Jigging vs Trolling

demco99

demco99

Well-Known Member
saw a video on Facebook this morning that got me thinking, I honestly haven't gone out jigging for salmon in over a decade. This is how I was originally taught to fish by my grandpa outside of Craig Bay(near Parksville), we would just sit there and nail salmon on bright yellow buzz bombs with neon green or orange tips. Very relaxing without hearing a kicker humming away all day and having to pick seaweed off your downrigger cables and obviously actually feeling the strike is amazing. I'm gonna do some more strictly jigging trips this summer. Some pretty cool looking new jigs on the market as well that I want to try. Here's the video that got me thinking:


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151456919312047&set=vb.152544754818830&type=2&theater
 
demco99 said:
saw a video on Facebook this morning that got me thinking, I honestly haven't gone out jigging for salmon in over a decade. This is how I was originally taught to fish by my grandpa outside of Craig Bay(near Parksville), we would just sit there and nail salmon on bright yellow buzz bombs with neon green or orange tips. Very relaxing without hearing a kicker humming away all day and having to pick seaweed off your downrigger cables and obviously actually feeling the strike is amazing. I'm gonna do some more strictly jigging trips this summer. Some pretty cool looking new jigs on the market as well that I want to try. Here's the video that got me thinking:


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151456919312047&set=vb.152544754818830&type=2&theater
Click to expand...

Funny how things change. I remember back in the 80's and early 90's when we'd head over to Ucluelet and take a tackle box full of Buzz Bombs, Stingzildas and Pirkens and nothing else. All we ever did was jig and we had some pretty fantastic results. Now all we do is troll with some pretty fantastic results as well. The only time we jig now is when we're looking to get some Halibut or Lingcod.
By the way. We watched 6 of the Canadian Princess boats out on the Big Bank yesterday. There must have been 20 people on each boat jigging away for Coho.
Dave
 
I think if you know there are lots of salmon in area then jigging can still be very productive. The benefit of trolling is you can cover so much ground to find the fish location and depth.

I'd love to jig some buzz bombs near a school of springs / coho on some lighter tackle.
 
Nowadays i'll take trolling over jigging....

A long time ago they 'd let you use barbed trebles on a jig......which held pretty good.

Now you have to go barbless.....and in many instances when the jig is flopping around on a caught fish, the weight of itself will dislodge the barbless hooks be they treble or singles.....

Lost quite a few fish on barbless jigs.......
 
Funny that this came up...took the kids out jigging for some lings this afternoon...not on a tide, nothing special....

Got to our spot, 85 ish feet of water, my son started to drop a Spinnow to the bottom...nice sized Coho jumps about 20 feet from the boat...wow, cool....hold on... His line is coming to the surface. Oh, he hooked it on the drop...sweet. 8 lb wild coho released.

For the next hour, we cast, and jigged about a dozen nice coho...all by ourselves, no other boats around. Watching a 3 year old and a 5 year old reeling in coho on their trout rods...awesome! Only one bad tangle, and one lost lure. Couldn't have been better.

I haven't done this on the inside for 30 years!

FishWish
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I was basically referring to salmon jigging...which requires barbless..

Bottom fishing jigs, the barbs are legal.........as in Lings, Rockies and Snapper and Halibut.....

So I guess it's an honor system.

One time I was checked by Fisheries....he looked at my box full of barbless hoochies......and then he looked at my box of barbed jigs.

We'd been doing bottomfish jigging and also salmon trolling that day.

I told him that.

he said "o.k."
 
Friend of mine picked up a 30# spring jigging yesterday.
Me, I'm not a fan of jigging but if you can get results why not.
 
I love jigging. Caught winter springs jigging in over 300 ft of water. Also hooked a spring on my trout rod jigging in the kelp beds. Ended up being 16 pounds and took over a hour to land. Landed it almost half a km from where it was hooked. What a battle!

-KK
 
Jigging is my favorite way to fish. Years ago when the Pedder Bay kelp bed and "Deep Hole" consistently held fish we only jigged, and with great results. Most of my fishing friends/partners back then (1990's) would not want to go if we were going to troll for springs. We jigged year round for summer mature fish, for cohos, and for winter springs.
Today I jig a fair bit for halibut and my boat has caught 5 so far this year jigging to 50 lb. (usually get 10+ per year jigging).
With all the cohos and pinks around I will be jigging lots whenever the winds are down.

...Rob
 
Seafever said:
I was basically referring to salmon jigging...which requires barbless..

Bottom fishing jigs, the barbs are legal.........as in Lings, Rockies and Snapper and Halibut.....

So I guess it's an honor system.

One time I was checked by Fisheries....he looked at my box full of barbless hoochies......and then he looked at my box of barbed jigs.

We'd been doing bottomfish jigging and also salmon trolling that day.

I told him that.

he said "o.k."
Click to expand...

You can have all the barbed hooks you like in your tackle box. What you use in the water is a different story.
 
This thread has got me all excited to try jigging out of my kayak! I have to say drift jigging for hali has been pretty boring. Nice to get back to salmon fishing.
 
Has anyone had success jigging around Vancouver or the southern gulf islands? I've done a bunch around Bella Bella - Hakai Pass with good results but never around here...
 
I've personally seen jiggers put on a clinic out at oak bay flats and on constance. I think it can still work really well when fish are concentrated on needlefish and feeding tight to bottom. If fishing mid water its a lot harder to find the right depth of the fish.
 
Back in the 80s we used to mooch live bait at the mouth of the Cap. Everyone would anchor and when the bite cam on everyone would catch fish. We used to throw small pink, white or blue buzz bombs to pass the time and did quite well...
 
Nothing like a 10 lb plus Spring hitting your 2 oz sting zilda as it flutters to the bottom on 15 lb test line. What a fight. We fished off the log booms this way at Beechy Head back in the early 70's every weekend. It produced great results all summer. My boat back then was a canoe launched at Cheanuh......
 
The biggest chinook I know of caught in Vancouver locally last summer was motor mooched out of Seymour Bay..
 
I use a 9 ft medium flex baitcasting rod, with a baitcasting reel for Salmon and all types of cod. In my experience it is best to use something shorter and heavier for Halibut.
 
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