Light-Jigging the Fall Run
There’s a belief among veteran anglers that big baits catch big fish, and it’s a long-proven idiom you’d be foolish to argue. Still, there’s a time and a place for everything and that includes breaking from tradition when the fish aren’t biting.
One such breakpoint is noticing when the baitfish in the areas you are working don’t match up to expectations. Such was the case in last year’s 6th Annual Fall Fishing Showdown, a charity fundraising event hosted by Port of Egypt Marine in Southold, New York. Just days before October and the start of the heralded “fall run” in the Northeast, fishing action with striped bass and bluefish had been decent with some hefty specimens of both being live-lined around adult bunker pods. On the morning of the tourney, however, choppy seas had scattered the big silver baitfish well as the predators. That left our crew of Dieter Herbert, Fred Kotnik, skipper Steve Hochenberger, and yours truly scratching our heads aboard the Grady-White 307 dual console.
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While jigging in 60- to 80-foot depths south of Montauk Point, New York, we had managed a couple of double-digit bluefish early on, but nothing flashing stripes on its flanks. That’s when Herbert broke out a daringly light spinning stick and changed the course of our day by bucking the usual trend.
“That outfit is one I never leave at home,” Herbert said of his lightweight combo.
“It’s a Jigging World Nexus rod teamed with a Daiwa BG Three Thousand spinning reel and twenty-pound-test SpiderWire braided line. It lets me work with smaller lures yet still has the backbone and guts to best a lunker-class fish when I hook one.”
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Which is exactly what he did—not once but twice, in rapid succession. Working a three-quarter-ounce Hogy Heavy Minnow as opposed to the 4- to 6-ounce standard diamond jigs being dropped to the bottom by the rest of us, both bass Herbert drilled measured slightly over 49 inches in length to bring the home team back to the dock as winners of the striper category.
The technique Herbert used isn’t new. I’ve used it with great success over the years in shallower water for everything from sea trout to weakfish, sea bass, and stripers—but I had never seen it applied with such a light jig in water so deep and rough.
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“The technique does take some getting used to,” explained Herbert. “The key is making sure your jig gets all the way down to the bottom. In this case, I had to keep letting out and waiting for a belly in the line to tell me I was all the way down. At that point, I snapped the jig upward and let it drop back to the bottom again. If I can get two or three sharp snaps in before the lure rises up in the water column, that’s usually all I need.”
It’s likely all you’ll need, too, if you are willing to try something new. Figure out a light-jigging approach in the presence of small baitfish, and you’ll probably come away hooked just as solidly as a tourney-winning striper.
By Tom Schlichter
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