Prowling Pickwick with Shin

Ride along with Shinichi Fukae for the first morning of practice

Shinichi Fukae entered the Walmart FLW Tour with a blaze of glory in 2004, winning the Angler of the Year title his rookie season, and he's been a tenacious competitor and a consistent Forrest Wood Cup qualifier ever since. Known for his offshore and finesse abilities, Fukae has proven that he can pretty much do it all at this point. Here’s how he broke down Pickwick from about 5:30 a.m. to noon on the first morning of practice for the upcoming FLW Tour event presented by Quaker State and hosted by Florence/Lauderdale Tourism.

We started off dark and early at a ramp midway down Pickwick. After a few moments readying the boat, we get a hand from Shin’s wife, Miyu, who backs us into the water, and the day has begun.  

After firing up his graphs and idling out of the way of the ramp, Fukae drops his Power-Poles and opens up one of the most organized rod lockers I’ve ever seen. The Japanese pro has his rods organized into cloth “socks” that hold four or five rods at a time, grouped roughly by technique. Between each group, towels provide somewhat of a buffer around the reels. For starters, Fukae pulls out four stacks of baitcasters and lays out a soft plastics section and a hard baits section on either side of the deck.

After a short run, Fukae begins the day at the mouth of a shallow pocket. Though he has much more knowledge of Pickwick on the deep end, he knows he has to cover all his bases. He also kept a keen eye on the Costa FLW Series event on Kentucky Lake and the B.A.S.S. Elite Series event at Wheeler, which were held this past weekend, and he's well aware how strong the shallow bite has been of late on the Tennessee River. A half-hour or so later, with just one small peck on a frog, it’s time to head for the ledges.

After five or six tournaments on Pickwick in his career and a pre-practice session in March, Fukae believes he’s got about 500 waypoints on Pickwick. The time has now come to start checking them (or at least a few of 'em). Tucked in behind a pair of Lowrance Gen3 HDS-12s, he goes to work.

Fukae is pretty meticulous about everything, from the accuracy of a reporter’s shorthand regarding a bait at weigh-in to his waypoints and rods. With a few previous GPS trails (with different colors for different days) from March showing, he begins re-checking sections of them, sometimes changing the color of a waypoint to a hue that represents a spot of more or less importance and taking down the occasional note in Japanese about water temperature or clarity as it relates to one thing or another.

After a few stops on different ledges Fukae swings the boat around, cuts the engine and picks up a rod. A couple casts later and he swings a white bass into the boat. Then another. It's time to keep moving.

Though his first true “check” was for naught, he did manage to demonstrate how wildly in tune with his electronics he is. Average fishermen take a few casts (or more) to get lined up on a spot or a waypoint. Being one of the best FLW Tour pros isn’t anything close to average – Fukae hits his target on the first try almost every time throughout the day.

A few stops later, and Fukae is digging up shells and showing off his skills with a crankbait. Though I hadn’t previously thought of him as a standout crankbait fisherman, I’ve since amended that opinion. With a slew of different profiles and depth ranges on deck, Fukae throws a little of everything as the day wears on and seems to have a knack for hitting the bottom and varying his retrieve that impresses me greatly. Unfortunately, the crankbait only seems to be making an impression on the white bass.

Later in the morning, still popping around on various ledges, we spy Todd Hollowell doing the same. Hollowell certainly isn’t the only other pro fishing out, but the ledges are bare enough to lend credence to the idea that fishing offshore might not be the only game plan for this tournament.

As you can see from the photos, Fukae actually uses both right- and left-hand retrieve baitcasting reels. On deck, he has a selection of Shimano reels paired mostly with Shimano Zodias rods, including a few that are still in the prototype stage.

As for baits, besides a good variety of Yamamoto plastics, he has a little of everything on deck. From a frog and a walking bait, to the biggest crankbaits around, there is room for all. Except a drop-shot. He says that isn’t coming out until it has to in the tournament.

Toward the end of the morning, Fukae moves back out and starts tossing a vibrating jig on a shallow ledge with scattered hydrilla. It's a strategy he has used a few times already, and certainly a tempting one. Sifting through acres of grass by hand is laborious, but it could have a big payoff. If someone can locate a shallow school it could go a long, long way come competition.

After one more stop out deep, it's time for me to get out and for Fukae to head back up the river for some more searching. Unfortunately, the morning has failed to convince him that shallow or deep is worth committing to. Luckily, he has until dark on Tuesday to figure it out.