More about the jigging on my last trip:
Two things I noticed was one: the fish did not seem to like the jigs casted to them. We got all jigged fish letting hooks down below the boat. Im not sure what the deal is with that but prior to this trip I only casted out to the jumpers and never had a sniff so Im thinking they may not like the ker-plunk of the lead jig hitting the surface. I tried letting the jig down 100' and racing it to the top, that didn't work either. Just regular jigging worked for us.
There seems to be two types of jumpers one of which doesn't seem to want to chomp any gear very hard. One type is a small group that jumps in a small area of a 2 or 3 square meters all pointing in the same direction. This school must just be a small group or traveling i'm not sure but they don't seem to do much although it is not uncommon to get the odd fish off these groups.
The other group regardless of the size jumps in multiple directions. I think this means they are actively feeding and there are always birds bouncing off their heads which is the best case scenario.
This was the type of school we took our fish from jigging. We saw it with birds, covering about 1000 square feet jumping in multiple directions. I casted to it and reeled in as fast as I could....nothing and they stopped jumping. I lowered my jig about 100 feet and reeled straight up very fast....nothing. I paused for or moment and had my jig hanging about 5 feet down under the boat and in the same moment I saw a flash and my jig vanished. Set the hook and wow I had a screaming reel. As Fishtofidno told me its like hooking into a 50 lb halibut but the hali is not on the bottom and can run where ever it wants. It is very likely the best take and run I have ever had from a fish that only weighs 18 lbs! Cant wait for more.
Good luck to those going out this week. Cant wait to hear about it.
These are the jigs we were using. Both 4 inches long. Nothing very special but I would like to try some smaller thiner sizes.
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