Jigging/Popping Anyone?

[skip]

Does anyone in Malta jig / pop for game fish? From what I can determine they are both very much Japanese techniques that have become very popular in the USA where they target large game fish like Tuna etc.

I read up about it with great interest and am curious to try both jigging and popping for Tuna based on our experiences so far where we regularily see lots of tuna around the boat when we've cleared the lines and are bringing a fish in.

Jigging from a boat seems to be done with a Jigging rod, typcially 40-60lbs line rated and around 6 foot, or for seriously big fish 5ft6 80-100lbs. OTI tackle make some beautiful rods for this, they have Silicone Carbine guides, aluminium gimble, fuji reel seat. In terms of reels you can use a conventional reel with a high gear ratio 5:1+ there are specific reels from various manufacturers or you can use a big spinning reel like the Shimano Spheros 14000FA or if you have lots of money the Stella 10000.

Jigs are typically 200-300g lead weighted depending on the action of the rod you buy. Check out these to get an idea.



With these Assist hooks



In Japan and the USA they catch some seriously big fish, Tuna, Giant Trevelly etc.

The other technique is called Popping, as you use surface popping lures with a spinning technique to get your lures out 80m or so and pop them along the surface. These rods tend to be longer at around 7foot6 in order to get the casting distance but are still rated at 40-60lbs (lure weight 200g) or even 60-80lbs (lure weight 300g) for the real big stuff. You can use a conventional reel but you have to have amazing thumb control to cast a conventional reel so nearly everyone opts for the big type of spinning reels mentioned above.

Lots more choice with popping lures, here are some from OTI






For both applications these reels are typically spooled with braid (65lbs etc) and then a mono topshot. OTI have come out with some clever braid that they call Depthfinder line which has four bright high contrast colors of red, yellow, green, and blue alternate every 25 feet to help you easily measure and find the most optimal depth.


Locally I found a 50lbs jigging rod from Grauvell called a Jig Fun 650 but havent found a proper popping rod yet. Anyone doing this type of fishing here, or interested. I am planning to get geared up with my priority being on jigging first and then popping.

Skip

[shanook]

I tried jigging last year during Lampuki season but no luck. I will try next season for Alungi (Fuel cost has gone up a tiny winzy bit). I also tried live bait for Alungi again it didnt seem to work (mind u i didnt try hard enough, trolling is my game.
Jigging is hard work as you have to continuously drop and jig up your lure reapeating the process till u catch fish. Skip I suggest you use a line counter rather than the coloured line. Easier to read and it gets u back to the right spot.

[busumark]

shanook some electric reels have a function for jigging. some have many jiging functons

[skip]

I tried jigging last year during Lampuki season but no luck. I will try next season for Alungi (Fuel cost has gone up a tiny winzy bit). I also tried live bait for Alungi again it didnt seem to work (mind u i didnt try hard enough, trolling is my game.
Jigging is hard work as you have to continuously drop and jig up your lure reapeating the process till u catch fish. Skip I suggest you use a line counter rather than the coloured line. Easier to read and it gets u back to the right spot.

Were you just jigging blindly or had you just caught a fish whilst trolling? I don't think I would just go to an area and jig but we have lost out on the opportunity many times to catch more fish as we were reeling in. When they are a few meters down I think a jig/pop might well help.

We dont carry live bait, so dropping live bait out isnt an option and not had any success with chunking though if I put some more effort it could work.

I was trying to find a rod that hopefully can be used for both jigging and popping, as I would ideally like to just keep one spinning rod on board for this purpose. I too prefer trolling but as you rightly point out fuel keeps going up and will go up again this season.

[DJS]

Interesting subject Nick, I had also been doing some research into this technique. Doesn't seem to be popular in Malta but in other parts of the Med. it seems to be a killer method for catching sizeable amberjack and dentici. I've got a couple of jiggs last year but never used them, tempted to try it out though.

I think it's a case of finding the right location with a shelved rocky bottom. Speed of retrieval seems to be the key to getting it right... though it looks like hard work to fish for any length of time. Link below gives some pointers:   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wct7pzq7O-s

[shanook]

Yep, busumark The Daiwa electric has a jigging function but its less powerful than the Miya, so for this year I am opting for the power will look into daiwa next year. Yes skip I had lampuki jumping behind lures but not biting, so I stopped and jigged for a while, I even made a few casts with a spinner but nothing. This does not mean it wont work its just that in my case it didnt. But i will try for Alungi as when I troll I see fish in depths of 400/500 feet and those wont come up easily with trolling, i will try to do like mawmettu said.............
its amazing when you catch alungi, tuna even lampuki they come close to the boat with the hooked fish but they dont bite, only tunnagg does it but u have to keep them occupied either with chumming, shower of water or keeping the boat on the move at least in my experience.

[camkev]

Hi Skip,I know a friend who caught a 35 kilo acciola while jigging.It was his first time using this method.I will try and get a pic cause he called me to take some photos.It was bigger then a 9.9 outboard engine.

[shanook]

camkev if u feel like it give us a general indication as to how deep he was jigging and if far off land, as i have some jigging lures and would like to try them out. I will try next to the fish farms as there is more chance of fish.

[Freeman]

Someone told me that Joseph (mr fish) cought a nice plamtu while jigging near fish farms on the last program on tv.

[camkev]

He was fishing near fish farms near hofriet.i am sure he is not going to give me more details!!!And he wasn't going to tell me were.But then i convinced him that i am not going to tell anyone!!!!He wasn't that far out and not very deep waters.If anyone wants we can go and give it a try.What do you think?I am sharing this info cause i know you guys always help out other people.If he knows that i told anyone he wil ....... me!

[EmicMalta]

on the last compettion of spearfishing he caught a very nice dentex and another one that had problem to put on the dingy and it went out from the line. All in jigging

[bigboy]

Josef will not tell you were he does his fishing. (Trid tkun makakk u taraf il postijiet hux :p )

[EmicMalta]

i don t belive in specific places. As for dentex he was trying everywhere as we do in spearfishing. I think an inportant tool is a fish finder

[LapsiBoy]

I think it would be a good idea to experiment with this technique because from videos it seems to be very producitve ...the problem with malta is (i thnik) there isnt much to jig for :p take  a look what these guys catch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsgTK-fm380&feature=related

[redbus9]

watched the video of the guy jigging,never seen it done like that before.i know it as pirking,same hat different  style,i drop the pirk to the bottom and reel in a few turns,then lift the rod up and down not letting the pirk hit bottom,and do it slower with less effort.after 4 or 5 up and downs reel in some more turns about 4,and do the same up and down again.keep on repeating this untill the pirk comes to the surface then drop it back down and start again.that guy in the video must be knackered after 10 mins of doing that.i,ve caught pollack and mackerel and the occasional bass using this method.its used a lot for wreck fishing for cod and ling