Seeing any fish blow up on a topwater lure is perhaps what gets people the most excited, because of the visual fireworks one gets to see. It takes some unique camerawork to be able to capture the action of a fish blowing up on a jig or a teaser underwater, but for me, a fish that aggressively takes a jig or teaser from below and heads back for the bottom is tough to beat.
Anglers have been using vertical jigs to attract fish for centuries and certainly the use of teasers is also nothing new, but many times anglers, particularly novices shy away from it. Fishing with jigs can be very technical and many people have shared with me that they are not likely to sit and tie the rigs on their own and put together the entire assembly.
Fishing time is precious. Many of us have limited windows to be able to fish ourselves or take friends and family fishing, so it hits home for me when people say that they don't see themselves putting all the components together for a jigging rig. Some have told me that the time and expense of gathering all of the components such as the jig, the hooks, the teaser materials are not efficient. In some instances, it may even be a case of not knowing what parts to get.
When I think about the core values of what Monomoy Tackle tries to accomplish, I think it boils down to these points:
Ready to Fish
Ease of Use
Solidly Built
Versatile
Rigged with the proper Hooks to Maximize time and enjoyment
The Black Sea Bass Jigging Rig accomplishes all these things. In this Blog post I'm going to review some the characteristics of the Jigging Rig and highlight some of the points that make this rig so valuable.
INTRODUCTION TO THE RIG
The video below looks to perform a bit of an 'unboxing' of what you get in the package and goes into some detail. The rig is centered around being able to fish it right out of the package and also having all the necessary parts and pieces to fish it in any many you wish.
SPECIFICATIONS
RIG IN ACTION
The video below was shot by Ryan Collins of MyFishingCapeCod two seasons ago. On this trip, Ryan and members of MFCC are onboard a group trip with Captain Cullen Lundholm. A couple of the anglers are using this jigging rig with a mounted camera. Ryan narrates some simple instructions of how to use the rig and the underwater footage captures the action of the jig and the teaser very well. Ryan also gives some great general characteristics of sea bass and how to fish for them.
RODS AND REELS
The jigging rigs can be used with any rod and reel combination that you would look to use if you were fishing a bucktail jig on its own, a simple high-low rig, or even your lite setup for Tautog.
Your pairing and selection is going to be dependent on the depth and size jigs you may use. With the 2.8 Ounce jig, it's relatively light, but if you encounter a day with a lot of drift or current along the sea floor and you need to up the jig, you want a rod that will not sag in a big way under the weight of the jig alone.
For reels, smaller size reels are ok. Most of the time you are fishing 20 or 30 pound braid and line capacity is not an issue. The drag put out by smaller reels is also generally fine for this type of fishing. Even a double header of keeper sea bass will take drag and be a great fight, but there's no need to have an upsized reel with overpowering drag. You want something you can hold in your hand for a couple hours, be easy to use and facilitate raising and lowering the rig easily.
I'll list below some of the combinations that I have seen used on my boat.
5000 Shimano Stradic paired with an Avid inshore 6'-6" or 7'-0" MH - Fast Action
4000 Penn Battle III paired with a Penn Battle Rod, 7'-0" M - Fast
5000 Shimano Nasci paired with a Shimano Talavera Type J, 6'-0" M-Fast
Small Maxel Conventional on a Shimano Trevala, 6'-6" M or MH, Fast Action
Penn Squall 200 Low Profile reel on a Shimano Talavera Type J (rated for 200 grams), 6'-0 M, Fast
SUMMARY
The Black Sea Bass jigging rig offers a simple and fun method that may often get overlooked by anglers. It's a fun way on light tackle to upsize your fun when targeting bottom dwelling species. I hope that the video and the single source, out of the package nature of this will inspire more anglers to get out this spring and make jigging and jigging rig fishing part of there arsenal.
PRODUCTS REFERENCED IN THIS BLOG
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