Deep Water Jigging

[Sea Draggin]

When we fished Hateras I remember the burn speed jigging 400ft and it sucked. I like going to the conv reels for those big jigs.

Our good yellowedge spot is in 400ft and after about 1.5-2 hours, I'm ready to do something else.

When you go back into that 150 stuff, it takes no effort at all.

Sorta like running with ankle weights on, then taking them off.

[swell rider]

Come on Travis you loved that deep stuff when we were in Hatteras..LOL..I have a alot of new spots to fish up there so the next trip should be interesting..

[BretABaker]

WoW!!!!

were you Yo-Yo'ing at that target depth? or dropping to that depth and retrieving?

dude that deep stuff will wear your butt slap out!!@!!!

As for me deepest ever was 550-600ft.

I was doing the up/down or yo-yo jigging all night. hooked a monster in the deep but the hook pulled at like 450'. my thought is a sword given how it fought but we'll never know.

[Accident Prone]

We do quite a bit of deep jigging here in NZ when targetting Hapuku, bass and bluenose.

Typical depths are from 150m-300m but have gone as deep as 405m and caught a couple of bass to 22kg at that depth.

Suprisingly when we target bluenose at a couple of spots at around 260m we have also caught yellowtail kingfish from the same spot and reasonable sized ones too of around 25kg.

The reels we generally use for the deep stuff are Shimano Ocea Jiggers in the 5000P size and spooled with PE6. jig weights generally around the 400-500gm range.

[jig42na]

Typical depths are from 150m-300m but have gone as deep as 405m and caught a couple of bass to 22kg at that depth.

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That is approaching some serious depths there. 405m is getting close to line capacities. I don;t think i have more than 350m on my TN40N. Its loaded with PE8.
That must take a while to reel in that much line.

[Sea Draggin]

That must take a while to reel in that much line.

It does take a while to bring it back, but the drop time itself can be long for an 850'. The first 2/3 of the way down it goes pretty fast, but the last third goes into slo mo. It seems like its about 3 minutes just to drop.

Give that time lapse, you have to account for your drift and be 3 minutes up tide if you are trying to hit a specific spot.

Tag teaming the retrieve can take some of the pain out of it.

[jig42na]

Very true, when you add in changing currents though water colums plus line drag and everything else. If the piece is small that your trying to fish, then thats the real challenge. I think bottom fishing is one of the toughest gmes out there. They are skilled fishermen.
I am far from good at that game, but I remember watching Ken grouper fish and the boat positioning was everything. I didn't catch unless he did his job correctly. Anchoring is also a state of the art game.

[Ponce]

Our good yellowedge spot is in 400ft and after about 1.5-2 hours, I'm ready to do something else.

When you go back into that 150 stuff, it takes no effort at all.

Sorta like running with ankle weights on, then taking them off.

I like to start deep myself, then you move from the 300+ depths to the 100-150's it feels like you are hardly dropping.

[Sea Draggin]

Haha. I just had a funny thought.

Capt D calls and asks, "Where are you?"

I reply, "I'm on the 34.05 line in 75 meters"

Capt D, "Were?"

Me, "34.05, 75 meters!"

Capt D, "Nevermind"


.....maybe that should be our new communication code. It would be better than expanded channels. GPS #'s and Metric depth. Nobody would ever get it.

[mythosbeer]

The deepest I've hit bottom is about 500-600ft. I only hit bottom once with the 2-3 knots of current we had. I've fished in 350-400ft a few times. Mostly I am jigging 150-200ft. I use either my JB4 or 665NN for the deep stuff with a custom 400g rod I built.

Jim, I'll have to remember that next time we aren't fishing the same boat together. I think hearing "I'm at the 34.05 line in 75 meters" would make a lot of people laugh. I know I would if I heard it on the radio.