Ichigaya Fish Center — Local services in Tokyo

Went on a Saturday in mid-February. Arrived around 1pm, not over packed but had a comfortable amount of customers to share the experience with. It was an unexpected gem in the middle of the city. My only issue was the parking. There is indeed parking available on site but maybe it can accommodate 8 vehicles at most. The problem is that there is no signage or indicator to the said spots...until you've found alternate (paid) parking nearby....and then you'll discover their parking area on your walk down to the venue. The entrance driveway itself is in a weird offshoot angle from the main road and extremely close to a busy intersection. So even with me now knowing the actual parking spots ...I'd still be hesitant to try to manoeuver my SUV into those spaces.

Went as a family of 4 (2 adults, 1 middle schooler and 1 elementary schooler) got 3 rods for an hour with bait and it was less than ¥3000 yen. I'd say an affordable activity. Maybe it was my lack of prior research but I was surprised to find out that it was/is a catch and release system. But I didn't get any luck that day...but many other locals were catching every 5 minutes or so. The bait was the Japanese style ground up paste that you roll into small balls and use in the hooks. Was also a first time for me using this method. Not a fan but was an experience. I'd recommend hanging out as a nice...

I came here on a weekday and it was practically empty. You go down all the way to the water and there should be a building nearby to pay. It cost me about 1500 yen for a full day of fishing and another 200 for the rod rental and bait. It's catch and release so treat the fish kindly!

Honestly you only need about 2 hours here but it's a lot of fun! The bait is hard to put on the hook initially but once you get the hang of it, it's easy. You just put on enough to fill the inside of the hook and then drop it slowly into the water in front of the fish. The food doesn't stay on well but the fish should bite quickly! Just pull and hopefully you land it. Use the net to pull the fish out and be careful not to pull too hard so that the hook doesn't come off.

If the hook comes off, you can pay 100 yen to get it fixed. Overall it's a very fun experience but you will be mostly putting on bait most...

This was one of the worst experience I have hade in Japan so far.

Truth to be said, staff was really friendly and the place is pretty cozy (located under a bridge.)

But then, once you come in, you realize that this isn't more than a few 5m2 pounds with hundreds of carps. And the magic really fades away. It is nothing close to fishing. You just hold your rod for a second to catch a fish. All the carps are busted, injured as they are fished 24/7. Dead fish floating around the pounds. There is no respect at all.

I am not blaming people for fishing. But I think that it should be forbidden to treat animals like they do. If you want to have a fish trip then go out of Tokyo and have a trip in a local river or don't. You'll enjoy...