferfish has pecked at them. Some people cure with sugar or honey, but that leaves the hands sticky, so Kubo says salt is best. Fine-grained salt such as seasoned table salt, though, stays on the hands as you wrap and ends up all over the reel, so use a coarse-grained salt. The steps: sprinkle salt over the kibinago you bought, put the wrap back on and into the fridge. Within a few hours, more water comes out than the absorbent sheet underneath can take. Next, spread salt over the bottom of a four-clip container from a 100-yen shop (with a gasket so no liquid leaks), lay the kibinago neatly in a row, cover with salt, repeat row by row, and finish with a layer of salt on top before closing the lid. Kept in the fridge it lasts one to two months, and it gives off almost no smell even when taken to the fishing spot. Kibinago caught in gill nets sometimes have the heads missing, but squid do not eat the head much and go for the body, so headless ones work as bait too. Just one thing: write “fishing bait” on the container so nobody in the family eats it by mistake.
The Lure's Role
Jado Egi®
Jado Egi® accounts for the balance with bait attached and offers four fall rates, V0 to V3. Size 3.0 comes in V0 (11 g) and V1 (12 g); size 3.5 in V0 (15 g), V1 (16 g), V2 (19 g) and V3 (27 g). V1 is the all-rounder for standard breakwaters and tetrapod zones; V0 falls slowly in shallow water and gentle current to earn hang time; V2 is for slightly deeper water or where there is current; V3 is the trump card for fast current, deep water and strong wind. Every one of those fall rates is made to come out with one kibinago's worth of bait on the back.
When the bait strays from the design weight, three things show up on the water: hook-ups get worse, the egi falls hook-end first, and it lies flat on the bottom so snags increase. Match it to one kibinago and the intended fall posture and bottom balance come out as they should. How long the bait lasts is decided by the salt-curing: once cured, the wire will not cut in through the moisture and work loose, and one nibble from a squid will not take it off. With the preparation done, all that is left is to fish.
From the Workshop in Arita
The egi used in this video are genuine made-in-Japan products, crafted at KEYSTONE's own factory in Arita, Saga Prefecture — the town of Arita porcelain. We put our soul into each and every egi.
MADE TODAY IN ARITA
All of the preparation above is told in this video: 12 minutes 24 seconds of Kubo showing it at the bench, from the kinds of bait to salt-curing and packing the container. How to fish it and work the ground is left to the on-the-water records.
If it will not play, watch it on YouTube.
