About 34
34 (Thirty Four) is a Japanese light-game tackle company based in Meinohama, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka, incorporated as 株式会社34 in May 2011. Its catalog is built around ajing, light-tackle fishing for aji (Japanese horse mackerel) with jigheads of a gram or less, and covers rods, jigheads, soft baits, line, handles and balancers, cases and apparel. The company also runs the Circle34 member club, the AJING CUP tournaments, Ajing Dojo seminars and a boat ajing program built around its own AR method.
The rods are split into five series. Advancement is the main line: the FPR, PSR, DFR and HSR shore ajing families, the 4-piece BCR-56, the NER-64b shore bait rod and the SBR-64 and SBR-74 mebaru rods. Guidepost is the entry tier, which 34 says shares Advancement's Toray carbon and saves cost on guides, grips and finish; it has the LHR shore models and the EMR-64 and EMR-58b boat rods. Remarkable is the boat ajing series (CER-62, CER-64b and the two-tip CER-60b). Providence holds the FER-58 flagship, and Specialize, started in 2024, holds situation-specific models including the 5-piece SFR-58 and SFR-58b.
Development is led by Katsumi Yabe, whose notes run through the product pages. Recurring choices include a solid tip on nearly every model, the 34-designed F-tuned solid tip, asymmetric two-piece and put-over ferrules that move the balance toward the reel, 3 mm K-guides below the tip, and slow tapers for aji feeding on plankton, which take a jighead held still in the current. Published prices are Japanese retail including tax.
What 34 is known for
Light-jighead ajing rods with long solid tips. The PSR-60 of 2012 set the direction with a 6-foot medium-slow blank and a 40 cm solid tip when stiff fast rods were the norm, and PSR-60 THE NEXT STAGE moved it to a put-in ferrule. The FPR-55 F-tuned introduced the F-tuned solid tip that now appears on the FER-58 flagship and the boat models. The HSR rods take heavier jigheads and the S-Carry float rig up to the 8-foot HSR-80, and the Guidepost LHR-62 is the entry rod at ¥22,385. Cross-shops against Major Craft, Tailwalk, Breaden and the Daiwa and Shimano Japanese ajing ranges.