Trolling or Jigging
- Thread starter Loghauler
- Start date
spring fever
Well-Known Member
I have been a troller all my life but at 74 I was converted to hi tech jigging. It is so much fun and if you find good bait very productive. Having said that I haven't sold my riggers and am not likely to. Some times bait is hard to find and there seems to be little point in jigging if you can't find bait. Troll til you find bait and then decide-jig or troll-but lately if I can I'd rather jig!!
sir-vivor
Well-Known Member
I've just been jigging more and lot more fun forsure to get rid of the flasher, engine noise and running that damn downrigger (having said that ya , if u cant find the bait or currents might have no choice but to keep to trolling), jiggin is my choice now and can't believe how peaceful and productive it really is ...JIG ON !!!
Loghauler
Well-Known Member
Seen it and plan on getting a set of those butterfly jigs
Loghauler
Well-Known Member
I’d like to try the electric motor paired to gps to stay in one spot over bait or underwater features I think they would really up the jigging game
spring fever
Well-Known Member
That is a really interesting concept which would be great holding over structure--not sure how it would help with bait though!
Loghauler
Well-Known Member
They have remote controls so one could follow bait while fishing or contours probably more options but not sure maybe someone has experience with them looks comparable in price to good downrigger set
Loghauler
Well-Known Member
Well maybe a bit more !
Loghauler
Well-Known Member
What do you use and have portable sounder ?
acrowe
Active Member
I was almost exclusively jigging this year. I find it more pleasant and more engaging than trolling. The previous couple years, every time I tried it, if I didn't find fish fairly quickly I felt like I should switch to trolling. I addressed that by not bringing downriggers out with me. My experience seems to be similar to Spring Fever, that if I found the bait I would usually get fish. Actually when I found fish I tended to do very well and get a lot of fish on in succession. I probably averaged about the same as I did trolling. I tried the Shimano butterfly flatfall jigs and found they worked well. I also used point wilson darts and other jigs and side by side they seemed equally effective. I thought the hook set up on the Shimano jigs was effective. I rigged some other jigs with assist style hooks on very heavy braid and found it worked pretty well.
Deepaaaar
Well-Known Member
I've tried a number of the popular jigs (flatfalls, etc.) and I keep coming back to the Mac Deep and the gold Gomame jig. The original 2.5 oz Mac Deep (or Mac Fish) caught the vast majority of the winter fish (100-140' in Sooke). I use both a spinning setup and a levelwind, depending on whether I'm fishing on the bottom or suspended - usually with a 30-50' mono topshot on 30lb braid.
And yes, I have a sounder. Just a basic one - the Striker 4. It's indispensable. My success rate would be a tiny fraction of what it is if I didn't have a sounder.
Sitkaspruce
Well-Known Member
Years ago ( A long time ago.....), I was guiding and would troll 100% of the time, but when I had a chance to fish myself, I jigged.
I would take guests out and fish Beal. Whittlestone, Ed King, Cree etc and watch all that bait being pushed up on a flood and think, man what would I give to drop a BB, Stingzilda or Perkins in there. But I could never get my clients interested. So when I had the chance, I was out there and caught a ton of fish, including one of my biggest at 38.
We also would sit out in front of the Big and Little Q and chase springs with a 7.5' medium action road, 12 lbs mono, 7-8 weight fly reel and my favorite jig and hammer the fish. It was a lot of fun.
Now we are getting back into jigging and I sure missed it!!
In freshwater, we targeted Lakers by running around with the sounder, on either open or hard water, and jigged for them with the same gear I used for those Qualicum springs, except I now use a spinning reel or Abu C3 bait caster. Catching 25 lbs lakers through the ice is a whole other name for fun!!
Cheers
SS
I would take guests out and fish Beal. Whittlestone, Ed King, Cree etc and watch all that bait being pushed up on a flood and think, man what would I give to drop a BB, Stingzilda or Perkins in there. But I could never get my clients interested. So when I had the chance, I was out there and caught a ton of fish, including one of my biggest at 38.
We also would sit out in front of the Big and Little Q and chase springs with a 7.5' medium action road, 12 lbs mono, 7-8 weight fly reel and my favorite jig and hammer the fish. It was a lot of fun.
Now we are getting back into jigging and I sure missed it!!
In freshwater, we targeted Lakers by running around with the sounder, on either open or hard water, and jigged for them with the same gear I used for those Qualicum springs, except I now use a spinning reel or Abu C3 bait caster. Catching 25 lbs lakers through the ice is a whole other name for fun!!
Cheers
SS
A buddy has that on his walleye boat. Slick feature. Great on windy days
Every summer for 12 years in the 70's and 80's, my wife and I lived out of our kayaks for a month or two each summer in what's now the Gwaii Haanas part of Haida Gwaii. On long paddles to move camp, I would troll a small spoon, and it's remarkable how many springs you can get at a few feet deep, along with the usual coho and pinks.
Usually, though, we got springs on jigs, ideally tossing a BuzzBomb into the splash a feeding salmon made by hitting needlefish beside a kelp bed. Even without the visible fish action, drifting along a steep bank and working a jig along the kelp was very productive. If that didn't work, jigging up a little flounder or rockfish to cut strips or chunks, hanging that bait off the BuzzBomb hook, and drifting shallow-to-deep off of a point, moving the jig only a couple of times a minute, was very productive.
We've accidentally caught big springs up to tyee size while jigging fairly shallow structure for lingcod using Gibbs Minnows, but I always felt like if I were jigging anywhere without having a sounder to locate bait schools, I'd use a BuzzBomb, because of the sound attraction, with a strip of herring on the hook to appeal to the fish's other senses. Unfortunately, if they're around, that rig is also very effective for dogfish.
Usually, though, we got springs on jigs, ideally tossing a BuzzBomb into the splash a feeding salmon made by hitting needlefish beside a kelp bed. Even without the visible fish action, drifting along a steep bank and working a jig along the kelp was very productive. If that didn't work, jigging up a little flounder or rockfish to cut strips or chunks, hanging that bait off the BuzzBomb hook, and drifting shallow-to-deep off of a point, moving the jig only a couple of times a minute, was very productive.
We've accidentally caught big springs up to tyee size while jigging fairly shallow structure for lingcod using Gibbs Minnows, but I always felt like if I were jigging anywhere without having a sounder to locate bait schools, I'd use a BuzzBomb, because of the sound attraction, with a strip of herring on the hook to appeal to the fish's other senses. Unfortunately, if they're around, that rig is also very effective for dogfish.
Loghauler
Well-Known Member
Ya my kid caught a four foot dog off swale jigging
He asked if we were going to keep it lol he was nine
seahorse
Crew Member
When I was a kid fishing over 45 years ago we would mostly jig for fish as there were no downriggers back then (at least we didn‘t have any) we only had deep six’s for trolling deeper than the slip weights. Now I mostly troll but jig when I see a bait ball or just get bored of trolling when it’s slow, it’s amazing what you can catch when jigging, it just opens up more catching possibilities.
Rayvon
Well-Known Member
Jigging seems to come and go in popularity over the years.Fishing Bamfield 30 years ago there were lots of jiggers off the rocks at Cape Beale and other spots getting large springs on light gear. I haven't used my riggers in Victoria for the last few years because there's been lots of needlefish on the bottom at Oak Bay and Constance, but from what I'm hearing,not so much this year.Like others have said, it's very productive if you can find bait concentrated in an area,but if not trolling will out produce.Catching coho recently in Sooke on flashers and bait/spoons doesn't compare fun wise to catching them on a jig.
Aces
Well-Known Member
All those jiggers moved to Nanaimo, lol
