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Better Off in the Bay By Abdel Ibrahim
Better Off in the Bay By Abdel Ibrahim I’m sitting in a pub near Shinagawa Station, sipping a pint, when a slightly inebriated gentleman with an unmistakable Geordie accent walks up and asks about the contents of the long cloth case leaning ...
The last fish I ever have to catch By Abdel Ibrahim
JAPAN ANGLER By Abdel Ibrahim The last fish I ever have to catch It was like waking up from a dream. Three decades of fishing flashed before me as I looked over the rail and locked eyes with the silver giant laying on its side at the ocean surfac...
By Abdel Ibrahim By Abdel Ibrahim
The Simplest Things By Abdel Ibrahim Golden Week this year was pretty solemn. So many people I know decided to refrain from any leisure activity out of consideration for the earthquake and tsunami victims in Tohoku. Living and working in a semi...
Becoming a Fly Guy By Abdel Ibrahim
Becoming a Fly Guy By Abdel Ibrahim As a general rule, I take an open-minded approach to life, giving any new experience a fair chance to impress me. Then again, I’m kind of obsessive about things I know I like and have often failed to pro...
寒さも吹っ飛ぶ大漁 By Abdel Ibrahim
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial} Usually I don’t go for this sort of thing. The forecast said we’d be getting rain all day, the north wind was going to gust, and the temperature was...
玄界灘トップウォーターゲーム By Abdel Ibrahim
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Arial; min-height: 14.0px} “Who needs a career when all you wanna do is go fishing?” That&rsquo...
Perfect Luck By Abdel Ibrahim
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial} I don’t understand perfectionists. In my world when something goes down perfectly, it always seems incidental. Some might disagree but, the wa...
Kayak Fishing 101 By Abdel Ibrahim
Ask any serious anglers, and they will tell you they have an unconscious habit of immediately sizing up any body of water they come across for its “fishability.” However briefly we lay eyes on a given water front, stream, or even a man-mad...
The Sea Dragons of Ise Bay By Abdel Ibrahim
The past 24 hours have passed with no sleep for me, bouts of seasickness, fatigue and cold weather, and all the other makings of a sport fishing nightmare, but it’s been worth it. My cooler box is chocker-block full of some of Japan’s b...
Stalking the Rainbows of Yozuku By Abdel Ibrahim
A fishing buddy and I recently took a short exploratory trek into the deepest, darkest hills of Kanagawa for some light tackle trout fishing. We found out about a stretch of fishable tributary streams that make up the watersheds of the Yozuku and O...
The Middle-Weight Champ of Off-Shore Angling By Alan Bergman
Dolphin Fish, Dorado or Mahi-mahi? Call it what you will, this powerful, speedy, and aggressive fish has been described as having the eyes of an eagle, the speed of a cheetah, and the mentality that made dinosaurs extinct. One of the most exciting ...
Tossing Out the Nets By Abdel Ibrahim
At the beach in front of my house in Oiso, Kanagawa Prefecture, a group of retirees run what is known as a jibiki ami tsuri (地引網釣り) or a dragnet seine fishing camp. Theirs is one of several such operations dotting the Shonan Coast between...
Skinny Water Plugging By Abdel Ibrahim
Like many avid sport anglers, I have a bad habit of getting consumed with one target species or style of fishing for a period of time, and then suddenly getting bored once I think I’ve got everything sussed out. A few months ago, after having...
Conquering Kiwi Kings By Abdel Ibrahim
The brilliant green coastline along the Bay of Plenty seems to stretch on forever. Void of man-made objects other than the road in front of us, it’s a stark contrast to the landscape where our journey started. The road beckoned further explorati...
Fishing for Surfers By Abdel Ibrahim
If you live in the Shonan area of Kanagawa, chances are you or someone you know is big into surfing. My buddies tried to get me to buy a board and try to catch some waves last year, but after having my face slammed into the sand and ending up with ...
「外道」といわれても By Abdel Ibrahim
Foreign anglers who show up in Japan with an itch to fish often find themselves overwhelmed with the slew of new target species and fishing methods bearing no resemblance to fishing at home. It’s taken me years to get a handle on Japanese sport ...
ゴーイング・スロー・イン・湘南 By Abdel Ibrahim
My buddy Gary calls me late at night saying there is some action I should take at first light. I tell him I’ll come around before daybreak, but he knows better; that there is little chance I’ll leave my bed at that hour of the morning just...
A ‘Coldy’ but ‘Goody’ By Abdel Ibrahim
Usually I don’t go for this sort of thing. The forecast said we’d be getting rain all day, the north wind was going to gust, and the temperature wasn’t going to rise above 10 degrees. Normally, I’d loose much needed sleep wishi...