Jigging or Drift Fishing for Salmon

[acrowe]

I wondered if anyone is interested in a discussion thread on jigging or drift fishing for salmon?
I know its a real minority but the "High Tech Jigging" thread got a lot of interest in the past and still draws some occasional replies.

I thought there might be a few good topics that could be discussed here:

Gear - Rods, reels, lines but also what lures people like and how they rig them
Boats and electronics - what do we use and what would we choose if we could?
Techniques - from how we actually fish the various jigs used to how position the boat and determine what depths to fish

I'll start
I mostly fish our of Campbell River. Switched over from trolling a couple years ago. I was away from the Island for a long time. When I started fishing here again it seemed to be that the common wisdom is that the 70s and 80s were a sort of glory days when there were more fish and even jigging could catch salmon, now you need to troll if you want to catch fish. I trolled and caught fish, more than I remember catching out of Sooke and Saanich inlet when I was a kid in the late 70s and 80s. I did quite a bit of jigging with my Dad as a kid and in the 80s it was also seen as not a very serious way to catch salmon by many people.

I started trying it again, occasionally with moching rods, monofilament etc, and it did not produce for me. One day trolling off Wilby shoals it totally clicked for me, tons of bait, feeding fish - jigging should work. I read through the High Tech Jigging thread. The next year in may and june I set up to do it more seriously, and it was clear, that jigging would be really productive when you find fish.
Last year I mostly left the downriggers in the garage. I probably caught a similar amount of fish. I generally find it probably worlks out similar to trolling, when you are on the fish it is super productive. Yesterday I found feeding fish immediately and had 6-8 fish on in 10 minutes, released 2, kept one that was bleeding a bunch and went home (which is the unfortunate part about 1 fish limit fishing alone). If the bite is not really on trollers still pick up fish here and there but you have to be pretty lucky to get random fish if they are dispersed jigging.

This year I have had the most success using 4oz Point Wilson Darts in white - I pull off the treble and tie my own assist hooks using gamagatsu 4/0 (or 2/0) and downrigger braid. I honestly think the assist style hooks, hook more fish and get more fish to the boat then single siwash. Sometimes they seem to cause damage when the 2nd hook hooks into something but because they are generally smaller than single siwash hooks that come on stuff they tend not to be quite as damaging that way so I am unsure which is better for releasing fish, which is a big concern these days.
I have tried Shimano butterfly jigs, and I like them. Availability of the size and colours I want when I go to buy them and price affect how much I use them.

I use a variety of rods - this fish which I think was likely around 22lbs I caught last summer on a rig I use in shallower water (under 100") with light lures. Its a baitcasting rod and reel. It seems light but you can actually put a lot of pressure on a fish with it and I felt ok about how quickly I managed this fish (since it had to be released).


I hope there might be an interest in sharing what those of us jigging for salmon are doing

 

[John Ingram]

I wondered if anyone is interested in a discussion thread on jigging or drift fishing for salmon?
I know its a real minority but the "High Tech Jigging" thread got a lot of interest in the past and still draws some occasional replies.

I thought there might be a few good topics that could be discussed here:

Gear - Rods, reels, lines but also what lures people like and how they rig them
Boats and electronics - what do we use and what would we choose if we could?
Techniques - from how we actually fish the various jigs used to how position the boat and determine what depths to fish

I'll start
I mostly fish our of Campbell River. Switched over from trolling a couple years ago. I was away from the Island for a long time. When I started fishing here again it seemed to be that the common wisdom is that the 70s and 80s were a sort of glory days when there were more fish and even jigging could catch salmon, now you need to troll if you want to catch fish. I trolled and caught fish, more than I remember catching out of Sooke and Saanich inlet when I was a kid in the late 70s and 80s. I did quite a bit of jigging with my Dad as a kid and in the 80s it was also seen as not a very serious way to catch salmon by many people.

I started trying it again, occasionally with moching rods, monofilament etc, and it did not produce for me. One day trolling off Wilby shoals it totally clicked for me, tons of bait, feeding fish - jigging should work. I read through the High Tech Jigging thread. The next year in may and june I set up to do it more seriously, and it was clear, that jigging would be really productive when you find fish.
Last year I mostly left the downriggers in the garage. I probably caught a similar amount of fish. I generally find it probably worlks out similar to trolling, when you are on the fish it is super productive. Yesterday I found feeding fish immediately and had 6-8 fish on in 10 minutes, released 2, kept one that was bleeding a bunch and went home (which is the unfortunate part about 1 fish limit fishing alone). If the bite is not really on trollers still pick up fish here and there but you have to be pretty lucky to get random fish if they are dispersed jigging.

This year I have had the most success using 4oz Point Wilson Darts in white - I pull off the treble and tie my own assist hooks using gamagatsu 4/0 (or 2/0) and downrigger braid. I honestly think the assist style hooks, hook more fish and get more fish to the boat then single siwash. Sometimes they seem to cause damage when the 2nd hook hooks into something but because they are generally smaller than single siwash hooks that come on stuff they tend not to be quite as damaging that way so I am unsure which is better for releasing fish, which is a big concern these days.
I have tried Shimano butterfly jigs, and I like them. Availability of the size and colours I want when I go to buy them and price affect how much I use them.

I use a variety of rods - this fish which I think was likely around 22lbs I caught last summer on a rig I use in shallower water (under 100") with light lures. Its a baitcasting rod and reel. It seems light but you can actually put a lot of pressure on a fish with it and I felt ok about how quickly I managed this fish (since it had to be released).
View attachment 84180

I hope there might be an interest in sharing what those of us jigging for salmon are doing

How about adding a section on Horizontal jigging........ I.E. spin casting from the shore.

 

[Tsquared]

I fish in the Sooke area for the most part, the majority of the time trolling but I have had success casting butterfly jigs into the fall surface baitballs for coho. I haven’t tried for springs a great deal but I will. It’s a good method to use when I’m in my fishing kayak.

 

[Salmon Seeker]

I was up in Barkley sound a couple weeks ago and hooked my first salmon on a jig. It was a 6-8 lb coho. caught it on a 160g shimano butterfly jig. recently, walking through cabelas i noticed that they were selling west coast tackle's version of the butterfly jig at a much more reasonable price. might try them out in the future. I have a shimano trevalla 6'6" mh rod paired with a diawa bg spinning reel with the colour changing braid. this trip was also my first time trying out the drift sock, and gotta say it was very effective at reducing my wind drift.

 

[chille51]

I've been out to Neck Point a couple times this week, chucking buzz bombs with no action. Definitely interested in shore jigging tips, as well as from the boat.

 

[sly_karma]

My jigging setup is a pair of 66MH2 Trevalas paired with Ambassadeur C4 6600 reels. The retrieve rate of 6.3:1 is mostly fast enough to keep pressure on a salmon hooked deep and rocketing to the surface. A 1000 ft spool of Depth Hunter 40 lb coloured braid splits nicely between them. About 3 ft of 50 lb fluoro leader material ahead of the lure so it stands off from the line and doesn't tangle on the drop. Nice light, balanced setup that isn't at all fatiguing for jigging. If I were a more frequent visitor to salt water, I'd probably upgrade to an all-metal reel like an Accurate Valiant 500, but the Abu reels are pretty good for the money. Plastic components do keep the weight down and that's an important consideration for an active setup like this.

The go-to lures for me are Shimano's flat fall jigs in the 160 g and 130 g sizes. Wind and current on the BC coast move things around a lot,; lighter jigs will struggle beyond 80-100 ft unless anchored or with someone full time on the boat controls. The lateral fluttering action on the drop is impressive with the Shimano lures, amazing to see 5 oz of lead going sideways. As noted, they're expensive (north of $20 apiece), so when in areas I'm not familiar with, I do a few test drops to bottom with some lesser lead to see if it's 'grabby'. Or just stay off bottom altogether - the colour indicating braid is great for this. I haven't seen the need to move the assist hooks to the top of the lure as some do, more of a bottom fishing thing.

For salmon, I'll chug around semi-slow looking for feed and fish marks, and to get a read on wind and current conditions. Then I'll set up on a promising tack with the transom pointing into the wind/current and with the kicker running, bumping it in and out of reverse to keep the line as vertical in the water as possible. I have a 10" sonar screen set up where I can see it at a glance. Drop either to bottom and jig up, or just below bait if the feed is suspended up higher in the water column.

The initial drop from the surface is the most important: get the boat stationary, then hover a thumb over the spool to provide very light control of the free-falling jig, and, more importantly, to feel a hit - press that thumb down hard and rip its lip. Most of the strikes come as the jig is falling, so you need to be ready. Once at desired depth, lift the rod tip up 6-8 ft, take one turn on the reel, let the jig flutter down 3-4 ft, repeat. I keep the drag set fairly light and use my thumb on the spool to prevent slip as I lift the rod tip. Again, the strikes will almost always come as the jig falls, the first clue you'll have is when you lift the tip again. Yes you could set the drag heavier as for bottom fishing, but salmon strikes are usually hit-and-run, so excess drag could be too much and that first head shake breaks you off.

Salmon jigging is a blast. Feeling the strike the instant it happens, the rod coming alive in your hands. Trolling has its days, especially if the fish are holding deep, but playing feisty fish in close on light gear is addictive.

 

[Rayvon]

Jigging is by far my favourite way to catch salmon,cutplugging second,trolling least.But in Victoria the bait this year (usually needlefish ) hasn't been around as in past years,The bait has been mostly small herring and spread out so it's hard to stay on top of it.I've been forced to haul out the downriggers and flashers which takes a lot of the fun out of fishing,hope next year things go back to normal.

 

[acrowe]

How about adding a section on Horizontal jigging........ I.E. spin casting from the shore.

I am happy to hear about shore fishing, but I haven't really done much of it for a long time, so I won't be able to contribute much.

 

[acrowe]

I was up in Barkley sound a couple weeks ago and hooked my first salmon on a jig. It was a 6-8 lb coho. caught it on a 160g shimano butterfly jig. recently, walking through cabelas i noticed that they were selling west coast tackle's version of the butterfly jig at a much more reasonable price. might try them out in the future. I have a shimano trevalla 6'6" mh rod paired with a diawa bg spinning reel with the colour changing braid. this trip was also my first time trying out the drift sock, and gotta say it was very effective at reducing my wind drift.

I think I would like to move to color coded braid line. I have a depth counter Penn Squall reel, I don't mind the reel, it works pretty well but the depthcounter is totally unreliable. That's pretty sad since I have two 70 year old Peetz recorder reels that still work just fine. I keep one of the Peetz reels and a similar age trolling rod rigged with a rockfish descender (which I have yet to need).

 

[acrowe]

My jigging setup is a pair of 66MH2 Trevalas paired with Ambassadeur C4 6600 reels. The retrieve rate of 6.3:1 is mostly fast enough to keep pressure on a salmon hooked deep and rocketing to the surface. A 1000 ft spool of Depth Hunter 40 lb coloured braid splits nicely between them. About 3 ft of 50 lb fluoro leader material ahead of the lure so it stands off from the line and doesn't tangle on the drop. Nice light, balanced setup that isn't at all fatiguing for jigging. If I were a more frequent visitor to salt water, I'd probably upgrade to an all-metal reel like an Accurate Valiant 500, but the Abu reels are pretty good for the money. Plastic components do keep the weight down and that's an important consideration for an active setup like this.

The go-to lures for me are Shimano's flat fall jigs in the 160 g and 130 g sizes. Wind and current on the BC coast move things around a lot,; lighter jigs will struggle beyond 80-100 ft unless anchored or with someone full time on the boat controls. The lateral fluttering action on the drop is impressive with the Shimano lures, amazing to see 5 oz of lead going sideways. As noted, they're expensive (north of $20 apiece), so when in areas I'm not familiar with, I do a few test drops to bottom with some lesser lead to see if it's 'grabby'. Or just stay off bottom altogether - the colour indicating braid is great for this. I haven't seen the need to move the assist hooks to the top of the lure as some do, more of a bottom fishing thing.

For salmon, I'll chug around semi-slow looking for feed and fish marks, and to get a read on wind and current conditions. Then I'll set up on a promising tack with the transom pointing into the wind/current and with the kicker running, bumping it in and out of reverse to keep the line as vertical in the water as possible. I have a 10" sonar screen set up where I can see it at a glance. Drop either to bottom and jig up, or just below bait if the feed is suspended up higher in the water column.

The initial drop from the surface is the most important: get the boat stationary, then hover a thumb over the spool to provide very light control of the free-falling jig, and, more importantly, to feel a hit - press that thumb down hard and rip its lip. Most of the strikes come as the jig is falling, so you need to be ready. Once at desired depth, lift the rod tip up 6-8 ft, take one turn on the reel, let the jig flutter down 3-4 ft, repeat. I keep the drag set fairly light and use my thumb on the spool to prevent slip as I lift the rod tip. Again, the strikes will almost always come as the jig falls, the first clue you'll have is when you lift the tip again. Yes you could set the drag heavier as for bottom fishing, but salmon strikes are usually hit-and-run, so excess drag could be too much and that first head shake breaks you off.

Salmon jigging is a blast. Feeling the strike the instant it happens, the rod coming alive in your hands. Trolling has its days, especially if the fish are holding deep, but playing feisty fish in close on light gear is addictive.

It sounds like you have a pretty good setup worked out. I have a trophy xl Medium jigging rod with the Penn Squall reel. Its really too stiff for most of the jigging I do. I have a Amundson Savvy Captain 7' salmon jigging rod with a Shimano Triton "speedmaster" 6-1 reel. I use it mostly if I am fishing jigs 4oz and over. I also have the aforementioned shimano MHACC4 baitcaster and Abu Garcia 5000 series reel, which I bought for bass fishing when I lived in Chicago, and used for walleye and pike when I lived in Manitoba. I also have two spinning rods, one with an older Shimano reel that works really well, and the other a Penn Fierce I recently bought when I lost the handle off the other older Shimano. I like the reels but the rods are older 8 and 9' saltwater spinning rods, a lot of work for jigging. I hope to replace them with decent jigging style rods soon.
I will need to replace my line on most of my rigs. I bought a big spool of power pro 20lb braid. I wanted 30lb but I ordered 20. I thought it will be even less sensitive to current and work well with lighter jigs, I think that is true, but I have also broken off a couple times on fish when I made stupid mistakes with the drag. The best was recently, I tied the jig on the leader, hooked the jig on a guide and tightened up the drag so it wouldn't come loose and bang around while running to the spot. I was fishing with my daughter, so when I go out to where we were going to fish I was paying attention to getting her snacks and getting her rod set up. I dropped my line down. it paused at maybe 40-50', I flipped to retrieve and lifted hard - boom fish on, and a powerful one. It shook its head hard and took off ... pop! What an idiot! I had dropped it down without checking the drag, and it was cinched down to hold the line really tight. I felt like a total clown... and my daughter was angry because I lost the fish. Anyway 40lb color coded braid it is for most of my reels for next year.

I like the sound of the 10' sonar, mine is older and smaller but still works pretty well. I can readily identify herring or other bait, and often I can identify fish. Actually I am now starting to be pretty good at identifying fish above or below bait and separating them from noise, of which my sonar shows quite a lot. I can't describe exactly what it looks like, but I believe I am correct as 3 times out of 4, dropping a jig to it means a fish on. I have my eye on the screen pretty much all the time while i am actually jigging, I am not sure being that obsessive about it actually helps.

It seems like we are pretty much on the same page with how to fish the jigs. I fish most of the jigs similarly. Drop it free spool but paying attention to be on it if it stops. As Sly Karma mentioned I go to the bottom, or to the bottom of suspended bait, or as deep as seems reasonable to fish depending on the jig, if the water is really deep. Once it stops I immediately tighten and reel about one revolution or two, jig the rod up and let the jig drop till it tightens then reel again, all the way up. If I think there is an area that seems productive I will drop it down past that a couple times before retrieving right to the boat. I find it much more productive for salmon to constantly be retrieving up or dropping down, unlike what we used to do in the 80s, jigging for extended times lifting the lure and letting it fall but maintaining the same depth. Last year I fished with a buddy who preferred to do that, it was pretty noticeable how many less salmon that strategy hooked (though it did catch more of lings and rockfish - which I like to eat).

 

[acrowe]

This isn't meant to knock trolling, but I really enjoy fishing without the motor running. Its quite and you can hear all the sounds around you. Its also less hassle trying to stay on course in strong currents etc. Even more than that when you get a fish on, it really is a different experience. A big Chinook feels super powerful, a fish that takes right by the boat can be crazy (but I love when you see a fish race over and grab your lure. Even pinks are quite fun on light gear (my daughter likes nothing better than the height of pink season). Trolling generally they may not even pop loose from the rigger and they are really slowed by a flasher. Catching a 5-6lb coho is awesome on light gear, but I don't target them very much because most must be released and I generally don't want to injure fish that I can't keep if I can avoid it.
The one negative is that I really like to catch fish on a single action reel, but mooching reels are a handicap to keeping a fast active retrieve for very long unless you are a super hero.

 

[Salty338]

I think I would like to move to color coded braid line. I have a depth counter Penn Squall reel, I don't mind the reel, it works pretty well but the depthcounter is totally unreliable. That's pretty sad since I have two 70 year old Peetz recorder reels that still work just fine. I keep one of the Peetz reels and a similar age trolling rod rigged with a rockfish descender (which I have yet to need).

The colour braided is a game changer. I run it on all my reels. I only jig. No down riggers. Always seem to be able to produce some fish even when it is slow and not a ton of bait. When it’s on though, I don’t think there is anything that will out produce jigging especially when you can stay on the fish.
I have shimano grapplers and trevalas for my rods. Reels vary from shimano tac10 to Diawa Lexi HD. I don’t love spinning reel setups because it’s tough to control the line on the drop. Thumbing the spool allows you to feel everything on the way down. I’d say 90%, maybe more, of the fish I got this year we’re on the drop.

 

[Karlo]

Granted that I live in Haida Gwaii, and have access to many far more naive salmon than most people do, I think you can get overly technical with jigging, just like you can with trolling. I've also used a hybrid of jigging and mooching that I've found really productive.

First of all, in some circumstances, jigging can be even more productive than trolling. When feeder coho were schooling off the Sandspit Bar one spring after I first moved here, a buddy with a boat invited me out. To my surprise, he anchored, dropped a Pink Pearl Buzz Bomb, jigged up a flounder, cut off a belly strip to add to the Buzz Bomb, dropped it back over the side, and started jigging. I shook my head and stood up to start casting my favorite spoon, while the half-dozen boats that were trolling along the Bar passed by and made fun of us. Then Kip reeled up the slack, and drove the hooks home. Coho #1!

To make a long epic short, he caught 6 more in short order, while I finally got one on the spoon, to complete our limits. The other boats, meanwhile, started trolling in ever-tightening circles around us, while we took our turns making fun of them for only catching a couple of fish despite their shameless encroachment, while we loaded up. I've used that technique on occasion since, and if there are no dogfish around (they love the buzz of the Buzz Bomb), and you find bait tucked into little coves that are too tight for trolling, you can often outfish the frustrated downrigger guys who can't take advantage of the situation.

In the 12 years following that event, my wife and I spent a month to 6 weeks every summer living out of our kayaks in what became Gwaii Haanas National Park, and the ocean fed us. I used the Buzz Bomb, with or without the belly-strip teaser, to cast around kelp beds on drop-offs. I used a 7-foot Garcia trout rod and a Mitchell 300 spinning reel with 10# line, and playing a nice spring near a kelp bed on that rig is rare sport. I'd let the lure drop to the bottom, then jig slowly up. I found pauses in motion followed by a slow lift often brought strikes. I also regularly jigged with the sadly-discontinued 7-ounce Gibbs Minnow on my heavier jigging rod, intending to catch lingcod and halibut by preference over the various other bottomfish, but it was not at all uncommon to get unintentional salmon on that jig.

Closer to home, it's a common situation for us to motor out to Skidegate Point on the West Coast, get our spring limits (or decide that the spring salmon bite for the day isn't on yet), and go out a ways to jig the reefs and pinnacles. Three seasons out of the last 20, our biggest spring of the year was by-catch while we were jigging Gibbs Minnows right up against the kelp on a steep drop-off. The two we kept were 30 and 26 pounds, and the one we released last year because we already had salmon limits looked to be at least 30. (Incidentally, if you're looking to get the best fight out of a spring, cranking him up on 80# mono with a Penn Senator reel on a halibut-jigging rod isn't the preferred method.)

It's also fairly common to drop the Minnow, feel it being hit multiple times on the way down, set the hook into what we expect to be a black rockfish, and bring up a coho that's being followed by a couple of buddies. The fluttering, falling action and flash of that jig make it effective for all kinds of fish. If anyone has any pull with Gibbs, I sure wish they'd start making that 7-ounce model again, since I'm down to my last two.

I'm still a big believer in the Buzz Bomb, although I seldom use them now because trolling is an easier way to find the fish, and their attractiveness to dogfish is a detriment, especially with a belly-strip attached. The Gibbs Minnow jig is still available in lighter weights, and if the salmon aren't too deep, it's still a very effective lure. A little strip of herring on the hook can't hurt. And as has been noted, when you shut down the motor and can actually see, hear and smell the world around you, the experience is so much more natural and less mechanical that it puts it on a whole higher level.

 

[Rain City]

Granted that I live in Haida Gwaii, and have access to many far more naive salmon than most people do, I think you can get overly technical with jigging, just like you can with trolling. I've also used a hybrid of jigging and mooching that I've found really productive.

First of all, in some circumstances, jigging can be even more productive than trolling. When early-summer feeder coho were schooling off the Sandspit Bar one spring after I first moved here, a buddy with a boat invited me out. To my surprise, he anchored, dropped a Pink Pearl Buzz Bomb, jigged up a flounder, cut off a belly strip to add to the Buzz Bomb, dropped it back over the side, and started jigging. I shook my head and stood up to start casting my favorite spoon, while the half-dozen boats that were trolling around passed by and made fun of us. Then Kip reeled up the slack, and drove the hooks home. Coho #1!

To make a long epic short, he caught 6 more in short order, while I finally got one casting, to complete our limits. The other boats, meanwhile, started trolling in ever-tightening circles around us, while we took our turns making fun of them for only catching a couple of fish while we loaded up. I've used that technique on occasion since, and if there are no dogfish around (they love the buzz of the Buzz Bomb), and you find bait tucked into little coves that are too tight for trolling, you can often outfish the frustrated downrigger guys who can't take advantage of the situation.

In the subsequent 12 years, my wife and I spent a month to 6 weeks every summer living out of our kayaks in what became Gwaii Haanas National Park, and the ocean fed us. I used the Buzz Bomb, with or without the belly-strip teaser, to cast around kelp beds on drop-offs. I used a 7-foot Garcia trout rod and a Mitchell 300 spinning reel with 10# line, and playing a nice spring near a kelp bed on that rig is rare sport. I'd let the lure drop to the bottom, then jig slowly up. I found pauses in motion followed by a slow lift often brought strikes. I also regularly jigged with the sadly-discontinued 7-ounce Gibbs Minnow on my jigging rod, intending to catch lingcod and halibut by preference over the various other bottomfish, but it was not at all uncommon to get unintentional salmon on that jig.

Closer to home, it's a common situation for us to motor out to Skidegate Point on the West Coast, get our spring limits (or decide that the spring salmon bite for the day isn't on yet), and go out a ways to jig the reefs and pinnacles. Three seasons out of the last 20, our biggest spring of the year was by-catch while we were jigging Gibbs Minnows right up against the kelp on a steep drop-off. The two we kept were 30 and 26 pounds, and the one we released last year because we already had salmon limits looked to be at least 30. (Incidentally, if you're looking to get the best fight out of a spring, cranking him up on 80# mono with a Penn Senator reel on a halibut-jigging rod isn't the preferred method.)

It's also fairly common to drop the Minnow, feel it being hit multiple times on the way down, set the hook into what we expect to be a black rockfish, and bring up a coho that's being followed by a couple of buddies. The fluttering falling action and flash of that jig make it effective for all kinds of fish.

I'm still a big believer in the Buzz Bomb, although I seldom use them now because trolling is an easier way to find the fish, and their attractiveness to dogfish is a detriment, especially with a belly-strip attached. The Gibbs Minnow jig is still available in lighter weights, and if the salmon aren't too deep, it's still a very effective lure. A little strip of herring on the hook can't hurt. And as has been noted, when you shut down the motor and can actually see, hear and smell the world around you, the experience is so much more natural and less mechanical that it puts it on a whole higher level.

When the coho were thick in West Van we'd limit out in minutes with pearl green 4oz zingers. We just used our regular mooching gear because we'd be fishing 25-60 feet of water on the flats. When the wind was calm it was easy because you could see the bait boiling at the surface. Drive over top and bang bang bang. Usually two or three fish flopping on the deck at a time with a race to get them back down. We never had a fish finder. Over the years the numbers dried up though and I moved into trolling to cover more ground. It's a very fun way to fish if the conditions are right. You need structure that holds bait and fish that are there to eat.

 

[Aces]

When the coho were thick in West Van we'd limit out in minutes with pearl green 4oz zingers. We just used our regular mooching gear because we'd be fishing 25-60 feet of water on the flats. When the wind was calm it was easy because you could see the bait boiling at the surface. Drive over top and bang bang bang. Usually two or three fish flopping on the deck at a time with a race to get them back down. We never had a fish finder. Over the years the numbers dried up though and I moved into trolling to cover more ground. It's a very fun way to fish if the conditions are right. You need structure that holds bait and fish that are there to eat.

Expo 86 Coho's?

 

[sly_karma]

It's a very fun way to fish if the conditions are right. You need structure that holds bait and fish that are there to eat.

I hit those conditions just off the light at Epsom Pt last July a few days before the closures lifted. Jigged and released four mid-teen springs in half an hour despite a trio of orcas showing up only a mile or so away at the Gap. I definitely drew the attention of the trolling crowd.

 

[Rain City]

Expo 86 Coho's?

I was 4 then.

 

[Aces]

I was 4 then.

LMAO!!

 

[Sharphooks]

My daughter this summer in Hakaii: she decided she wanted to fish, picked up a rod that had a Point Wilson white jig tied on, first drop off that rock face in Fitzhugh, instant 20 lb spring



I spent my early years jigging salmon when I fished out of a 12 foot inflatable raft. Those things are absolutely deadly for springs and coho. All you have to do is watch those guided party boats out of Ucluelet when they’re jigging and on the fish—-it amazed me to see how many times the net was waving in the air when they were out on Big Bank fishing jigs

I finally had to stop. Twelve hours a day of jigging gave me a painful case of bursitis in my forearms. I read about those butterfly jigs and get intrigued because it sounds like you don’t have to do all that physical stuff with the arms to still catch fish like you do with a Point Wilson dart

Meanwhile, I guess I never stopped jigging even after getting bursitis. Now I use an electric downrigger to jig. With my herring, I’m never at the same depth more then a minute to two with my HP’s—-up and down all day long but these days I sub-contract all that work out to a 12V battery

 

[acrowe]

I think the amount of effort required to keep the lures working and find fish is an issue with jigging. If you are dropping a line into a baitball created by feeding salmon that is observable on the surface, anything will do. That is sort of the ideal best scenario, and its amazingly exciting. For me the only fishing I like better is fly casting to fish I can see (salt or fresh).
I find the majority of my fishing is not like that, although some is. Around Campbell River the last couple years often there is huge amounts of bait / herring but quite regularly it is fairly deep (125'- 200'+). And it can be a large amount, sometimes making my sounder read bottom where it isn't for several minutes at a time drifting. I find one needs to work around the edges at a variety of depths to find fish. My most successful tactic is to drop to the bottom, or as deep as seems reasonable, and work the jig up fairly quickly. I work shimano butterfly jigs basically the same as jigs like point wilson darts - the fall on slack line (on the drop or at each time you jig) is what they are designed for, and is where the fish usually grabs it. When you are searching like that, doing a lot of reeling and jigging it can be a lot of effort. That is where the high end shimano (and I assume other brand) dedicated jigging rods and fast reels are supposedly the massive advantage. They are efficient so the effort is less. I don't actually have any of the really nice rods, but for me shifting to even the amundson salmon jigger and a faster reel makes a huge difference. Thats actually one of the reasons I keep spinning rods rigged. I have always rigged spinning reels opposite to conventional/baitcasting reels. Conventional Ihold the rod with the left and reel with my right, and spinning rods I hold the rod with my right and reel with my left, so it allows me to switch up and take a break. I agree with the comments though that spinning reels give less easy line control if you are responding to a pause on the drop. Probably this results in missing some. I vary between lifting the rod while putting my hand on the spool (the line stops on your hand when you lift the rod) and flipping the bail. Neither is as sure as a thumb on the spool of a baitcaster or conventional, although I only fish with the spinning rig 10% of the time, so maybe I'd get better if I used it more.

I liked seeing the report on the drift sock to control wind drift, I will likely try that. Tidal current drift is an issue in Campbell River. I know lots of people backtroll slowly to minimize it. I have resisted that so far, as I like the engine shut down and also because I think it might be a pain to fish and pay attention to controlling the boat. I know a drift sock won't be much use for tidal current.

Glad to see some interest