Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 16, 1991                   TAG: 9104160033
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Bill Cochran
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JAPANESE ANGLER HAS MAGIC POWDER IN HIS TACKLE BOX

Seven Daiwa bait casting and spinning outfits, 150 crankbaits - their painted eyes peering from transparent tackle boxes - 300 plastic lures, including his favorite the Bubble Shrimp, 20 spinnerbaits, and a package of magic powder.

Magic powder?

When asked about it, the 23-year Japan B.A.S.S. Federation Angler of the Year grinned shyly.

His interpreter, Dana Daniels explained that every tournament fisherman has a little something he hopes will give him an edge.

The brown powder is a fish attractor for plastic baits. It is designed to saturate a lure with the kind of scent that turns a bass on. Many U.S. fishermen carry a similar product in liquid form. They dispense it from a squirt bottle, which isn't as likely to blow out of a boat when they roar down the lake at 60 mph.

Terajima never has been that fast in a boat. Near his home in Tokyo, most of the lakes are small, and boats are powered by electric motors or, at the most, a 10-horsepower outboard.

Early today, Terajima will climb into a Ranger bass boat for two days of practice followed by three days of competition, with a daily 2:30 p.m. weigh-in at the Roanoke Civic Center. The spear-shaped 361V Ranger, raspberry over black-silver, will be equipped with an electric motor, to be sure, but on the stern will be an Evinrude Intruder or Johnson Fast Strike, both sporting 150 horses.

For someone who never has been in a Ranger or on a 20,000-acre lake, it could be akin to suddenly being thrust behind the controls of an F-15.

"He doesn't plan to go very fast," said Daniels.

But that doesn't mean he isn't planning on pulling in bass just as fast as other fishermen.

"Other than some minor things, he doesn't feel he is disadvantaged," said Daniels. "Fish are the same all over the world. He is not going to lose before he gets on the lake."

In fact, there could be an advantage for Terajima. The low pressure system that has hung over the region like a wet sponge is about to be pushed away by a high, and that could mean wind.

"In Japan, being an island, we get a lot of fronts that come through, so we are used to difficult fishing," said Daniels. "We are hoping a high will come in and put the fish back down just a little bit."

Terajima sees his strength as a light-tackle fisherman. A 3-pound total can win a tournament in Japan. When Terajima heard that it might take a 40-pound catch at Smith Mountain, with bass averaging about 3-pounds, he wound on heavier line: 8 pound on the spinning outfits; 14 on the bait casting reels.

He has seen Smith Mountain only briefly from the highway, but he knows it well from topographical maps.

"We know the bass are close to pre-spawn right now, maybe some of them just starting to spawn," said Daniels. "So naturally he is going to concentrate on shallow points near the channel or near drop offs. We feel like that is going to be the pattern probably everybody is going to use. If that doesn't work out in practice, he will go to something else."

Terajima, who is a tackle distributor, earned his way to the national championship by weighing more bass than any other angler during five tournaments in Japan, where competitive fishing rapidly is growing in popularity.

He faces the South African champion and 40 competitors from across the United States, including a fireman from Texas, a lumberjack from Ohio, a sheriff's department investigator from California, an illustrator from Connecticut, and a dentist from Arkansas. They started out as 40,000 members of B.A.S.S. clubs and advanced through back-home club tournaments, state fish-offs and regional competition.

The winner gets $15,000 and the federation national championship title, but maybe even more prestigious to the winner and four others is a berth in the BASS Masters Classic, the door to becoming a bass pro.

The United States is the only place in the world you can make a living chasing little green fish, but a young competitor from Japan would like to change that.