BOAT CASTING SERIES
Lagoon Fighter - HIRAMASA
Lagoon Fighter is a member of our Boat Casting Game rod series, besides targeting Giant Trevally, we have models specially designed for targeting Hiramasa (Kingfish). In Boat Casting Game's standard today, giant Hiramasa is said to be one of the most challenging Sport Game Fishing targets. It is a big hit throughout Japan and is one of the major three Sport Fishing Casting Game items in New Zealand.
About Hiramasa
Hiramasa is written as 平政 in Japanese and also known as Kingfish in New Zealand. In Japan, they can be found along the Kyushu's Danjo Islands, Goto Islands, Tsushima of Genkai-nada and Sea of Japan areas. Hiramasa is the most favourable target in east Kuroshio areas, from Shikoku to Izu to Miyake and Mikura-jima. They can also be found in the West Coast of US; East and North East of Australia and also popular in north New Zealand's White Island and Three Kings area. Hiramasa likes relatively cool currents, living in the depth between 10 to 120 meters and known to exceed 150cm and 40 kg. They hunt their prey near drop offs and coral reefs, the best water depth of catching Hiramasa in Casting Game is from 10 to 60 meters. In Sport Fishing, Hiramasa is the dream target of Boat Game Casting anglers and a major target of Casting Game in Japan that every Big Game angler wants to create a record! Although endurance of big Hiramasa is lower than Tuna but it's not incomparable with GT, their explosive power and speed should not be underestimated. The name "Lagoon Fighter" is made to describe these calm, decisive and powerful warriors of coral reef lagoons.
Rod Blank Development Concept
There are 3 main stages of fights when Hiramasa is hooked. First, when it dives suddenly towards the deeper part of drop offs or coral reefs at high speed; Second, the fight with its weight and water resistance caused by the profile of the fish against pulling; Third, sudden dash towards the surface, looseness of fishing line might also lose control of the fish. The difficulties of these 3 stages of fights are often multiplied by the size of the fish. For example when the drag resistance of a spinning reel is set at 10~15Kg, a 10kg Hiramasa fight might take 5 minutes, a 25kg might take 10 minutes and an over 35kg size might take over 15 minutes to bring it to the surface. With considerations of depthness or obstacles, the fighting time might take even longer. It is important to develop a light and durable rod blank that is capable of unleashing the explosive power effectively for such situations.
Hiramasa rod series often use fish shape Swim Bait lures, sensitivity of the tip of rod blank is essential. When performing SwimBait actions, flexibility and narrowness of the middle section helps action dexterity and subtle creation of dash bubbles. Paying attention to the toughness and the explosive power of the middle section which serves double duties is important as well. During the fight, mid-section strength helps to provide return force to slow down fish escape and helps to control its direction. When operating the rod at 45 degrees, steady and smooth rebound helps to turn the paused fish quickly towards the angler and let him retrieve immediately, this can decrease the physical power consumption effectively. Such rod blanks can only be made by materials combining new types of carbon fibre structures. With the improved qualities of toughness and durability, the latest rod blank inner wall is thicker and almost 30% lighter than those in the past. These new rod blanks are state of the art products from famous Japan factories and 100% made in Japan.
Besides the rod blanks produced by famous Japan factories, we are honoured to cooperate with a renowned professional workshop in the industry to assemble our rods entirely in Japan. Owner of this workshop is a veteran custom rods maker with experience in managing production for big brand names, every tiny detail is well handled to produce our rods like art pieces. Specially formulated thick lacquer is evenly coated to improve toughness and durability which ensures our hand-made lure rod series satisfying high specifications and becoming powerful weapons for expert anglers to pursue their dreams.
Field Testing Location and Results
There are dozens of popular Casting Game fishing spots around the world for catching Hiramasa. In Asia, the most popular areas are located at Japan's Kuroshio current, Kyushu Genkai-nada, Danjo Islands, Goto Islands, Tsushima, Iki and Nagasaki area which together form the famous "Sea of Hiramasa". Other spots with similar popularity which are located in North of New Zealand such as Auckland, White Island and Three Kings areas. The R&D of Lagoon Fighter - Hiramasa rod series started in 2015, since then, we frequently went to Kyushu Genkai-nada to test the "LF Stick Bait SP 80/8MH" at Tsushima area. The biggest Hiramasa that we had caught among those tests weighed around 12Kg. In 2017, angler Jacky used the same model to catch a 50kg grade Yellowfin Tuna at South Taiwan's Kaohsiung area and became one of Taiwan's Casting records.
In 2018, we started to test at the islands of Goto for Hiramasa of 10kg grade. The valuable data which we have collected from numerous Hiramasa fights has given us directions and horizons to improve the rod blanks performance. All of these led to the latter development of Lagoon Fighter models with higher performance that complement each other to give anglers greater satisfaction when facing different environments and opponents. "LF Seven Miles SP 82/8MH Plus" is one of the advanced models added to achieve better control while enjoying the fight with big size Hiramasa at Seven Miles of Genkai-nada area. We are looking forward to encountering even bigger Hiramasa, hopefully we can go to New Zealand in the near future and collect more data for our new models. Currently two members of Lagoon Fighter - HIRAMASA family with different power levels have been launched. They are the best among the Casting Game Hiramasa series and more developments for different fishing situations are coming!
