Tips On Jigging Offshore

[Hamster]

Hey Everyone Happy new Year

just wondering if anyone has done much jigging offshore outside the south passage bar (in between moreton and straddie).

the jigs we have so far are a shimano lucanus, and two river to sea knife jigs 120g and a 300g. we have just purchased a new lowrance hds5x depth sounder with narrow trasducer. we previously had a lowrance 125x black and white with wide transducer and it only picked up the depth no fish or structure. :blush: i have a daiwa saltist OH with 50lb braid matched with the new silstar crystal blue jig rod and it feels great. we normally fish bait but am thinking of chasing kingies and amberjacks with these new jiggs.

if anyone has any hints or advice it would be greatly accepted as jigging is new to me.

cheers Hamster

[dhess]

I have got bugger all jigging experience, but from what I have seen and been told, all you do is find a good show of bait being balled up by predators on the sounder and drop your jigs down. As you wind up you thrash around and jump up and down like a spastic.

I have successfully used lucanus jigs before and think they are great. They are completely different to knife jigs though. You pretty much just drop them down and very slowly retrieve them. You can also just drop them to the bottom, wind in a few meters of line and stick the rod in the rod holder and you will still catch fish. Be warned that the standard hooks are patheticly weak and will get straightened by any kingy or AJ. Even small ones. I even kept on straightening them on semi-decent snapper. Easy to upgrade hooks though.

I have found 60g lucanus to be a very good size in about 35-45m of water.

[plugga]

"As you wind up you thrash around and jump up and down like a spastic."

:laugh: Thats gold:P

[noname]

try up around square patch, watch your sounder and knowing what to look for on your sounder is the key.

look for a confused ball of bait on ya sounder, by this i mean a rather large school of bait, and it might have holes in it or thin in places depending how good the sounder you have is and how well you can read it. drop onto the school and start jigging, it's a waste of time jigging in the middle of nowhere as you have to be where the fish are, i mean within meters of them, after all, if at the brekky creek pub, why would you go across the road for seafood, if your chompin on a nice bit of meat. meaning you have to entice the fish to chase your jigg. so try different things to see what works, as the standard rip and retrieve is not always successful! good luck

rob.

[mick fillet]

Jigging for AJ's aey make sure you eat ya weatbix then :laugh: your going to need your energy.I find the constant winding produces blisters between your fingers caused from griping the handle really tight whilst cranking hard so use tennis racket grip wraped around the handle to prevent blisters.

look for bait balls like what rob said.

use a sea drogue to hold the boat over the bait in strong wind or current.

try differant knife jigs some are designed to streak through the water and sink verticaly straight back down. other knife jigs have less weight near the back of it and these jigs will zip through the water on the upward stroke but on the stop and pause it will flutter back down keeping the jig in the strike zone for longer.

the tennis racket grip wraped around the handle.

[buzzid]

thanks for the heads up on the pins dhess.

buzz