Saturday, September 04, 2010

Masa - trout hunter


Masa has multiple identities. Photographer, FF industry man, Hackle examiner and a trout hunter (of course)... I have been following his awesome blog for years and never got a chance to see him in person. There are just so many interesting things in his blog just like his very "natural" personality. When BG told me he will be visting TH in the same week I visit, you can imagine how exciting I am... yes, "just like a kid get a chance to visit a candy shop!"
It was so great to meet Masa, talk about photography and fishing. I remember the second sentence he said to me is "if you have chance to fish Japan, give me a call!" this really sum up his personality. Masa is also a good friend of Ken Tsurusaki, if you have read this issue FF journal, the cover shot is from Ken and the Angler IN the photo is Masa... feel familiar? He told us he was holding his breath for 3 minutes for the long exposure photo... Ha... it is always great to know the story behind the scene. I am lucky enough the BG did not tell me to hold my breath with taking some early morning photos...@@ Masa also get some mad photography skills and Gigs...if my memory serve me well, he use 2 Nikon D3s bodies and the famous 12-24mm/2.8 room plus 400/2.8 tel lens... it is jaw dropping when he mentioned he is a pro staff in Nikon and Canon... he pretty much just pick up whatever he want in the shop... and it is pro service! How cool is that... wish my brother will get there one day... and I will have a chance to borrow it : )
In addition to his photography career, Masa is probably the biggest distributor/dealer in Japan, as far as I know, from Simms, Scott rod, Hatch reel to Whiting farm hackle... you name it... he told me he is the one of the 3 people (himself, Tom and x) in the world to grade the hackle... he hand selected every hackles that will use in Japan's market... how many dealers under his wing... "138 probably"... he told me this in the airport. no wonder he need to fight with jetlag as his blog title stated. Great work Masa! hard working man is The Man! if you are interesting in some inside news in those great FF brand... check out Masa's blog... he will tell you some insider news that can't be seen elsewhere... (sometimes) ha..Maverick LINK

2 comments:

Hitoshi said...

Hi Mark,

Great report!
I am surprised that you met Masa-san

BLUEANGLER said...

Hey Hitoshi,

It's a wonderful gathering! It's so great to chat with Masa -san! : )