A year ago, in May 2025, I traveled to California, USA, to visit the birthplace of swimbaits.
“Pilgrimage”
A journey to the sacred ground where swimbaits were born.
I first began fishing with swimbaits about 15 years ago.
I was still a student at the time. One day, as I was looking through lures at a used tackle shop like I often did, one bait immediately caught my eye: the Jackall One-Eighty.
That was my first encounter with swimbaits.
Back then, my main sources of information were fishing videos and magazines. Wanting to learn everything I could about swimbaits, I absorbed every piece of information I could find.
The lakes that appeared again and again were Clear Lake and Castaic Lake in California.
The photos and footage I saw captured only brief moments, but each of those moments filled me with excitement. As a student, every image, every scene, and every story made my heart race.
“Someday, I want to fish those lakes.”
To the student I was back then, America felt like a dreamland. Fishing there felt like an impossible dream.
Years passed, and in 2022, I finally visited America for the first time. It was a country I had dreamed of visiting for many years.
The version of myself who first discovered the appeal of swimbaits could never have imagined where life would eventually take me.
During that first trip to America, I met many friends who gave me experiences far beyond anything I could have imagined.
Even now, the time I spent with them remains one of my most treasured memories.
However, even though I had traveled to America four times by 2025, I had still never been to California, the home of Clear Lake and Castaic Lake, the places I had seen so many times in magazines and videos when I was a student.
It was not because I was not interested in California.
Rather, it was because California was a place I had admired for so long that I did not want to go there too soon.
Before finally visiting California, I wanted to see different parts of America, meet different people, and feel the country more deeply through my own experiences.
I wanted to know what I would feel when the version of myself shaped by those journeys finally reached the place I had dreamed of for so long.
And on my fifth trip to America, I finally visited California for the first time.
It was also my first time driving in America.
And my first time traveling alone.
A first experience only happens once.
That is why I wanted to make this “pilgrimage” to the birthplace of swimbaits by myself.
Every first experience carries both excitement and uncertainty.
Today, information is easy to find. But through my four previous trips to America, I learned that information and real-life experience are two very different things.
There is a difference between the America you see through information and the America that truly exists.
And beyond that excitement and uncertainty, there is a view that only you can see.
My first time in California.
My first time driving in America.
Fishing in the birthplace of swimbaits.
Before me stretched a sense of accomplishment and a view that could only be earned by finding my own way there.
In 1620, the Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower in search of religious freedom.
In an age when there was no guarantee they would even survive the journey, they risked their lives to reach a place where they could practice their faith freely.
The more I have learned about the history of the United States, from the Revolutionary War that led to independence on July 4, 1776, to the civil conflicts, national struggles, and wars that followed, the deeper my respect for this country has become.
The courage of those who crossed into an unknown continent.
The Revolutionary War fought in pursuit of an ideal.
And a history that has continued to seek freedom while embracing many different values.
I feel that all of these things have helped shape the energy that America carries today.
Of course, that history also includes discrimination, conflict, and sorrow.
Even so, America has long been a place where people have pursued new opportunities, challenged the unknown, and created new ideas and cultures.
I believe that is why so many people continue to see dreams and possibilities in America.
Nearly 400 years ago, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean in pursuit of their ideals and their faith.
Of course, my own journey cannot be compared to theirs.
Still, I believe there is something universal in every pilgrimage: the desire to set out in search of what one believes in.
Through my own pilgrimage, I arrived at a new source of inspiration.
California.
The birthplace of swimbaits.
I thought about the trout that inspired the creation of swimbaits, the trout that were being preyed upon in those California waters all those years ago.
I combined that image with a wood-grain finish and painted it onto the EDEN8, the bait that marked the beginning of MBD.
This year marks the 250th anniversary of the United States of America.
I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations on this historic milestone.
To commemorate America’s 250th anniversary, I am releasing “Pilgrimage,” a California-inspired MBD trout color named after my own personal journey.
This color will be available one time only, starting July 11, Eastern Time.
The scenery I had once seen only in magazines and on television.
The place that had once existed only as a dream had become reality.
“Pilgrimage”
I poured the story of my own journey into this color.
And the end of one journey is also the beginning of another.
Just as America was born and continued to build its history, the journey of MBD will continue as well.
A portion of the proceeds from this bait will be donated to Nimbus Hatchery and Fillmore Hatchery. Visiting these two hatcheries allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of California’s trout.
