Blackfish Jigging

[tautog]

I hate swinging at little ticks. Give me a super hard crab on a rig and let me wait for the right bite. The jigging fight is fun, but the bite is crap most of the time. I like rig fishing with my 12-20lb sea bass rod at times. Still a good fight but with a harder bite.

[bulletbob]

all it is is a painted sinker with an attached hook... In no way does it resemble traditional jigging.... I saw a guy last year on an AH boat catching nothing, switch to a yellow sinker on a plain old blackfish rig, and limit out in short order..
I bet if more guys tried yellow, red, orange, or white sinkers, you would find little difference in hookup rate from the jigs. Tog have always liked color for some reason. Fished without a hunk of crab on the hook that "jig" becomes totally useless. Its plain old bait fishing IMHO... no magic involved.... bob

[MrAC1980]

Nice post. My only comment is I don't think people should get caught up with drag capacity. People get hung up on that way too often! If you suggest 30lb top shot then why do you need 20lb of drag? If you use the 1/3 method you only need 10lb drag haha. I think it's more important to use a light setup. 7ft ML spinning rod with a 3k-4k matching reel is ideal. I use 10lb-20lb braid with 3-5ft of 50lb topshot and my goto jig in NJ is 1.5oz.

[reason162]

Originally Posted by bulletbob

all it is is a painted sinker with an attached hook... In no way does it resemble traditional jigging.... I saw a guy last year on an AH boat catching nothing, switch to a yellow sinker on a plain old blackfish rig, and limit out in short order..
I bet if more guys tried yellow, red, orange, or white sinkers, you would find little difference in hookup rate from the jigs. Tog have always liked color for some reason. Fished without a hunk of crab on the hook that "jig" becomes totally useless. Its plain old bait fishing IMHO... no magic involved.... bob

No magic, but there is a difference esp with light jigs in shallow water. Namely there is no "disconnect" between the weight and the crab/hook. A tog picks up the crab on a jig and thinks he has the entire package in his mouth. A tog picks up a crab on a rig, turns and encounters resistance from the sinker.

I'm sure it makes no difference most days, but under certain conditions jigs will outfish rigs by a wide margin, again, in shallow water with 1/4 - 1/2oz jigs. But you're correct, it has almost nothing in common with what most people think of as "jigging."

[O'Connor]

I'm still confused as to the jigging part. It's nothing more than putting bait on a lead head. Correct? If you put bait on it your simply bait fishing. Just s different way of presenting a crab.

[NJ Dave]

Originally Posted by O'Connor

I'm still confused as to the jigging part. It's nothing more than putting bait on a lead head. Correct? If you put bait on it your simply bait fishing. Just s different way of presenting a crab.

Exactly. There is no jigging involved, just the term used since the rig is called a black fish "jig"

[reason162]

Let me try to explain the difference between rig fishing and jig fishing, from a blackfish's perspective

First, understand how a blackfish feeds (there are plenty of youtube videos showing both captive and wild blackfish attacking crabs): they will grab the crab in their grasping teeth (those are the teeth you can see), hang onto a claw/leg/half the crab and shake it like a dog's chew toy. Often they will spit it out, then pick it up again, breaking off a claw or leg in the process. Eventually they suck it down to their pharyngeal crushing teeth (located in the throat!) and then either swallow, or if the crab is large, spit out a cloud of crabby bits and then proceed to actually eat the crushed crab piece by piece.

The "right bite" is when a big tog sucks your crab into their crushing teeth...that's when you're supposed to swing for the fences, NOT when they are doing the tentative pecking with their grasping teeth.

(The above is paraphrased from another forum's excellent post on the subject)

So what's the difference between a rig and a jig as far as a feeding blackfish is concerned? We've discussed how much food manipulation a blackfish goes through before finally inhaling your crab. A sinker rig has 2 components --- a weight, and a hooked crab --- that is SEPARATED by a length of leader. When a blackfish picks up a crab that is tied to a rig, he will initially only experience the weight of the crab and hook, NOT the sinker. Only when he starts to shake/peck/wrestle with the crab, will he detect the weight of the sinker as a secondary (and inexplicable, to the tog's brain) tug.

A jig, on the other hand, is a weight and hook that is DIRECTLY CONNECTED. When a blackfish picks up a crab pinned to a jig, he is experiencing the entire mass of your offering from the initial contact. When he starts to shake and peck and suck in/spit out your crab, the weight of the jig and crab remains constant; there is no secondary tug of a disconnected sinker.

For a blackfish, especially one that is big and old and wary, these are two very different dining experiences! One crabby meal goes as expected...the other contains an element of surprise in the form of an unseen, unfelt weight, somehow tied to the crab he's munching on.

Does this always make a difference? No! But I am convinced that the weight dynamic outlined is THE reason sometimes, not always, light jigs will outfish rigs by wide margins, especially shallow, especially in fisheries where small asian crabs are the primary forage. It's not that a blackfish will ignore a crab on a rig vs. a crab on a jig: it's that under certain conditions a blackfish will be spooked by the disconnected weight of a sinker rig and never commit to eating a crab presented that way, he'll peck at your crab and drop it once he feels the sinker.

I hope that makes sense. It's a question I've mulled on for some time, and I believe that is the essential difference between rig and jig for tog. But...I could be wrong!

Originally Posted by O'Connor

I'm still confused as to the jigging part. It's nothing more than putting bait on a lead head. Correct? If you put bait on it your simply bait fishing. Just s different way of presenting a crab.

[rumster]

Originally Posted by O'Connor

I'm still confused as to the jigging part. It's nothing more than putting bait on a lead head. Correct? If you put bait on it your simply bait fishing. Just s different way of presenting a crab.

Well said... Again, as a few have already said to each his own. Personally, give me a nice juicey green crab with an egg sac on a standard single hook tog rig or a white legger with a snafu rig. Tog are in the nasty more often than not. To use a spinning outfit with a 30lb leader might be fun, but the odds of getting broken off when the fish digs to the bottom are high. Even though using a jig may not be new, in my personal opinion it is not what it is cracked up to be.

[Jarhead]

Good article Gerr! I tried the jig recently and was pleasantly surprised. There is a learning curve, but I got to novice level fairly quickly on borrowed gear. Gotta go buy my own set up now because I'm sold on this early season technique

[jokim]

Almost that time of year!!!

Going to jig more often this year. How much drag should I set for 10 or 20 lb setup?