Historical landmark · Anamizu

Flathead Mullet Watchtower

AT A GLANCE

Why go?

Out on the calm shore of Anamizu Bay, a slender tower of lashed logs rises from the shallow water and tapers to a tiny seat at its peak. This is the Flathead Mullet Watchtower, or bora-machi yagura in Japanese, a relic of what is often called Japan's oldest fishing method. For centuries local fishermen perched here from dawn to dusk, scanning the glassy inlet for a passing school of mullet and hauling a hidden net up from the seabed when the fish drifted over it. Today the fishing has stopped, but the watchtowers along National Route 249 remain one of Anamizu Town's most photographed landmarks on the Noto Peninsula.↗↗↗

The watchtower is a piece of living folk history rather than a stately monument. Built from logs lashed into a pyramid roughly ten metres tall, it was part of a waiting fishery so perfectly tuned to the habits of the flathead mullet that it drew the admiration of a famous foreign visitor. At the Neki site you pull in at a small roadside park, step out, and look across the still bay at the silhouetted scaffold, with the faint outline of a figure perched on top.↗

A LITTLE INSPIRATION IS ON ITS WAY

Finding your next place…

Loading the guide.

Historical landmark · Anamizu

Flathead Mullet Watchtower

Anamizu, JP 3.9 (77 Google reviews)

Photo: Google Maps

AT A GLANCE

Why go?

Out on the calm shore of Anamizu Bay, a slender tower of lashed logs rises from the shallow water and tapers to a tiny seat at its peak. This is the Flathead Mullet Watchtower, or bora-machi yagura in Japanese, a relic of what is often called Japan's oldest fishing method. For centuries local fishermen perched here from dawn to dusk, scanning the glassy inlet for a passing school of mullet and hauling a hidden net up from the seabed when the fish drifted over it. Today the fishing has stopped, but the watchtowers along National Route 249 remain one of Anamizu Town's most photographed landmarks on the Noto Peninsula.↗↗↗

The watchtower is a piece of living folk history rather than a stately monument. Built from logs lashed into a pyramid roughly ten metres tall, it was part of a waiting fishery so perfectly tuned to the habits of the flathead mullet that it drew the admiration of a famous foreign visitor. At the Neki site you pull in at a small roadside park, step out, and look across the still bay at the silhouetted scaffold, with the faint outline of a figure perched on top.↗

↗

A fishery that caught the eye of Percival Lowell

The origin of the mullet-waiting fishery is hazy, but records trace it back to the Edo period, and the towers here date roughly to the 17th through 19th centuries. The method relied entirely on patience and on knowing the fish: a fisherman kept watch from the summit of the scaffold all day, and when a school of mullet moved over the sunken net, he hauled the ropes to scoop them up. It is fishing as a kind of ambush by stillness.↗↗

In 1889 the young American astronomer Percival Lowell, before his fame at Harvard and the Lowell Observatory, travelled overland through Noto and wrote about these strange structures in his 1891 book Noto: An Unexplored Corner of Japan, likening a watchtower to 'the nest of the mythological bird Roc.' His account introduced this quiet bay to Western readers and lends the towers a literary pedigree unusual for a humble fishing platform.↗↗

At its height the practice was widespread, with more than forty watchtowers once counting toward the Anamizu catch. But as mullet grew scarcer and the long hours of solitary waiting proved economically impossible, the towers dwindled one by one. The last working harvest in Anamizu took place in autumn 1996, and a handful of structures now survive purely for visitors, standing as markers of a way of life the Noto Peninsula still remembers.↗↗↗

What to notice at the water's edge

The Neki watchtower is the one you are most likely to stop for on a drive along the Noto coast road. Seen up close the lattice of logs is surprisingly tall and sturdy, narrowing as it climbs to a small lookout seat at the very top. From that perch a fisherman once kept watch over a single net of roughly twenty-five square metres laid on the inlet floor below, so the whole tower is really a stage built around a hidden trap.↗↗

The figure you may spot at the summit is a scarecrow effigy rather than a working fisherman, since the towers are no longer used for fishing but kept for display. That small touch of theatre actually helps you picture the original scene, a lone watcher silhouetted against the horizon. The setting reinforces it: because this is an inner bay, the water is so still that hardly a whitecap forms, and the calm that made such slow, patient fishing possible remains the defining mood here.↗↗

The view is at its best in clear, low light. Visitors come for sunrise and for the soft glow of dusk, when the bay takes on a warm colour and the tower's pyramid silhouette throws long shadows across the flat water, close to the scene that struck Lowell more than a century ago.↗↗

Making the stop

The watchtower is best visited as a quick roadside pause on a Noto Peninsula driving loop, sitting along National Route 249 not far from Anamizu Station on the way toward Kashima Shrine. It is an open viewing site rather than a ticketed attraction, reached on foot from the adjacent parking area, and the shoreline can be seen at any hour, though daylight and clear weather bring out the best in the view.↗↗↗

Anamizu pairs the watchtower with its other claim to fame: oyster farms dot these same quiet bays, and nearby seafood cafes grill plump local oysters over charcoal. A watchtower stop makes a natural scenic interlude between a taste of the bay's produce and the longer drive out toward the wilder Noto coastline.↗

What makes it special

01

Relic of one of Japan's oldest fishing methods, the mullet-waiting fishery, where a lone watcher hauled a hidden net from a tall log scaffold.↗↗

02

Made famous in the West by astronomer Percival Lowell, who in 1891 compared a watchtower to 'the nest of the mythological bird Roc.'↗↗

03

Set on the mirror-flat water of inner Anamizu Bay, where the calm that once allowed such patient fishing is still the scene's signature.↗↗

04

One of four surviving watchtowers kept purely for visitors after the practice ended in Anamizu in 1996.↗↗

A little planning goes a long way

Park at Neki Pocket Park beside National Route 249; it has restrooms and vending machines, and the tight roadside pull-off right at the tower is awkward to manoeuvre.↗↗
Treat it as a short stop on a driving loop rather than a full destination, combining it with Anamizu Station, Kashima Shrine and a taste of the town's charcoal-grilled oysters.↗↗
Time your visit for early morning or late afternoon for the best light on the bay; midday is when the site sees the most visitors.↗
The watchtower is an open-air roadside viewpoint rather than a building you enter, so the best way to see it is on foot from the parking area, with care for passing traffic.↗↗

About this guide

Compiled with AI assistance from the sources below; this is not a first-hand visit. Place details collected October 5, 2026. Hours, access and ratings can change; confirm with the venue before visiting.

Find your way

Neki, Anamizu, Ishikawa 927-0037, Japan

Open in Google Maps Visit the official website

You might want to ask

Plan a Day Trip to Flathead Mullet Watchtower Add Flathead Mullet Watchtower to My Japan Itinerary Find the Best Route to Flathead Mullet Watchtower

Opening hours +

As reported by Google Maps. Confirm holiday hours before you go.

Friday: Open 24 hours
Monday: Open 24 hours
Sunday: Open 24 hours
Tuesday: Open 24 hours
Saturday: Open 24 hours
Thursday: Open 24 hours
Wednesday: Open 24 hours

MAKE IT PART OF YOUR TRIP

Curiosity looks
good on you.

Save this place, add a few more, and let Fortrip help connect the dots.

Plan a visit

Finding your next place…

Flathead Mullet Watchtower

Why go?

More of Japan: Kanazawa

Finding your next place…

Flathead Mullet Watchtower

Why go?

More of Japan: Kanazawa

A fishery that caught the eye of Percival Lowell

What to notice at the water's edge

Making the stop

What makes it special

A little planning goes a long way

About this guide