wahoo jigging

[bighuka]

I am heading to the bahamas in a few days and am planning on doing alot of jigging due to the wind. I have a question.

The new jigs that are out these days have the hooks at the top. Do you guys have any experience with these for Wahoo? I feel like the jigs would be eaten and the baits would be lost due to the hook location. Any thoughts? Thanks

[WAHOONBOX]

IF WAHOO IS THE TARGET....I FEEL ONE MUST USE A SHOT WIRE LEADER....

THERE IS A WIRE MADE JUST FOR THIS AND MY MIND JUST WENT TOTALLY BLANK ON THE NAME OF IT

YOU DO LOOSE A BIT OF JIG ACTION WITH THE WIRE AND LESS "STEALTH" APPROACH WITH WIRE....

[DropinBack]

Use WIRE

[bighuka]

will do, i just don't like losing lure action. I'd rather lose lures!!

[Captain Fred Archer]

Huka,

With all due respect, if you don't use wire for the 'hoo you better really not mind losing lures...as in lot's of them!

You will still lose some if the wire that you use is too light, but that is up to you. One other thing, though. If the leader is very short, which is all that it has to be, I don't think you will lose much in the way of lure action, since the hook eye of the jig will have a great deal of freedom of movement in the loop in the haywire twist that it will be attached to (you should make it a fairly large loop to accomodate this).

If it were me, I'd make my wire leader very short, like maybe six inches, maybe even less. The idea is to protect the mono or braid when you get bit and that will do the job nicely. The only potential problem then will be wahoo coming directly at you on slack and swimming through and biting through the main line. Considering the exactitude of the angle a wahoo has to take to come precisely up the line, this is actually less common than one might think. If you are using spinning gear, especially fast stuff, you really should have little problem keeping up with an incomer 'hoo in the first place and it is always a good idea to step to one side and put your own slight off-angle on the fish to help keep him from taking that very precise angle on your line.

Also, while wahoo will bite jigs on the sink, I for one used to catch a lot more of them on the crank, where speed, rather than action, seemed to count a lot more. Jigs with lots of action pull a lot harder because of it than the ones that run straight on the crank, too. The best wahoo lures I ever used ran pretty straight when we speed reeled them up. Diamond jigs and Ava's might be some good, inexpensive other jigs to bring along with you to try. If you do, change over the treble hooks to larger single ones...they grab and hold better than the trebles. Plus both are hard and quite smooth and pull through a wahoo's jaws quite easily, and this will enhance your hookup ratio somewhat. Every little bit of help counts when it comes to wahoo.

It's ironic to an old salt like me that this jigging thing is becoming so popular lately. We used to do a lot of it down in Key West literally decades ago. We used both bucktail jigs and diamond jigs and we caught a lot of fish that way, but it was a helluva lot of work, especially with the reels of the day. The ultimate irony here to me is that it was down there while we were working and sweating our arses off casting and cranking those jigs that we tried a newfangled thing called a downrigger to drop tapered dolphin belly and fillet baits and ballyhoo down (live bait too) and suddenly began knocking the snot out of wahoo...without all the sweat and work we used to have to put out to jig them.

After that first day, which was a very, very good one, the jigs went away when it came to wahoo and the downrigger became king. We figured we got the same sport and fight out of the fish, but without the blood, sweat and aching muscles at the end of the day. And since we were selling our wahoos back then and they brought a pretty penny from the restaurants and fish stores we sold them to, we fished them very hard and long and so, saved buckets of that sweat.

But hey, if you love jig fishing, go for it. And I wish you great luck when you do!

[Sea Draggin]

will do, i just don't like losing lure action. I'd rather lose lures!!

Think horizontal, not vertical. West coasters get them all the time on casting jigs (hook in the back)

[WahooKing]

Bighuka

The Wahoo have already moved out for the most part...They run from Nov. to March in the Bahamas...Then, they migrate North in the Atlantic...Your best bet is to jig up on the reef in 60-100'...Bounce off the bottom...Don't be surprised to hook into solid Grouper, some Snappers and maybe a King or two.

[Captain Michael Buffington]

I use west coast style irons(salas, tady, sumo)and use about 12 inches of single strand and an action ring instead of a swivel. The swivel kills the action of the iron. You can also albright the mono to the single strand. Forget "jigging" and embrace "reeling like a madman". Some of those guys long range used portable drills in holstersCast it out, let it sink for a bit and burn it back. Skip jigs or light irons also work well as you skip the jig across the surface you get cool surface strikes but you have to have a special system to really make that work well. Mines a calstar 100j(10.5') and an 8to1 avet. Hope that helps

Mike

[bighuka]

Thanks for the advice everyone....I will post some reports when i get back. It's been blowing 15-20 steady for a while and will continue, so my hot spots will be blown out. I'm trying to locate some small edges in the "lee" so I can relax. Safety first when your with your girl on a 20 footer........

[Wound Up James]

Huka,

With all due respect, if you don't use wire for the 'hoo you better really not mind losing lures...as in lot's of them!

You will still lose some if the wire that you use is too light, but that is up to you. One other thing, though. If the leader is very short, which is all that it has to be, I don't think you will lose much in the way of lure action, since the hook eye of the jig will have a great deal of freedom of movement in the loop in the haywire twist that it will be attached to (you should make it a fairly large loop to accomodate this).

If it were me, I'd make my wire leader very short, like maybe six inches, maybe even less. The idea is to protect the mono or braid when you get bit and that will do the job nicely. The only potential problem then will be wahoo coming directly at you on slack and swimming through and biting through the main line. Considering the exactitude of the angle a wahoo has to take to come precisely up the line, this is actually less common than one might think. If you are using spinning gear, especially fast stuff, you really should have little problem keeping up with an incomer 'hoo in the first place and it is always a good idea to step to one side and put your own slight off-angle on the fish to help keep him from taking that very precise angle on your line.

Also, while wahoo will bite jigs on the sink, I for one used to catch a lot more of them on the crank, where speed, rather than action, seemed to count a lot more. Jigs with lots of action pull a lot harder because of it than the ones that run straight on the crank, too. The best wahoo lures I ever used ran pretty straight when we speed reeled them up. Diamond jigs and Ava's might be some good, inexpensive other jigs to bring along with you to try. If you do, change over the treble hooks to larger single ones...they grab and hold better than the trebles. Plus both are hard and quite smooth and pull through a wahoo's jaws quite easily, and this will enhance your hookup ratio somewhat. Every little bit of help counts when it comes to wahoo.

It's ironic to an old salt like me that this jigging thing is becoming so popular lately. We used to do a lot of it down in Key West literally decades ago. We used both bucktail jigs and diamond jigs and we caught a lot of fish that way, but it was a helluva lot of work, especially with the reels of the day. The ultimate irony here to me is that it was down there while we were working and sweating our arses off casting and cranking those jigs that we tried a newfangled thing called a downrigger to drop tapered dolphin belly and fillet baits and ballyhoo down (live bait too) and suddenly began knocking the snot out of wahoo...without all the sweat and work we used to have to put out to jig them.

After that first day, which was a very, very good one, the jigs went away when it came to wahoo and the downrigger became king. We figured we got the same sport and fight out of the fish, but without the blood, sweat and aching muscles at the end of the day. And since we were selling our wahoos back then and they brought a pretty penny from the restaurants and fish stores we sold them to, we fished them very hard and long and so, saved buckets of that sweat.

But hey, if you love jig fishing, go for it. And I wish you great luck when you do!

Thank you Fred for what you have and continue to contribute to this site.