How it all started

fedu

Sealiner
Forum activity is a little bit slow by now, so let's start a new Thread.

Jigging, in the way we know it now, PE lines, lighter rods, etc. it's a relativly new technique so here it goes.

How and when did you guys start Jigging ?
Any intersting story about it ?
 

dugongboy

Sealiner
About 20 years ago with a 7" KP on a whipping stick with a couta spoon - the Natal boys have been doing it for years!!
HT and Nepps will know what I mean.
 

FREE THE FIGHTER

Senior Member
I love it Dg Boy.... and how do you do it now - still with a KP ?

Hey Fedu... my backs are packed - whats happened - has Luanda gone to sleep - and oil prices are climbing !!
 

fedu

Sealiner
dugongboy wrote:
About 20 years ago with a 7" KP on a whipping stick with a couta spoon - the Natal boys have been doing it for years!!
HT and Nepps will know what I mean.
Hi Dugongboy,

With all the respect you guys deserve, I’ve heard all those stories before, it’s nothing new, at the states we used to do it in the 80’s, the Natal boys 20 years ago, and so on.
 
If we want to go that way …
 
If you research the Portuguese fishing history you’ll see that they have been fishing codfish at least since the XV century.
 
Looking at the XIX century history books you’ll see that one of the codfish fishing techniques was a mothership with small “doris” boats inside, they would cross the Atlantic ocean and on arriving at the fishing location the “doris” boats were put onto water with a fisherman on each boat, one of the techniques that was reported was the “zagaia”.
 
“Zagaia” was (and still is) the Portuguese name for jig and “Zagaiar” was (and still is) the Portuguese name for jigging.
Has you all probably know the codfish, is a fish that runs for the hook or any other shinning object, so the Portuguese had the “Zagaia”, a polished lead object with two hooks, they would tie it to a hand line and yo yo it getting codfish that way while they waited for the “trol” (20 interconnected lines with 1.000 hooks and bait) to work, the "Zagaia" is a more ancient technique than the "trol" so probably it was introduced somewhere around the XV century.
 
If you talk with any old Portuguese fisherman and ask him about the “Zagaia” he will also tell you that it has been used for centuries probably with several species of fish, I can even remember my cousins doing it with a line tied to a stick when I was very young.
 
I don't really know but probably you will also find this "ancient jigs" in all the countries that have a codfish fishing tradition (Norway?).

With that said, and even being from Portuguese fishing ancestry, I tell you that, for me, jigging has we know it today with lighter rods, lighter lines, lighter jigs is a totally different sport, probably reinvented by the Japanese. What I was trying to ask about was our personal introduction/1[sup]st[/sup] real experience with jigging has we know it today.
 

Jimi the Fish

New member
For me it was back in the early nineties,7ft rods with penn 30tw loaded with 15k Ande mono,then i down graded to a penn 40gls lever drag,the series before the 45gls,on a purpsoe built jig rod called a triton predator which was still a good 7ft.
Dropping jigs 80-100mm in length weighing between 150-300gms,and the colours were limited,chrome,pink,blue,lime and black.
The technique was to drop and either yo yo a few times then wind up as fast as one could,or just drop and wind up as fast as one could,known as speed jigging.
That was good then,but the countless hours of doing that certainly tired you out for average results,a good result may have been 8-13 kingies in a 2-3 hour period,depending on how the tide was running.
I continued this till about 2001,then went back to live baiting for the next few seasons,the best season being 72 kings landed and released,wow did i think i was the king.
Anyway,i ran into Chris W down at Hunting and Fishing one day in 2004,and he asked me 'Hows the kingfish fishing these days,ya still jigging',my reply was 'Not much these days Chris,tend to get bigger ones on livies'
So he said come round to my work place and check out the new wave of jigging paraphernalia.
Cut a long story short,i left with DVD in hand 'Fighting in the day line' and played it till it cooked,my resurgence in this new found style/technique and those little rods had me by the balls.
Present Day
From 72 kings in a season to 336 kings says it all,no fatigue,go all day etc.
The jigs are so much more animated with the advent of Mechanical Jigging,fish on the sounder at 70m can be tapped very easily with these stream lined jigs.
Braid was another factor,the run and head shake of each fish adds to the excitement of the fight,also the coloured increments lets you know how far your down.
The Parabolic rods put some acid on the fish,un like the old fast tapered rods which blew fore arms after any pro longed fight,rendering the angler a certain bed wetter,crying for his mummy.
Ah yes folks,this 21st century jig metal mahem has certainly got this boy stuck on this new fad,god help us if something new is to rare its ugly head in the near future,if so i will have to get married ,that will be the only way to stop my TAS for this exciting full on metal madness.
If your've never tried it,you'll have nothing to tell your buddies at the retirement home in your twi-light years.
   
 

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fedu

Sealiner
Jimi,

I'm speachless, 336 Kings in a single season!!!!

My TAS hasn't gonne to the point of puting it on display in a wall :)

Thanks for sharing.

FTF,

Still working on that, my boat is still at the shop :-(
We are gathering GPS info on the north fisheries, also wanting for some recent charts to do our homework.
 

Nepptune

Sealiner
Ahhh Jimi, mate, you have enough lead stored up there to sink the titanic... maybe not the Spanish Goat Dancer, but any lesser vessel would struggle severly I reckon.... I reconise a few of those shiny things hanging up there... :wfish

 

Great thread Fernando, I'll add my little bit to it.

 

I grew up on light tackle artificial angling... Mainly Saltwater Flyfishing and fishing soft plastics and spoons and such, and only got into fishing offshore when I was 15 when my oldman bought a little Zodiac.

 

Then moved myself off to the Cayman Islands for 5 years of bliss, 75% of my time was dedictaed to fishing, again mainly light tackle artificials, soft plastics etc and flyfishing for Tarpon, Bonefish, Jacks, Snapper and Barracuda. We did a bit of offshore trolling and livebaiting on our little 14ft skiff, and wracked up a fair number of Wahoo, Small Tuna, and gazillions of Barracuda.

 

Being a tackle tart that I am, I was always scrounging around for new tackle and tactics. I discovered braid when I was over there, which was a relevation in itself, and I've never looked back.

 

During my stsint there, Sportfishing Magazine featured an articale on" Extreme Jigging - Its WIld and it Works" by Nicolla Zingarella, a mad Italian jigging and popping freak, and the man responsible for the huge popularity of jigging and popping in Europe, mainly in the French, Spanish and Italian sportfishing communities.

 

Nicolla had basically taken what he'd learnt from the forefathers and gurus of Jigging and popping from Japan, Taiwan and other parts of the east, and brought the ideas, tackle and tactics/techniques over to the western world and it was catching on with alarming speed.

 

Obviously the tackle and the action is what first attracted the magpie in me, and a new way of targetting big nasty fish, on super light, super sensitive but ultra strong tackle to me sounded like a HUGE amount of fun!

 

So I slowly started looking at it, investigating on the www, and after giving myself a few mild heart attacks at the initial costs of equipment ( bear in mind I was a 23 year old  broke, barefoot, carefree boat captain in the Caribbean at the time ) I started picking up little bits and pieces of gear like jigs and such.

 

I jigged with my regular light tackle casting gear ( 30lb braid, 7ft rod and Shimano Calcutta ) in much the same way I had with a spoon and KP reel off the Zodiac growing up off the KZN coast, and had some pretty good success in Cayman with plenty of species, and a couple of really good bust offs too!

 

Fast forward to 2005 - My old man and I managed to get ourselves onto a Flyfishing trip to Cosmoledo and Farquhar Atoll in Seychelles. Fishing Nirvana..... Along with our mountains of flyfishing gear, I snuck in my little casting out fit, some leadhead bucktail jigs and some regular jigs. After thrashing all manner os species on fly on the atolls everyday on fly, I would chill out on the back of the mother ship at night and use my little "jigging" outfit to jig off the back, while drinking beer with the boys, talking sh*t and soaking up the insane experiences we'd had during the day on the flats. And during those sessions on the back of the Mothership, my addiction to jigging took seed... I caught fish on everydrop almost.. Dogtooth Tuna, GT's, Bluefin Trevally, Multitudes of Snapper species, Multitudes of Grouper species, and a bunch of things I couldn't even put a name to... at one point as a joke we started counting, and got to 10 different species on 10 consecutive drops before I caught the 2nd GT of the bunch with drop number 11... The light rod, small reel, and directness of the braid made the fight and fishing so incredibly enjoyable I soon had all the dyed in the wool hardcore fly guys begging for turns on the rig.

 

Back to the real world and I started doing more investigating into gear and such on the web, which landed me my first Shimano Stella 6000 for a steal from someone in California. Further searches had me discovering a number of really great forums and sites such as deepjigging.com, and fishing.net ( where I made the acquaintance of one Mr Jimi the Fish ) and numerous others.

From there I started delving more into the tackle and techniques, buying a Smith Jigging rod for my Stella, and a few “real” jigs…

From the first drop, retrieve and hook up on this jigging set up, it was GAME OVER!!! There is NOTHING that can compare to fishing with an outfit that weighs absolutely nothing, cranking up a jig, and having it get slammed by an angry fish and hanging on for dear life while you feel every run, headshake and mad dash of the fish through the sensitivity of the braid, and the ultr light and sensitive rods, along with the extreme drags of modern spinning reels, and high quality overheads…

From then it snowballed into discovering the incredible parabolic rods like our JigStar range through ChrisW, and learning more and more about the sport and its facets through trail and error, experiences of other anglers all over the world like Jimi, Chris, Randy Chin, Glenn Kross, Andy Thititbordin and more…

 

From there the passion and addiction grew into wanting more and more anglers to experience and share this insane aspect of angling that I have grown so addicted to, and hence the birth of JigStar Africa with Roy, Linda and myself with massive assistance of Chris Wong in NZ. The best products in anglers hands for the best prices so that more and more people can experience this facet of angling that for me personally is the most enjoyable you could ever come across. Full tilt, balls to the wall, lock and load, full frontal angling….. as Jimi calls it, “ The Formula 1 of Fishing”

 

That’s my story, I’m as hooked to it as anyone could ever be, and always looking to improve, catch more species, bigger species, fish wilder places, travel and fish. And get more anglers involved in this form of the game.

South Africa has such a massive untapped potential along our coastline for jigging and we are looking forward to being a part of opening that up, tapping into those denizens of the deep, and pulling on some mean hard fish.

And hopefully fishing with more crazy jiggers around the globe while we’re doing it, because at the end of the day, enjoying it with like minded friends and fisho’s is what its all about!


:wfish:wfish:wfish:wfish:wfish:wfish:wfish
 

B8FISH

Senior Member
Is anyone supposed to have a post after yours Nepps, or shall we just carve your post into stone and admire it into time forever!!!! My word!
 

fedu

Sealiner
The strangest thing about Nepps post is that, although it's a know fact that all fisherman are liars to some extent, I actually believe in every word is written!!
 
Great post Nepps.


So up until know the only guys that have ever jigged are Dg boy, FTF, JTF and Nepps, probably we should close this forum because of lack of practice :)
 

Marshie

Senior Member
Nepps - amazing!

Have you ever considered doing some freelance writing for international mags? Seriously boet!  I love reading your shite - you have a unique way of putting experiences into words that makes one feel as if they are there!  Inspirational!

Sure you'll score free trips to remote destinations as a field editor as well!!!
 

Nepptune

Sealiner
Marshie wrote:
 Sure you'll score free trips to remote destinations as a field editor as well!!!
 

Now that would be a damn fine life wouldn't it? :wfish

 

Thanks for the comments guys, but in truth for me its easy to write what I'm passionate about, and I loves me some Jiggy Jiggy! ::S
 

royboy

Sealiner
Nepps bro...your gift with words again leaves me speachless....as always.

It was you who got us addicted to jigging in the 1st place..... and now we research, live, eat, sleep, dream jigging and when the opportunity arises - Jig 'til we drop'!!!!!
 

fedu

Sealiner
Well nothing like Nepps or JTF, but this is my story:


Twice a year I usually go to south of Angola, Lucira to stay there for a long weekend for diving, my father-in-law loves fishing with hand line, so eventually I would go with him for the hand line fishing thing, mainly for grouper, but I really don’t like getting my hands dirty with the bait preparation, because of that I started trying the old “zagaia” approach I remembered from my childhood, I picked up some Crippled Henrring jigs, some heavier spoons, a small spinning outfit I had, but without great success, the handline guys would beat me 15 to 1.
I also remmember trying another old technique from my childwood that today I think is called "sabiki", with some degree of sucess, but every time I would get big fish on it, it would break.

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While surfing on the internet I read about butterfly jigging system and decide to import from the states a couple of gear thinking that could be the solution to avoid the bait cutting and getting my hands dirty, when the tackle arrived I put it inside my boat, thinking I would use it on my next year trip down south.
From time to time while cruising, and if, the sonar showed something in mid-water I would pick up a rod, a butterfly jig and try it out, I think I managed to get some Little Tunnys this way, but again nothing very successful .
Sometime later I saw the lucanus jigs announcement on the internet, I order a couple thinking that could probably be the solution, forget about mid-water and try targeting bottom species, it seemed easy to learn, just slow retrive….
 
One day (April 2008 I think) I went with my friend Carlos to a spot called “mancha branca”, here in Luanda, for some trolling, we spent there most of the day (7 to 8 hours) and we did not get a single fish.
Around 2 o’clock in the afternoon we decided to go home with our hands empty…, while coming home I remembered the jigging gear on the back of the boat and some old bottom fishing spots I had on my GPS, I said to Carlos, let’s stop in one of these 100 meters deep spots I want to try something new.
 
We prepared the tackle that at the time consisted in two Shimano Trevallas M and some lucanus jigs.
First drop, two bites, double strike, Carlos got a grouper I got a snapper, wow it works!
Second drop, another double strike, two Amber Jacks, man they fight hard.
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Third drop, and again, double strike, two more Aj’s, we were all covered in sweat by now,but laughing out like little kids.
Fourth drop one Dentex
Bite stopped, we moved to another spot near Luanda Port got another grouper and left.
We arrived at Luanda with a smile in the face, some fish in the bag and a new technique learnt, jigging had saved the day, in less than two hours we got more fish than all the day trolling.
 
 
The BUG was settling in, next weekend Saturday morning I went solo to an old spot, 140 meters deep.
First drop a bite, it seemed like someone was pulling me down to the bottom of the ocean, lost the fish, almost broke the little Trevalla M, solo jigging is difficult, calculate the drift, move the boat, jig, all by yourself.
Second drop, now with a tight drag on the reel, again someone was trying to pull me down to the bottom, but I was decided to not let go this time, the small Trevalla M didn’t let me down I managed to put in the boat my biggest grouper ever around 20 Kg!!  That night I had one of my best fish dinners ever!
 
I went to Portugal on vacations bought a couple of Williamson jigs and when arrived back in Luanda hell had broken loose, Carlos had teamed out with Marco and they were producing lot’s and lot’s of AJ’s on a spot, up north with old Norwegian very heavy jigs, I brought the Williamson jigs in, Rafa came back from the states packed with jigs and joined the team,from then on it’s been trial and error, experimenting, spot location, reading about jigging on the internet, joining forums to try learn more and TAS!!!

Now every month we make a new discovery, find a way to target different fish, try to improve our technique.

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Love this way of fishing, full contact fighting with the fish!!!
 
 
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