Japanese Jig Heads for Australian Plastics: Decoy From 3.5 g to 28 g, and Where Owner Fits

Search for Japanese jig heads and most of what comes back weighs less than a gram. That’s ajing tackle, built for horse mackerel under harbour lights, and it’s no use under a 3 inch plastic on a bream flat or a 5 inch jerk shad over snapper reef. Australian plastics fishing runs on heads between 1/8 oz and 1 oz. That’s 3.5 g to 28 g, and Decoy’s saltwater heads cover the whole of it.

They’re just not filed where you’d look. Japanese makers sort heads by fish and by ground: a chinu (チヌ, black sea bream) head for crab eaters, a rockfish head that stands up on the bottom, a surf head for hirame (ヒラメ, Japanese flounder) and magochi (マゴチ, Japan’s flathead). Weights are in grams, the hook size changes with the weight, and the pack count drops as the head gets heavier, so a ¥500 packet can hold six heads or two.

The sub-gram heads have their own page in our ajing jig head guide.

JDM buy links go to Amazon Japan, which ships internationally: check availability and shipping cost at checkout. Orders over A$59 may qualify for free international delivery.

Do Japanese Makers Build Jig Heads Heavy Enough for Australian Plastics?

Yes, up to an ounce. Decoy’s S.W. Head SV-60 runs from 3.5 g to 28 g in seven steps. The steps will look familiar, because they’re the ounce fractions you already fish, written in grams.

Past an ounce the Japanese range thins out fast. Decoy’s S.G. Head Heavy SV-34H starts at 28 g and climbs to 100 g, but Katsuichi sells it at open price and aims it at big rockfish and pelagics offshore. For 1.5 oz to 3 oz snapper heads in hard current, the Australian brands are still where the choice is.

Which Japanese Head Covers Bream Weights to Snapper Weights in One Range?

Decoy’s S.W. Head SV-60. It’s a round head on Katsuichi’s JIG11 strong-wire hook, with a two-step keeper to hold the plastic straight, and Katsuichi lists it for shore and boat work alike. The fish named on the Japanese page are seabass, magochi and hirame, then big rockfish. Magochi is a flathead. This is a head the maker drew for a flathead-shaped fish lying on sand, and the page says the round head is meant to puff sand off the bottom as well as swim.

Check price on eBay

Opens eBay Australia search results for the Decoy S.W. Head SV-60; listings come from independent sellers.

One packet price across the range means the light end is cheap per head and the heavy end isn’t: six 3.5 g heads or two 28 g heads for the same ¥500. The other thing the table shows is one hook per weight. If you want 7 g on a 3/0 for a long jerk shad, the SV-60 doesn’t come that way. The S.G. Head further down does.

AU Alternative: TT HeadlockZ HD

Tackle Tactics makes the head most Australian tackle boxes already hold. The HeadlockZ HD sits on a Mustad Ultrapoint black nickel hook, runs from 1/28 oz to 3 oz, and gives you a spread of hooks at each weight. The 1/4 oz alone comes on hooks from #1 to 8/0. Most packs are A$11.95 on TT’s own site, with six heads on the small hooks, five on 2/0 to 4/0, four on 5/0 and 6/0, and three on 7/0 and 8/0.

It’s on the peg at your local and it covers the heavy weights Japan doesn’t. A Decoy packet is cheaper per head on list price, and freight from Japan eats that difference on a small order. What the Japanese heads offer instead is shape: a head that stands up on the bottom, a head with a second eye underneath, a head that pivots in flight. The HeadlockZ HD is one shape in every size.

What Should a 2 to 3 Inch Bream Plastic Sit On?

Bream plastics are short, and the usual trouble is that a head heavy enough to reach the bottom of a deep tidal channel comes on a hook too long for the plastic. Katsuichi’s page for the Decoy Bottom Drive SV-53 opens with exactly that complaint, then answers it with an oval head on a small round-bend hook sized for 2 inch plastics. The line tie is set back on the head, which Katsuichi says holds it down near the bottom and helps it ride over snags. You can get 10 g on a #2 hook. TT’s HeadlockZ HD doesn’t go smaller than 2/0 at 3/8 oz.

Check Decoy Bottom Drive SV-53 on eBay

Opens eBay Australia search results for the Decoy Bottom Drive SV-53; listings come from independent sellers.

Kurodai (クロダイ), the Japanese black sea bream, is on the SV-53’s target list, and it belongs to Acanthopagrus, the same genus as yellowfin bream (Acanthopagrus australis) and southern black bream (Acanthopagrus butcheri). Decoy makes a second head for that fish alone. The Tank Head SV-32 is built for crab and mantis shrimp imitations crawled along the bottom, on a hook Katsuichi describes as strong enough not to be crushed, and it’s shaped to land in a stable posture. If you fish crab or creature plastics around racks and pylons, this is the Japanese head built for the job.

Check Decoy Tank Head SV-32 on eBay

Opens eBay Australia search results for the Decoy Tank Head SV-32; listings come from independent sellers.

Owner comes at it from the plastic. Its C’ultiva Bottom Rock heads are numbered by worm length: Type 1 for 1 inch, Type 2 for 2 inch, Type 3 for 3 inch, and each packet carries a printed scale to measure the plastic against. The Type 3 JH-73 is the 3 inch head. The head is shaped to sit on the bottom without tipping over, with a nose Owner says deflects off snags. The hook is fine wire, chosen for easy penetration on rockfish, so fish it on a drag that gives, not a locked one.

Check Owner Bottom Rock Type 3 on eBay

Opens eBay Australia search results for the Owner Bottom Rock Type 3 JH-73; listings come from independent sellers.

Which Head Suits Longer Flathead Plastics?

With a 4 or 5 inch plastic for dusky flathead (Platycephalus fuscus), you’re choosing hook size as much as weight, and most heads don’t give you the choice. Decoy’s S.G. Head SV-34 does. The 5 g comes on a #1, 1/0, 2/0 or 3/0, and the 7 g on a 1/0, 2/0 or 3/0, fifteen weight and hook pairings in all between 3.5 g and 21 g.

Check price on eBay

Opens eBay Australia search results for the Decoy S.G. Head SV-34; listings come from independent sellers.

Katsuichi built it for soft stick baits thrown at seabass that have stopped eating minnows and tail-spin jigs, and names tachiuo (太刀魚, hairtail), flatfish and pelagics as the other fish it suits. Under the head sits a second eye. Katsuichi calls it the assist eye, and it takes a small treble or a stinger for fish that nip the tail of a long plastic and miss the main hook.

The hooks that go on that second eye are in our assist hook and terminal tackle guide, and the plastics are in our JDM flathead lure guide, including the Daiwa Rodem R, which sells the head and the body as one item.

What About Long Casts Off the Beach and Pinkies Over Reef?

This is Owner’s end of the range. The C’ultiva Shizuka Head JH-61 takes its name from the Japanese for quiet (静). Owner describes it as a natural, silent head on a saltwater hook designed from scratch for it, made to hold level in the water and carry on a full cast. The listed fish are hirame, grouper, seabass and pelagics. Owner’s page also credits it with opening up shore-cast madai fishing at Naruto in Tokushima, and madai (Pagrus major) is the Japanese red sea bream, a close relative of Australian snapper (Chrysophrys auratus).

Check Owner Shizuka Head JH-61 on eBay

Opens eBay Australia search results for the Owner Shizuka Head JH-61; listings come from independent sellers.

The Buttobi Shizuka JH-63 is the same idea rebuilt for distance. The line eye pivots. On the cast it shifts so the head flies with the hook pointing up, and when you start winding it moves forward, which lifts the head. You get a long cast and can still wind slowly near the surface, a pairing that normally costs you one or the other. There’s a support-hook eye as well.

Check Owner Buttobi Shizuka JH-63 on eBay

Opens eBay Australia search results for the Owner Buttobi Shizuka JH-63; listings come from independent sellers.

Decoy’s surf head goes another way. The S.G. Swimmer SV-135 has no jig hook at all, just a straight keeper for the plastic and a treble slung underneath, and Katsuichi says the treble raises the hook-up rate on surf flatfish. It comes in 11 g and 14 g on a #8 treble and 21 g and 28 g on a #6, two to a pack, at open price.

How heavy to go for snapper as depth and drift build is worked through in our Japanese soft plastics guide for snapper, plastic by plastic. Where plastics sit against kabura, blades and micro jigs is in the Japanese snapper lure overview.

What to Look for on a Japanese Jig Head Packet

• Hook size first, then weight. Most Japanese heads fix one hook to each weight. Read the pairing before the grams, because a 7 g head might carry a #2 (Bottom Drive) or a 1/0 (S.W. Head).
• Heads per pack. It falls as the weight climbs, from six to two inside a single Decoy range. Divide before you compare with a local packet.
• A second eye. Decoy’s S.G. Head and Owner’s Buttobi Shizuka both carry one for a stinger. Useful with long plastics and tail nippers.
• Wire gauge in the maker’s words. “Strong” on the SV-60 and “fine” on the Bottom Rock are the makers’ own terms, and neither publishes a breaking strain. A fine-wire rockfish hook won’t forgive a locked drag on a big bream in the racks.

Comparison Table

Our Top Pick + Budget Pick

Before You Order From Japan

Some Australian tackle shops carry Decoy and Owner, so check whether the size you want is on a local peg before paying freight on a single packet. Where the import makes sense is when you want a particular weight and hook pairing, or when heads are riding in a parcel you were sending anyway with plastics, leader or hooks.

And keep the HeadlockZ packet for anything much over an ounce.

Head weight also has to fit the rod’s lure rating, which our JDM rod picks for snapper plastics lists in grams for each model.

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ちゃんま

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マイボートで海に出るボートアングラー（釣り歴20年・ボート歴10年）。タイラバ・ひとつテンヤ・ライトジギングが主戦場で、エリアトラウトや堤防のライトゲームものんびり楽しむ雑食派。

実際に使った道具の「正直どうだったか」を、公式スペックと実釣の両面から書いています。

Boat angler based in Japan, sharing first-hand reviews of JDM tackle.