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Hot Jigging Tips for Fresh and Salt Water

July 26, 2017 By JD Leave a Comment

Spooning (aka: “jigging”) is one deadly technique for ocean salmon, halibut, yellowtail and rockfish, along with trout, landlocked salmon, striped bass and walleye in freshwater.

While it’s a super easy technique to learn, there are some little twists and tweaks that can help you take your jigging to the next level. If you’re game, read on!

RIGGING UP & THE BIG SECRET
For spooning, you want a rod that’s got some oomph in the lower two thirds – so you can muscle fish out of deep water and also move the spoon. But it should also have some give in the tip so that a fish can suck down your spoon and not feel too much resistance. Casting gear is the only way to go, as it’s really hard to make subtle adjustments with spinning tackle.

Inhaled! Stripers and rockfish love the P-Line Laser Minnow!

I like a baitcaster with a high-speed retrieve (above 7:1) if I’m working deep water, or a lower speed, more torquey model when trying to wench big fish out of the rocks. When it comes to line, keep this in mind: braid…braid…braid. There’s no other choice for jigging. Braided line has a slim profile so it is less subject to current drag, has no stretch (great for deep water), and is super durable and very sensitive.

Now, here’s the super top secret rigging tip I can throw at you to make your jigging much more effective: Run a heavy mono leader – the heaviest you can get away with without spooking the fish. For example, I’ll run a 10- to 15-foot section of 40-pound when jigging mackinaw. The lakers rarely get over 15 pounds where I fish, so it’s not the strength of the line I’m looking for but the thick diameter. The heavy line acts almost like a parachute for the lure, slowing it’s fall and thus making it flutter more enticingly. You’d be amazed how much of a difference this makes!

If you’re trout fishing in a lake, 20-pound seems to do the trick and I’ve gone as heavy as 60 plus when in the ocean.

SPOONS
When it comes to choosing a spoon, there are several things to consider. What does the natural forage in the area look like? In most cases, I try to “match the hatch” as much as possible and use the jig that best matches the profile and color of the local baitfish. When deep bodied fish like shad or sardines are the main menu items, I’ll go with a spoon like the Revenge or a Blade Runner Spoon. The Livingston EBS Spoon with Electronic Baitfish Sound is a good one at times, too.

But if narrow baitfish are what the fish are dining on, a slender jig like a [easyazon_link identifier=”B003D93PVG” locale=”US” tag=”fiwijd-20″]P-Line Laser Minnow[/easyazon_link] or [easyazon_link identifier=”B000LF03QU” locale=”US” tag=”fiwijd-20″]Hopkins Spoon[/easyazon_link] will get the job done.

Silver or white are great all-around colors as most baitfish have some sort of shiny hue to them. However, when I’m bouncing rock piles for rockfish and lings, I’ll often switch to a darker lure – something brown, dark green or black – to match the myriad of juvenile rockfish that inhabit these areas.

In freshwater, the same concepts apply. I’ll go with a wider-bodied spoon when threadfin shad are the primary baitfish and then use a more streamlined model when the fish are eating pond smelt. Kokanee are a bit of a wild card and they seem to prefer spoons with bright fluorescent finishes like hot pink, flame red and chartreuse.

As far as weight goes, you want to use the lightest lure you can get away with. It’s pretty simple: the lighter the lure, the more flutter you get. And of course, the more your spoon is flashing like a wounded fish, the better!

Swap the Hooks!
The majority of all jigging spoons come standard with treble hooks but I’ve never been all that fond of them. Taking a tip from the tropical saltwater guys, I started testing [easyazon_link identifier=”B000B5A5ZE” locale=”US” tag=”fiwijd-20″]assist hooks[/easyazon_link] out and have gone all in with them. If you’ve never heard of assist hooks, let me explain. They’re a single hook attached to a short length of cord that is fastened to the top eye of the spoon (yes, the top!). Some folks run two hooks up there but I’ve found one works great. I have to admit that a jig looks strange with the treble removed and the hook at the top, but they are deadly.

Assist Hooks look funny but they work!

Assist hooks are also much easier on the fish and are usually buried right in the corner of the jaw – not down in the gills. They’ve also been a godsend for me when jigging deep like I do for mackinaw at places like Lake Tahoe. So many times I’ve dropped a jig all the way down to 120 feet, only to have the lure flip and the treble wrap around the line just above the knot. Talk about frustrating! But that never happens with assist hooks!

Technique
One basic concept to keep in mind when spooning is: use your wrists, not your elbows or shoulders. Most of the time the best jigging motion is, with the rod tip angled towards the water, a quick upward snap of the wrist and then you allow the tip to fall back towards the water. There’s a fine line here – the lure will have the most action as it falls on a slack line. However, most strikes come as the lure is on the drop, so if you have too much slack in your line, you will miss a lot of bites.

The best way to describe it is, let your lure drop on a “controlled” fall in which you keep a little tension on the line. That’s where trouble comes in when the elbows and shoulders get involved – too high an upward stroke and you’ll almost assuredly have loose coils of line on the water, which translates into a lot of undetected strikes.

Yellowtail on light jigging tackle are a blast!

Bites can be slight “ticks” to outright arm yankers, but most are fairly subtle. For that reason, it’s a good idea to also watch your line where it enters the water. If you notice any slight hesitation or direction change, set the hook immediately!

One final note on technique: Try to keep your presentation as vertical as possible. The lures work best when presented straight up and down over the fish and you’re less prone to snags that way. If the current or wind is pushing the boat along so quickly that you have a pretty good line angle going, either reel up and drop again or try a heavier lure.

Filed Under: Saltwater, Techniques Tagged With: halibut, jigging, rockfish, Salmon, spooning, stripers, trout

Rockfish with Crackling Ginger

August 17, 2015 By JD 1 Comment

Yum!

Looking for an awesome, supremely easy way to cook up white-fleshed fish like rock/lingcod, halibut and striped bass? This is it!

You only need a few basic ingredients and even fewer skills in the kitchen to make this turn out fabulous. I learned this from my good friend Rainsong who lives on the ocean in Humboldt County. She adapted it from a similar dish a family member tasted overseas.

The Goods

Ingredients:

  • Fish fillets
  • 1-2 Cups Freshly-Grated Ginger
  • Peanut Oil
  • Green Onions
  • Rice
  • Tamari or Soy Sauce
  • Sesame Seeds

How to Do It:

Start off by cooking the fish. Keep it simple here: Basic steaming works best but you can also lightly pan grill it with a bit of soy and sesame oil…

Cooking Fish

In a small pan, heat up 1/2 to 1 cup of peanut oil. Get it super hot…pull it off the heat when the oil starts smoking, Be careful here!

While the oil is heating, spread the cooked rice over a platter. You can go white or brown here…whichever you prefer. Then, place the cooked fish on top…

fish on rice

You next move is to cover the fish in fresh ginger, green onions and the drizzle on Tamari or soy sauce. You can also add sesame seeds…

ready for Action

Now, here’s where the magic (& fun) happens! Take the smoking hot oil and lightly drizzle it over the whole dish. The heat of the liquid will caramelize the ginger. Check out the video…

And that’s it! Serve that baby up and enjoy! Rainsong said that the recipe is so simple she’s even done it while camping!

Want to learn how to catch rockfish? Check out my guide to catching rockfish with light tackle.

Filed Under: Cooking, Techniques Tagged With: Cooking, halibut, lingcod, recipe, rockfish, striped bass

Pan-Grilled Halibut with Brown Butter: So Good & Super Easy!

June 18, 2015 By JD 4 Comments

How to make the best and easiest halibut

Catching halibut is fun, but eating them is even better. Especially with brown butter!!

If you are look for a super easy and amazingly delicious way to prepare halibut, this is it!

Pangrilled halibut with a brown butter drizzle is off-the-charts good and even a slightly trained monkey like myself can do it…and come out looking like Wolfgang Puck in the process!

My good pal and TV show host Scott “The Sporting Chef” Leysath (www.thesportingchef.com) turned me onto this and I can’t thank him enough for showing me the light. My only regret is I lived so many years without ever knowing the joys of brown butter!

Anyway, all you need is some salt, pepper, flour, butter, oil and fresh halibut fillets. Here’s how to do it:

Start by completely patting the fish dry with paper towels, and then salt and pepper both sides of the fillets to taste. Next lightly coat the fillets in flour and shake off the excess.

Put a couple tablespoons of olive oil and the same amount of butter into a pan, let the oil heat up over medium heat and then cook the fish until both sides are golden brown…

How to make the best and easiest halibut recipe

Fillets in the Pan!

When the fish is done, put it on a platter in the oven on low heat just to keep it warm. Now it’s time to make the oh so yummy brown butter! Since I’m usually only cooking for family of three, I use a half a stick of butter but if you have a larger group you may need the entire thing.

Cut the stick into even thickness pads and place them flat down the bottom of a small pan. You’re going to want to use a silver or light colored pan so you can see how things are going over the next few steps. Avoid using dark-colored pans…

How to make brown butter halibut

Brown Butter Time!

Over medium-high heat start cooking the butter, stirring frequently…


Soon the butter will start to foam. Keep stirring rapidly…

How to make brown butter halibut

Bubbling Butter

Don’t walk away, stay focused and keep stirring. Pretty  soon, the butter will start to turn a brownish root beer color…

How to make brown butter halibut

Brown Butter Halibut

At this point, you should start to smell the amazing nutty aroma of the butter…SO GOOD! What’s happening here is the water is boiling away and you are basically frying the milk solids in their own juices. Keep stirring. You’ll see little specks (the milk solids) at the bottom of the pan start to brown. Take a few more strokes and then remove the pan from the heat. You can easily burn the solids at this point, turning heaven on earth into something that tastes like an ashtray, so be careful. A few more turns of the wooden spoon and then pour the liquid into a serving dish…

How to make brown butter halibut

Brown Butter almost Done

The brown nectar of the gods…

 

How to make brown butter halibut

Done!

How to make brown butter halibut

YUM!!!!

Careful here, the brown butter will be as hot as molten lava! Take your fish out of the oven and onto plates and then immediately drizzle the fillets with brown butter. A word of caution here: Once you go down this path there’s no turning back. Brown butter will become a regular part of your culinary life!

By the way, this recipe works great on all white fish. I’ve done it a bunch with surf perch too! (Lean how to catch perch HERE). My wife proved that brown butter is also amazing when used for baking. From experience, I can say brown butter chocolate chip cookies are so good they should be illegal!

For other halibut recipes try: HALIBUT & SHRIMP CAKES

Filed Under: Cooking, Techniques Tagged With: brown butter, grill, halibut, recipe, scott leysath

How to: SF Bay Halibut Trolling

August 13, 2014 By JD Leave a Comment

It’s kind of an old school video, but there’s some good stuff in there…

Filed Under: Saltwater, Techniques Tagged With: halibut, san francisco bay, trolling

Top 3 Giant Halibut of 2011

January 6, 2012 By JD 2 Comments


Holy beer batter Batman, 2011 may just go down as the “Year of the Halibut!” There were three absolute monsters taken last fall that are more in the “blimp hangar door” class than barn doors.

First up is this one above from Norway which weighed an almost hard to fathom 539 pounds! Here’s the link

This monster came from the waters off Gustavus, Alaska (near Glacier Bay) and was 95 inches long and weighed 482.5 pounds! Read more at Bloody Decks


Then there was the one from Iceland that tipped the scales to 485 pounds! See more at Outdoor Life

Filed Under: Trophy Room Tagged With: alaska, halibut, iceland, norway, world record

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