【Notice】JB Top50 2017 Annual Schedule-Japan Bass Pro Association

Hi good morning everyone!　This is fishing translator Sabuism(@sabu94_1982).

I am writing fishing article in Japan and transmitting cool Japanese bass fishing information
with English. My goal is to share great Japanese bass fishing tournament and cool fishing gear
to all over the world! I hope this blog contributes to your Japanese fishing education!

This time, I would like to introduce Japanese bass fishing tournament to you guys.

What is JB?

JB is major bass fishing association in Japan like B.A.S S. or FLW.

Source: JB/NBC Website

JB stands for “Japan Bass Pro Association”.

Nearly 1000 professional and amateur angler belongs to this JB, but there is not many angler who
can make a living with tournament prize only. That means most of the angler is doing a professional
angler withother job or working.

JB Top 50 is a top category of this Japanese bass fishing association. 5 tournament game will be held through the year.

Tournament mechanism is as follows.

Tournament Mechanism

3 Days are prepared for 53 member during their competition.
I do not know why everyone call this tournament as TOP 50.
Actual number of member is 54 lol

Day 1 and 2 are preliminary and Day 3 is final day to choose winner.

54 professional angler will be selected and 25 angler are chosen to join Day 3.

Total weight of 5 fish per each day is assigned for JB tournament.
This rule is adopted in accordance with B.A.S S..

Okay, so let me introduce top 50 main member who are shown in below photo top 5 member. 

TOP50 Member

http://www.jbnbc.jp/_JB2017/top50members/

Top 5 professional angler

No.1：Daisuke Kita
No.2：Makoto Igarashi
No.3：Tsuguhiko Komori
No.4：Daisuke Aoki
No.5：Manabu Sekiwa

You can find rest of angler from below website.
Please ask me if you would like to know name in English.

👉TOP 50 member list from JB website

Oh, I forgot writing. Katsutaka Imae very famous fishing angler in Japan is still in JB.

His 2017 tournament number is 22.

Annual Schedule 2017

5 places are chosen for 2017 JB tournament.

If you click place tag, you can jump into each filed information.

Japanese version blog is as follow;
👉【保存版】2017年 JB トップ50年間スケジュール★

1st Gary International CUP 

April 7th to 9th.  Onga River is quite famous river filed in Kyushu area.

http://damnet.or.jp/cgi-bin/binranA/All.cgi?db4=2432

Las JB Top 50 tournament in Onga River was held in 2015.

In this time, Takayuki Koike was winner with the weight of 8,562g.

2017 schedule is very close to that of 2015, so winning weight may be around 9kg!?

2nd Baitbreath CUP

June 2nd -4th Yasaka Reservor in Hiroshima

http://www.wec.or.jp/library/100selection/content/yasakako.html

I do not have enough information about this filed, but NBC chapter which belongs to JB
is frequently held in this reservoir.

3rd TORAY Solaroam CUP 

July 7th- 9th Nanairo Reservoir is special big bass lake in Nara prefecture.

http://www.jpower.co.jp/damcard/nanairo.html

Speaking of big bass lake in south Wakayama are, Lake Ikehara and Nanairo.

Substation spot is fairly famous place for catching bass. 

In 2016, JB top 50 3rd tournament was held in this filed from July 8th to 10th.

Winner was Tsuguhiko Komori who is being sponsored by Abu Garcia maily.

He is really good at catching small mouth bass and  doing finesse fishing like drop shot. 

His weight was 14,473g through Day 1 to Day 3. So, Same weight will be expected for next winner. 

4th EverGreen CUP

September 8th-10th Small mouth bass mecca Lake Hibara

https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%AA%9C%E5%8E%9F%E6%B9%96-120627

Lake Hibara is almost included into JB TOP50 Tournament trail every year and 
best place for bass fishing with bass boat.

I also had a experience that I could catch 33 number of small mouth bass during 2 days.

Last tournament was held in September 9th to 11th in 2016 as a 4th one.

I think you can gradually understand that Japanese angler does not have enough place to fish compared to US.

Makoto Igarashi was winner of 2016 lake Hibara and his winning lure was micro jig head lure. 
Total weight was 13,125g through 3 days.

Actually, I do not like small plastic worm for winning tournament.

If there are some angler who can win the tournament with hard bait,
it is highly admirable.

5th Gamakatsu CUP

October 20th- 22nd Best tournament area in east area, Lake Kasumi.

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9C%9E%E3%83%B6%E6%B5%A6

Lake Kasumi had been selected in 2016 as well. Span was October 21st to 23rd.

Expert Yukihiko Sawamura won the tournament with 14,980g which is fairly high weight.

Unfortunately, as I do not have English version, below was written by only Japanese.
If you are able to read, please try it.

👉4kg台はただ1人！！【速報】DAY3 FINAL JBトップ50シリーズ 第5戦 がまかつCUP IN 霞ヶ浦★

Wow, I have just finished explaining all schedule of JB TOP 50.

Though you may know, we do not have enough water area inside Japan except for Lake Biwa and Kasumi.

Firstly, it seems like very eccentric style of bass fishing. However, this is Japanese Style!

I hope this article is helpful for understanding of Japanese bass fishing.

JB LIVE MOVIE

This movie is also helpful for you. Please try if you have curious.
Movie will be broadcast on April 9th (Sunday) 7:00am in JP Tokyo Time. 

Thank you for reading my article!

Sabuism

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