The Pirking Technique

[fedu]

[align=center]The Pirking Technique
[/align][align=center]
[/align][align=center] History[/align]  
The pirking technique it’s a technique that exists for many years, since XVII century and consist on dropping a jig (pirk or zagaia) to the bottom zone and generate an up & down movement.
 
It’s commercial fishing origins start with the cod fish fishing with a handline with jigs known has lead pirks (or zagaias) of 12 to 15 centimetres long and with weights of 700 grams and more that were hand animated in a movement of up & down, trying to mimic of a wounded fish in depths from 40 to 80 meters.

 
Northern Europeans, Portuguese and North Americans were some of the fisherman that started to use this technique in deep waters to put cod fish at the table of many people around the world.

 
This is the much appreciated cod fish of the depths

 
[align=center]How it works[/align]  
The principal of this style of fishing is to cast the pirk (jig), normally with an eel tied on a flyer above it (we will talk a little bit about this traditional eel or the more modern version of it the “dressed” assist hook), in the direction that the boat is drifting. This allows the tackle to be worked vertically for a longer time than the traditional down drift style of fishing,
 

 
The lures are generally cast from the updrift side of the boat, distances varying from 20 to 50 metres depending upon the weight of the lure and the speed of the drift. The faster the drift, the further the cast to ensure that the terminal tackle reaches the bottom while still on the updrift side of the boat. When the lure hits the bottom, it is retrieved with a lifting motion which takes in slack line as the boat drifts towards the lure.
 
The upward stroke of the rod is normally a sharp double jerk unlike the continuous sweep of conventional pirking, giving additional action to the lures. On occasions the fish will take only when the lift is very gentle with little movement of the jig, in this case most of the fish will come to the flyer rather than the jig.
 
The speed of the winding retrieve is dependent upon the drift speed.
 
It is essential to stay in contact with the lure at all times as fish strike not only on the upswipe but also as the jig falls to the bottom on the downstroke.
 
Where there are too many anglers aboard for everyone to fish from one side of the boat, those on the downdrift side can still work the small jigs effectively in the conventional manner. However, the amount of time actually spent fishing is reduced because the light lures move quickly from the optimum vertical position and this means more frequent retrievals and starting the cycle afresh.

Chrome Pirk

 
[align=center]Adaptation of pirking to modern jigging technique[/align]  
This technique can be used in the modern jigging fishing, with braided lines, assist hooks and the variety of jigs actually available and this old technique has the potential to help us catch many bottom fish species.
 
The original pirks used to use hooks on the bottom of the pirk, but assist hooks on the top side of jigs can be used with the advantage of less hook ups in rocky bottoms.
 

 
The traditional eels that you see on this image

 
Can be replaced with assist hook "dressed" with lumo tubes , like these ones

 
 
The pirking technique is the grand father of what we call nowadays yoyo, and after the jig gets to the bottom lift it up a little and the movement can be:
 
*Moving the rod up and down very slowly
*Moving the rod up and down slowly
*Moving the rod up and down at medium speed
*Moving the rod up and down fast
*Moving the rod up with short jerks and then down
 
Try to cast your jigs from the updrift side of the boat.
 
The pirking technique can also be used in the bottom of the water column when there is fish suspend off the bottom.

Squid dressed assist hooks can also be used and like the lumo dressed ones will help us on this situation "On occasions the fish will take only when the lift is very gentle with little movement of the jig, in this case most of the fish will come to the flyer rather than the jig."

Squid skirts for the assist hooks

 
This technique can attract many fish that live near the bottom, like grouper, kob and many others.

 

[Andre Laas]

Great Post Fedu!!! Thanks!!!!!

 

[Pargo Man]

Ahoi GRANDE Fedu,

como sempre, uma obra! Gostei imenso.

Quinta preparo uma saida rapida.... antes da "chuva de critica" que me vai cair na Alemanha das Julho 25 a Agosto 27... Queres juntar? Vamos embora. Temos 300 ltrs abordo e um motor que quer mexer...

I fully subscribe to your competent research, the modern adaptation and the even better coaching you performed on me Humbled-New-Jigger. Not many about in Angola who are prepared to pass the word. Hope, I wont let you down so soon.

Me plus my fish-loving offspring holiday'ing Denmark - Dad jojo'ing the Yellow Reef off Hvide Sande August 1 to 22 - report to follow... as banal as it might seem.

The "Beifänger" in particular - that is in "Deutsch" the squid or lumo side kicks - is what I know since childhood jojo'ing in the 100ft Baltic or North Sea shelf in sight of the German Coast. Indeed pitch and weight, drift in context, but always vertical prescription, that's how to make the cod come to town and that' what the Hanseatic League in 1300 A.D. built it's trade and exchange of goods on a meagre 700 years back. Cod (Norway) and salt (Portugal) was the ingredients of "range" and the basics of "saudade", the seafarers of the Iberian Peninsula to venture beyond and "link" the globe. 

Fedu, dunno, what it is with you, my friend, but seems you seriously got them Genetics under that competent skin of yours.

Chapeu!

 

[fedu]

Pargo Man wrote:

Ahoi GRANDE Fedu,

como sempre, uma obra! Gostei imenso.

Quinta preparo uma saida rapida.... antes da "chuva de critica" que me vai cair na Alemanha das Julho 25 a Agosto 27... Queres juntar? Vamos embora. Temos 300 ltrs abordo e um motor que quer mexer...

I fully subscribe to your competent research, the modern adaptation and the even better coaching you performed on me Humbled-New-Jigger. Not many about in Angola who are prepared to pass the word. Hope, I wont let you down so soon.

Me plus my fish-loving offspring holiday'ing Denmark - Dad jojo'ing the Yellow Reef off Hvide Sande August 1 to 22 - report to follow... as banal as it might seem.

The "Beifänger" in particular - that is in "Deutsch" the squid or lumo side kicks - is what I know since childhood jojo'ing in the 100ft Baltic or North Sea shelf in sight of the German Coast. Indeed pitch and weight, drift in context, but always vertical prescription, that's how to make the cod come to town and that' what the Hanseatic League in 1300 A.D. built it's trade and exchange of goods on a meagre 700 years back. Cod (Norway) and salt (Portugal) was the ingredients of "range" and the basics of "saudade", the seafarers of the Iberian Peninsula to venture beyond and "link" the globe. 

Fedu, dunno, what it is with you, my friend, but seems you seriously got them Genetics under that competent skin of yours.

Chapeu!

I noticed your lumo tube the other day and you telling me that you had allready fished for cod with jigs in the North Sea

I've also seen this "new generation" lead free pirk that also incorporates the eel on the Pirk itself instead of the flyer above.

The incredible thing is that when you start figuring out what is working better for you, by trial and error, you see that you could be on the right track from day one if you would only read a little bit about fishing history, what took me months to figure out by geting bits and pieces together is really nothing new...

I even had those traditional eels in my fishing tackle box for years and had never used them.

Infelizmente não posso ir, estou a preparar a minha saida de férias e todos os dias contam...

 

[ChrisW]

nice history lesson Fedu. Good to see how little things have changed. I wonder how many complete circles jig fishing has under gone?

On the east coast of USA, the traditional cod jiggers use a feathered lure like a saltwater fly dropper looped a couple ft up from the jig.

 

[fedu]

ChrisW wrote:

nice history lesson Fedu. Good to see how little things have changed. I wonder how many complete circles jig fishing has under gone?

On the east coast of USA, the traditional cod jiggers use a feathered lure like a saltwater fly dropper looped a couple ft up from the jig.

Probably something like this mackerel feathers

The traditional eel is also placed a couple of ft above the pirk (jig) has you can see on this image, you can see that the cod here attacked de eel, and not the jig itself.

This traditional chrome pirks had a lousy hydrodinamic and it was very tiring to work them, even this have evolved to coloured thinner versions that look a lot like our fluter jigs but still not so good hydrodinamics and the drop down speed is still too slow (i've used the here with good results on kobs but they are too heavy and you loose a lot of jigs to the rocks)

The other day I asked you about those squids that you had on your rods, mainly because, I've been experimenting with squids and lumo tubes on the assist hooks also.

I've also tryed sabiki rigs a couple of feet above the jig

But has you can imagine the line is too weak for BIG FISH, whenever a good fish attacks he takes the hook with him.

Inspired on the inchiku jig I'm thinking on puting a longer squid assist (or a reinforced mackerel style feather or even a traditional eel) a couple of ft above the jig and try to figure out what works better the squid assist on the jig itself or a couple of feet above.

The problem is doing this without loosing strenght in the rig.

Off course this is all for bottom fish species like your hapukas.