Optimum Jigging Rod Length

[Ponce]

I've been thinking about this for awhile, and after seeing Kilsong make the comment about trying to determain the optimum length I thought I would post up and see what everyone thinks.

Right now I fish a 350gr Jig Master which is 5 feet long, as my primary.

My back up is a Trevela XXH spinning which is 5' 8".

I fish the normal NC stuff normal depth 100-300' targeting AJ's, Groupers, and the oother NC standard stuff.

There are times when I speed jig which is perfect for the short JM, but I also do quite a bit of slow Yo-Yo jigging, that a long rod is better suited for. Whoever I still primarly use my JM for that, but one in a while switch to the longer Trevela.

I'm looking at getting a high end spinning set-up in the future. Looking at a Stella, and right now looking a JM 400gr or simular rod. I'm trying to decide the length of the rod based on my primary jigging.

I hope next year to take a trip out to get in on some of the Blue Fin jigging.

So give my long winded post what do you think would be a good comprimise between speed jigging and yo-yo jigging as far as rod lenght? I know there is a danger in a comprimise that you may end up with something that is not best suited for either style.

Everyone jump in a throw your thoughts on this subject.

[Jesse Lockowitz]

ill bring a 8' rod with me on tuesday. get a feel for the longer ones. i dont like it for alot of stuff, but its nice for the slower yoyo style for the bigger flatside stuff. but day in day out, id rather fight a fish on a shorter rod. but you can slowly move a jig up and down alot of water with an 8' rod.

i do like the conv longer rod for resting it on the rail though

[kilsong]

When I jig for AJ, I like Japanese style short rods.
When I jig for bottom dwellers like cod, grouper, halibut or lingcod, I prefer long rods.

The issue is when you target tuna.
They take slow moving jigs as well as fast moving jigs.
On the second boat, the Godexpress, I believe everyone except Nick, who used short spinning setup, used long rods and used conventional East Coast jigging style by moving rods up and down. Nick was the only guy who didn't do well on the boat.

On our boat, the Bite Me, some used Japanese style crank/jerk jigging and some used Conventional East Coast style jigging and the results are mixed. All my hit were when I jigged up and down and I didn't get any hit when I used Japanese style jigging, but Yong and Joe had several hit when they jigged Japanese style.

I found tuna change their mood as quick as they swim. Sometimes they prefer fast moving jigs, but they seemed to ignore fast moving jigs suddenly.

So it is difficult to choose rods for them as you don't know when they like fast moving jigs or slow moving jigs.
7' is too long for Japanese style jigging and 5' is too short for East Coat style up and down jigging.
So my compromise to use both technique is around 6'.

I asked my rod builders to build hlaf dozen tuna jigging rods with full length of JM 450g and 400g (5'8") for this purpose for my customer.
I found the advantage of using short rod is I can use heavier reels for long. I jigged with 5'2" JM custom rod/Accurate B2 30 for hours non-stop which I is very hard to do with 8' rod.

[Jiggin Junkie]

I have jigged with rods from 4' 10" to 7' and I prefer the shorter rods for speed jigging also. I haven't had that much luck using the yo-yo style jigging, except for bouncing it off the bottom for grouper.

[Sea Draggin]

So my compromise to use both technique is around 6'.

I agree.

Most of my rods are 5'9 to 5'11 and seem to be able to do both styles of jigging on every drop pretty well.(slow jig the bottom first, then japanese jig back to the top)