Since I wrote the Jigging articles in Sea Angler last year I have had more how-to email correspondence than on any other articles I have ever written.

Most of the emails are asking "how do I drift my boat?-how do I work the jig?-is a hi-speed reel necessary?- can I successfully use these jigs with monofilament?-where can I buy the jigs, hooks, split rings etc??" So here are some answers…….. but the most important thing to accept is that although these new jigs work superbly well....the method is just as important.
If you look closely at the first pic you will see that this cod was caught on a Norwegian lure on a day when that was my last lump of metal!!  The Speed Jigging method works pretty good with these old lures as well.

There is another and not readily appreciated reason….. which is that if you are fishing shads or bait on a flowing leader, the boat has to be positioned fifty yards or more uptide to allow the long leaders to get to the bottom without tangling and the boat covers yards of ground before the retrieves can start so that the shads are in a position where the fish can find them.

With the jigs you can start the drift forty feet downtide of the fish, cast the jig thirty or forty feet down the drift to allow it to sink into the target zone, by the time it taps the bottom the boat is right overhead and immediately starting the fast jinking retrieve will bring the jig straight up into the cloud of fish. Always assuming that the fish didn’t find the jig on the way down.

Land the fish, then quickly around for another drift, probably before the boat fishing shads is catching its first fish!

Now the question could be posed what are a pair of pensioners like Charles and myself doing fishing such a high octane method such as this?? The answer is very simple… we like catching fish, and we do catch a few!!

Some things to understand and appreciate, are that first you have to find the fish. Its no good thinking that because you have successfully navigated to and actually found a wreck or rock pinnacle, that the fish are going to oblige you and actually turn up for the days sport. It is quite likely that they have gone somewhere else to play for the day. Graham Hannaford Owner/Skipper of "Size Matters" once said to me, that its no good having all the wreck numbers in the world if you don’t know when to fish them!! and this is the skill of being a good charter boat skipper or the owner of your own boat. So if you don’t keep long term records, now would be a good time to start.

Then once happy in the knowledge that the wreck is showing up well on your sounder, the next question is "where are the fish?" are they showing downtide – uptide – hanging over the top of the wreck – clustered in tight to the wreck sheltering from a screaming tide. Because its no good fishing a lump of rust… it’s the fish you want!

We have sometimes found the fish a hundred yards uptide and well away from the wreck, which is brilliant for jigging, because then it is unlikely that you will end up with a tenner’s worth of jig stuck in a piece of old rigging wire or even more likely a long abandoned net.

Within twenty miles of the shore it is likely that you will find the wrecks boxed by nets or nets screens uptide and downtide, most of the good wrecks anyway, especially so on the smaller tides. On the big springs the netters are often ashore counting their money or in the pub spending it. So this is the time to go looking at these inshore wrecks when an influx of fish from the deeper water will have moved in for the rich inshore feed. It can be difficult fishing with the tide clipping you along at a rate of knots, but this is where speed jigging scores over most other types of lure fishing.

So you have found the wreck, spotted the fish hanging up tide by fifty yards or so. Watched the angle of drift from the trail on your sounder and positioned your boat about fifty feet uptide, ready to drift the boat over the fish.

Then with a gentle underhand lob toss the jig thirty or forty feet downtide so that it sinks into the shoal of fish or just in front of it, so that as you start your retrieve, the jig comes off the bottom at a rate of knots into view of the fish. What you are doing in fact is more akin to vertical spinning than the old fashioned grunt and groan pirking! Remember that fish can only look upward, unless they turn upside down, which I don’t think they make a habit of doing!!

So continue working the jig very high in the water, maybe up to a hundred turns from the bottom. If there are any Coalfish about, this is where you will find them. Watch your sounder screen, if you see a little pod of fish very high in the water, this is most likely to be a few coalfish. Just drop the jig to about halfway and bring it up through them. If they are Coalfish you will soon find out, just make sure your knots are OK and that your reels clutch is in good working order!!!

Fishing jigs with a good braid such as Power Pro is the modern way. It stands to reason really, quality braid lines are a third of the diameter of monofilament. So it only presents a third of the cross sectional area to the tide compared with monofilament. Consequently I can fish in 250 feet of water on a spring tide with a 230 gram jig, when I am using my 20lb class outfit.

20lb monofilament would most likely need a 500 gram jig and the monofilament would be stretching like navy blue knicker elastic (remember them?? happy days). So it is possible to use Monofilament, but you are making hard work for yourself.

I use a 25 foot shock leader of 20lb monofilament, usually 20lb Momoi if I can get it or else Amnesia on 100m spools from Veals, which I know is fresh line.

The braid has a fifty turn Bimini to give me a loop about a yard long. Then using the doubled braid, tied to the monofilament using an Albright knot. You might have to look these knots up on the net or refer to books such as Practical Fishing Knots by Mark Sosin and Lefty Kreh, but truthfully, and believe me I have tried all of them, this is the best joining method for braid to monofilament.

More about working the jig in another article.... coming up soon..

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