queensland Offshore Jigging 13/7

[Fish Head]

Went offshore on Saturday with Bill Corten for a days jigging.

Things were looking good early on when we stopped to pick up some livies as back up to the jigs. there were slimies aplenty and a few were being knocked off by toothy critters on the way up. Working over the same spot with lures and live bait produced only small snapper, so we took off to deeper grounds. The next few hours was spent working areas in 60-80m out as far as Square Patch. Plenty of shows on the sounder, but very little happening. The few fish we did hook were snaffled by some pretty sizeable sharks. On the upside, the wind was staying low, the ominous looking clouds were clearing off and pods of whales were putting on a regular show to keep us entertained!

Around lunch time the decision was made to push a little wider and hunt a few pearlies. We were rewarded pretty quickly with a string of legal pearlies along with a fair few throwbacks. Jigs and live baits were producing equally well, but again sharks had us pushing on to greener pastures. We finished off the day with a nice little run of fish which included more quality pearlies, some snapper for me on the FCL jigs, a few kingfish and a single AJ.

All in all not our most productive offshore day, but the post lunch bite really made up for the slow morning with some double and triple hook-ups to make things exciting.

Cheers

Duncan

[Shane69]

Thats a awesome pearlie mate.

Nice one.

I have been meaning to go jigging with bill coreton for while now so i can learn how and where its done properly.

Hey when you guys use twin assist hooks. Do you make sure they are same size.

Shane.

[Fish Head]

Hi Shane

I favour twin assist for chasing snapper and pearlies. When the kingies are thick I go for a single larger assist for strength and safety when thrashing fish are being brought aboard during a hot bite.

I generally use matching pairs of hooks, but I doubt it makes much difference if one hook is a bit larger or one of the assists are longer than the other.

A lot of the guys in japan are using small, fine gauge twin assists mounted top and bottom for slow jigging. This maximises the hook-ups when the lure is eaten on the drop - which is where most of the bites happen with this style of jigging. The two hooks of the SFS jig I was using give pretty good coverage though and are strong enough should a decent king or AJ get involved.

Cheers

Duncan

[Damien2Rad]

Do you think a 7' rod is too long for slow pitch / demersal style jigging? What weight of tackle are you using for this style of fishing?

Can't wait to get out and give it another go out there.

[Fish Head]

Hi Damien

The slow pitch style jigging rods tend to be longer than regular jig rods. The Prototype Synit I was fishing with is 5'8", while the Evergreen range are mostly 6' and we even have some 7'7" FCL slow pitch jig rods in stock. The longer length allows for more delicate manipulation of the jigs with minimal effort. It also gives you better contact with the slack line when feeling for bites on the drop. The downside is that the long rods don't have the leverage when fighting bigger kings and AJ's, but there are plusses and minuses with everything I guess.

Your 7' rod should work fine, though if it is a typical short butted Soft Plastics style rod, you may end up with sore wrists after a while. A long butt tucked in your armpit, makes it really easy and comfortable to jig all day long.

Depending on the outfit, I'm fishing 20lb to 60lb braid and fluoro leaders of about the same breaking strains. Most of the Japanese slow jig rods are built to fish around 20-40lb braid.

Cheers

Duncan

[Damien2Rad]

It's the Egrell B10 and Saltist LD20 I bought from you, I've got 20lb braid with 20-60lb leaders (depending on target etc) on it.

I've been using it for mainly Lucanis Jigs but have only caught grinner on it yet (about 4 or 5 so far!!) and it seems to feel beautiful for this. I've also dropped 40-60g slugs offshore and caught lots of little tailor.

I guess the true test will come the day a big red thing eats the jig though...