Fishing has broadened the horizons of Bassmaster Elite Series pro Bryan New, who recently went from rising before the sun to visiting the land of the rising sun.
With a crew from Spro, the 35-year-old “tackle nerd” from Saluda, S.C., realized his dream of traveling to Japan, something he didn’t think possible just six years ago.
“I was sweating my life away painting roads and parking lots and everything in between, fishing Opens with dreams of making the Elites,” he said. “Did I ever think I would go to Japan? No.
“It’s a long way and a very expensive trip. I probably would have never gotten to go on my own.”
Two months ago, New received an invitation from his boss at Spro, where he helps design baits. Kazutomo Nakamura, who oversees Spro’s U.S. and Europe divisions for Gamakatsu, hosted New, Spro’s U.S. sales manager Syd Rives and BassFan editor Todd Ceisner.
New had his eyes wide open for work, and play.
“If you’re going to Japan, you got to mix in some a little bit of fishing and sightseeing as well, so we kind of did it all,” said New, jetlagged a bit after his two-week adventure. “The fishing, the sightseeing, the food, the factory tours, seeing how everything’s developed, the tackle stores, all of it put together, just ‘Wow!’ Outside of family stuff, probably the best trip of my life.”
New was grateful Kazu set the itinerary, which included a lengthy stay at Lake Biwa, a 4-million-year-old lake where largemouth bass were introduced 100 years ago. In 2009, Manubu Kurita caught the world record largemouth there.
“It feels like Augusta for fishermen,” Ceisner said, comparing it to golf’s mecca where The Masters is held. The crew, who started calling themselves the Biwa Boys, spent several days fishing on the lake, witnessed a tournament there and rubbed elbows.
“Biwa is maybe the most famous lake in the world for bass fishing,” New said. “But it’s extremely tough. Extremely — all capital letters — TOUGH. As a bass fisherman, just to fish like Biwa, you’re in awe.
“Day 1, I caught two bass, the biggest one maybe being 12 inches. Day 2, I never had a bite until the very last cast, and I caught this 8-pounder. It was the highlight of the trip for all of us.”
The crew went out with Takeda Haruki, a top guide on Biwa, who showed New how to catch the highly pressured bass as well as other tricks.
“I learned many different techniques from him that I’m not going to disclose,” New said, “hopefully some tricks up my sleeve for next year on the Elites.”
Another highlight was meeting with Kurita, who reeled in a 22-pound, 4.97-ounce beast from Biwa. It was about an ounce heavier than George Perry’s 22-4 monster in 1932, but IGFA rules state a world record must be 2 ounces more, so in the books, they are tied.
“It was incredible to hang out and ask him questions and hear the story and just hear his approach,” New said. “How many people can say they talked to the guy who caught the world record?”
The Biwa Boys also visited Norio Tanabe, the first international angler to win a B.A.S.S. event. Tanabe won the Kentucky Invititational in 1993 and went on to establish his company Nories, a main sponsor of Elite sensation Taku Ito who also made an appearance.
New geeked out when he met prolific lure designer Seiji Kato, who long ago picked the brain of Kevin VanDam to come up with his first hit, the Peanuts 2 crankbait.
“He is probably the most iconic lure designer in the history of bass fishing,” New said. “He designed the Lucky Craft Pointer and Sammy, basically made Lucky Craft and then (his own company) Jackall famous.”
New got in some work while visiting Gamakatsu’s plant, and he gained a fuller understanding of how products, even his bait designs, get processed.
“Sometimes I can make something with my hands to physically show the idea, but at that point it goes to these guys,” he said. “They kind of put it into a working sample. It goes back-and-forth. They send it to me. I test it, say ‘Change this,’ or ‘Hey, this is great, send it to production.’
“It was quite the experience just to see the history and everything behind the company.”
New received some of Japan’s well-known hospitality from Gamakatsu president Toshitaka Fujii, who realized New was uncomfortable with the cuisine and remedied it with a pizza party.
“I’m extremely picky on what I eat,” New said. “No sushi. In Japan, they eat a lot of different things. We go to this fancy lunch and there’s plenty of things, but actually nothing I really wanted to eat.
“Seeing that I was uncomfortable with this food, as kind and generous as the Japanese culture is, once we got back to the office, Mr. Fujii had his secretary order these pizzas. They were sitting there waiting on me.”
New took it all in from the first stop in Toyko, the world’s most populous metropolitan area with 41 million people. The crew then flew off to Osaka.
“It’s literally a different country, different world,” New said. “There’s not an inch of wasted space. All the shops, stores and restaurants, it’s incredible how they fit all these places in.
“Even like the parking like at the hotel. You pull in and park your car on a conveyor, and you watch it take your car into the wall and lift it up into the sky and put it on a shelf somewhere.”
It was amazing to see Mt. Fuji, New said, and the view of Lake Biwa from a ski resort was breathtaking.
“It’s just a beautiful place. Incredible. I mean you could you could almost see the entire lake,” New said.
New was particularly interested in the bass tournament the group encountered on Lake Biwa, and specifically the bass boats. One was a Falcon, which he runs, and the other was a smaller Souther, a 15-footer fully-rigged for bassing.
“There’s only one Falcon dealer in Japan, and then they have this little, bitty boat which I’ve seen over the last couple years and always thought were really cool,” he said. “The reason is because they have so many size regulations of what you can pull on the road.”
Also sponsored by FXR, New had to visit their booth in the expo, which was somewhat set up like an Elite tournament. He enjoyed chatting with anyone he could, along with signing autographs.
Then New was taken back to his childhood, when the Biwa Boys spent a day fishing for hura, a type of carp.
“Picture this,” New said. “I never thought I would go to Japan, but I definitely never thought I would be sitting barefoot, Indian style on a dock fishing with a cane pole, with a dough-style bait, catching carp. It definitely took me back, as simple as it is. It was definitely one of those ‘wow’ moments.”
The crew mostly slept on the 500-mile bullet train ride back to Toyko, but New checked on his phone to see they were travelling 170 miles per hour. He also enjoyed a full day exploring Japanese tackle shops, even if he didn’t discover many new items.
“I’m a tackle nerd,” he said. “I want to know about every piece of tackle that’s ever been invented, and invent my own as well. We had one full day of just tackle shop tours and that was ‘wow.’ Their tackle stores are incredible. Honestly, there wasn’t a lot of stuff that I didn’t know.”
The final fishing outing was for sea bass in Toyko Bay, which was super cool with bass tackle, New said. Some 7,000 miles later, New was back home, shaking off jet lag as he rose early for his blue-collar job in pest control.
“I don’t do good sitting around, the bills keep coming in,” he said. “I’ve always been a worker. I’m always going to be a worker. I could win six Classics in a row, and I’d probably still come home and go to work. That just who I am. I think it keeps me grounded, let’s me remember where I came from.”
And he’s certain to remember where he’s been. Japan was a trip of a lifetime, and he experienced it because of chasing little green fish.
“I got to see places that, if it wasn’t for fishing, I never would’ve been able to see,” he said. “Plus, the people that I got to do it with, Syd and Kazu, we’ve been great friends for several years now. Just to be able to work with a company that thinks that much of you is incredible.
“Just to think of the places that fishing has taken me is incredible. If I never win another tournament, just what fishing has done for me in my life is incredible.”
