This time, we would like to introduce another real fishing tip from Kazuyuki Yabuta, a Lake Biwa fishing guide and one of Japan's top tournament anglers competing in the JB TOP50 series.

Kazuyuki Yabuta is also supported by IMAKATSU, and his advice comes from real experience on Japanese waters as both a professional guide and a tournament angler.

The lure featured in this article is the IMAKATSU Gillroid Jr. Boot Tail.

The Gillroid Jr. is a downsized bluegill-type big bait from IMAKATSU. The Boot Tail model is designed to be used as a lure that can attract bass while being retrieved, and it can also create a strong reaction when the action changes during the retrieve.

According to Yabuta, one effective way to use the Gillroid Jr. Boot Tail is to add a 1.8g sinker to the front hook eye.

By adding this small weight, he changes the lure into a slow-sinking setting.

With this setup, he retrieves the lure while giving it strong jerks. Instead of simply winding the lure slowly, he uses aggressive jerking action to create a powerful and irregular movement.

Yabuta says that when he used the Gillroid Jr. Boot Tail this way, bass guarding fry suddenly came out from nowhere and attacked the lure.

This is a very interesting point.

In this situation, the target is not a bass that is actively chasing bait in open water. It is a bass that is staying near fry and reacting strongly to something that invades its area.

The slow-sinking setting helps keep the lure in the strike zone, while the strong jerking action gives the bass a reason to react.

This is one of the reasons why Japanese anglers often make small adjustments to their lures. A 1.8g sinker may look like a small change, but it can completely change the depth, speed, and attitude of the lure.

For Yabuta, the Gillroid Jr. Boot Tail is not just a lure to cast and retrieve. By adding weight and controlling the action with the rod, he can make it approach fish at the right depth and trigger reaction bites from bass guarding fry.

This kind of technique shows how Japanese anglers often use JDM lures with precise tuning and very specific timing.

Special thanks to Kazuyuki Yabuta for sharing this fishing tip with us.

You can follow him on Instagram here:
@kazuyuki_yabuta
https://www.instagram.com/kazuyuki_yabuta/

This article is part of our series introducing how Japanese anglers actually use JDM lures in real fishing situations.

We hope these real fishing tips from Japanese anglers help you understand JDM lures more deeply.