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Any slow pitch jigging experience on here?

Topwater

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UK users of slow pitch ? I've used speed and slow jig techniques overseas but am wondering if any on here can share experiences on these tactics in UK waters for the likes of cod bass and pollack?
Cheers
Al

Edited because of typos
 
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I am sure many boat anglers around the UK will have used the slow jigging technique. Off the east coast of Scotland it was often a killing technique, I had plenty of cod and pollack from my boat out from Dunbar and Crail.

Slow jigging has been a common technique in Scottish waters for many decades, it's what caught many massive cod from the (used to be) famous Gantocks. https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12293988.one-memory-that-always-lingers/

Slow jigging is probably a development of what was called "jigging" or "pirking". Nowadays it's dressed up as some fancy technique, but it's not "rocket science" and certainly nothing new. The new lures are very clever designs and their pricing even cleverer, with a few basic metalwork skills you can make your own out of shiny scrap. If you get the right attachment points for hooks and include flatted areas on your pirk it is possible to get a lure that sinks quite quickly but has some flutter and flash.

When the cod were chasing sandeels during the summer these little lures (about 4" and 2 ounces) caught a lot of fish. I usually cast them uptide of my drift, let them sink to the bottom, then did a slow jig routine until the boat had drifted over the lure. What jigging action worked best on the day was trial and error.

If the fish were not chasing the lure I would stick a piece of prawn or rag on the hook and just let it drag behind the drifting boat. Surprising how high off bottom the cod would come to take the bait. The pollack often took at mid-water on this "lazy" technique as well!

Speed jigging I have only seen used once in the UK. I was on a boat off Shetland and two of the anglers used this technique, they must have been fit....and stupid I thought! They thought I was lazy! They caught plenty of fish, but then we all did. All credit to them for their efforts did bring two double figure coalfish, but I could still lift my pint that night!

For those not familiar with these techniques.......
 
So the answer is a resounding no so far! :DWhilst I appreciate there's very little truly new in this world I very much doubt you were 'pirking' with a noodle rod, 20lb braid and specifically engineered UV reflective jigs with assist hooks back in the day Stevie......or were you??? I know it's akin to the older techniques of the lead filled chrome tube but it's also quite different....
I'm looking for direct advice from those who actually have had UK success with the modern gear please, particularly with regards to lure selection, hook type etc?
 
When i was a kid holidaying in I O Man we used to go out on boat with a bloke (Mr Harper i think) from Castletown who caught mackerel cod etc and had pots.
On thing he used for catching cod, he called it a "murderer" as i remember it was shiney and looked like a load of gaffs on the end of his line and he would jig it up and down, it would lip hook and foul hook fish.
 
I have had quite a lot of success fishing South Devon reef marks and inshore wrecks with a variation on slow jigging.
I use a killer rig with two Slug-gos on droppers above the pirk, black-and-silver or black-and-gold being the most generally effective. The droppers are about 2ft and 4ft above the pirk.
The pirks I use are from Snowbee and the most generally useful are coloured blue and pink with a luminous side.
I do not use a tail hook because the pirk is continually bounced on the bottom. I use an assist hook from the top loop of the pirk: a split ring and swivel, a very short length of heavy mono covered by green lumi tubing and a 6/0 Varivas Big Mouth Extra mounted with a luminous green muppet.
I use a 20lb class rod with 20lb braid and aim to fish as vertically as possible. If you need to let out line to maintain contact with the bottom as you drift, you need a heavier pirk. If the pirk is streaming away from the boat it fishes less effectively and is far more likely to snag the bottom.
I do not work the pirk violently but lift the rod tip smartly but steadily from almost touching the water to about 4-5ft off it, then lower the rod quickly and let the pirk free-fall and bang the bottom. Sometimes takes come on the lift but more often on the drop. I generally fish with the reel in free spool with my thumb on it so I can let out a little line to maintain contact with an uneven bottom, as the pirk must bump bottom on each drop. You have to concentrate and keep adjusting the reel to maintain contact with the bottom. I use light braid because the drift can be as fast as 2.5 to 3 knots over 170ft of water and the thinner the braid the lighter the pirk you can use and the less tiring it is.
This rig has caught many cod and pollack, some bass and a double-figure smoothhound. I find it best to use a rod with some give in it and a short mono leader as the braid has virtually no stretch and the takes can be very hard, especially when several fish hit at once! Hope this helps. PH
 
So the answer is a resounding no so far! :DWhilst I appreciate there's very little truly new in this world I very much doubt you were 'pirking' with a noodle rod, 20lb braid and specifically engineered UV reflective jigs with assist hooks back in the day Stevie......or were you??? I know it's akin to the older techniques of the lead filled chrome tube but it's also quite different....
I'm looking for direct advice from those who actually have had UK success with the modern gear please, particularly with regards to lure selection, hook type etc?
Thanks for being so instantly dismissive of my fairly comprehensive answer to your simplistic question!

No idea what age you are but superbraid lines must have been marketed 30+ years ago. The first ones were kevlar, unfortunately they degraded after about a seasons use. They were quickly replaced by the material we see being used in our "modern" braids - Dyneema and Spectra.

I was probably the first person in the UK to catch a porbeagle shark on superbraid (Dynon brand). That was a near 260 lb porgie and it was a brutal experience with a virtually no-stretch line! That must have been 30 years ago, not long after Dyneema lines were first marketed.

As to "pirking".....I was using my own micro-pirks with 20 lb braid and a fast taper spinning rod (noodle rod FFS) around 30 years ago. Most of my lures had small amounts of luminous materials included and often day-glo paints.

If you have been sucked in to pay silly money for these hyped up rods, reels and lures thinking you are cutting edge - well, that is your money!

Just remember that there is little you will catch on a lure in UK waters that cannot be caught effectively and with fun on a suitable spinning rod.:ROFLMAO:
 
Oh deary me :D I'm still waiting for the questions I've asked to be answered by someone who has had results in UK waters with SLOW PITCH JIGGING. I've been fishing for 46 years but there's always something to learn. Perhaps you know it all?
 
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Oh deary me :D I'm still waiting for the questions I've asked to be answered by someone who has had results in UK waters with SLOW PITCH JIGGING. I've been fishing for 46 years but there's always something to learn. Perhaps you know it all?
Sorry if you found my answer unhelpful or lacking in detail. PH
 
My apologies all and in particular PH and Stevie. I wasn't being dismissive, honestly, I wasn't meaning to be cocky either. I was however asking a quite specific question/s
 
UK users of slow pitch ? I've used speed and slow jig techniques overseas but am wondering if any on here can share experiences on these tactics in UK waters for the likes of cod bass and pollack?
Cheers
Al

Edited because of typos
Perhaps you should have worded your question better. I now think you are looking for advice on the latest slow jigging specific rods, reels, lures etc.

My replies were to answer your question in your OP.

As to how you work these lures to entice fish, well it varies day-by-day. Of course each lure may have a little action that you can exploit with moving your rod tip with a few extra little tugs as the rod is raised and lowered. Working the lure up through the depths from bottom to mid-water to search for fish is pretty standard procedure.

You mentioned "assist hooks" somewhere. These have been used on early "ripper" lures for time immemorial! The hooks were held on a knotted line past through holes in the body of the lure.

Jig.png

Four hooks on two lines through the lure meant as many fish were foul hooked as were hooked in the mouth. No perceptible action to these lures, but even the movement of the boat with the wave was enough. To a hungry predator if it moves, it's alive! If it's alive it's food!

Anyway, time to get on with my day! Nice talking about a subject that held my interest for many, many years. I really loved searching for fish along the east coast of Scotland. It used to be wonderful fishing for cod and pollack over the reefs.

Doubt I can help you and we, obviously, can never know enough about fishing!

Blue Runner Loch Lomond.jpg
 
There's an article on slow pitch jigging here. The author of the article has had huge success with slow pitch jigging for bass off the south coast as well as in warmer climes. All of the fish you mention will take a slow pitch jig, as will wrasse, gurnard, whiting & pout.

Bottom line though is that you have to find the fish first. No amount of jigging over empty ground will catch you a fish.
 
Stevie I did use the words 'slow pitch jigging' in my original post and title. I appreciate you taking the time to post mate so please don't get me wrong. If you've read the above article and watched the YT footage hopefully you'll agree that SPJ is a technique and set of tackles on its own. I've used it to catch grouper, snapper, amberjack and yellowtail kingfish abroad and it makes welcome change from the frantic speed jigging of knife and butterfly lures! I guess I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and buy a selection of SPJs and give it a try on existing rods (fs spin) before buying/building yet more rods and reels! I'm particularly thinking that it could well bag a few extra fish over the wrecks and a particular a reef I have in mind at slack water. Time will tell! I'll give the bloke at Jigabite a ring and seek his advice on a suitable range of lures to get me started.
PS is that pic of you and your boat on Lomond by any chance?
 
Stevie I did use the words 'slow pitch jigging' in my original post and title. I appreciate you taking the time to post mate so please don't get me wrong. If you've read the above article and watched the YT footage hopefully you'll agree that SPJ is a technique and set of tackles on its own. I've used it to catch grouper, snapper, amberjack and yellowtail kingfish abroad and it makes welcome change from the frantic speed jigging of knife and butterfly lures! I guess I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and buy a selection of SPJs and give it a try on existing rods (fs spin) before buying/building yet more rods and reels! I'm particularly thinking that it could well bag a few extra fish over the wrecks and a particular a reef I have in mind at slack water. Time will tell! I'll give the bloke at Jigabite a ring and seek his advice on a suitable range of lures to get me started.
PS is that pic of you and your boat on Lomond by any chance?

I am sure the lures will work well for the job they were designed for.

The type of jigging I found most productive comes very much in that "Slow pitch jigging" category. That is a relatively new term for what I have seen widely practised around Scotland, I am not the only angler to have found that relatively small "pirks" that have some action (particularly on-the-drop) catch fish well.

As well as these (usually expensive!) lures made specifically for SPJ try a cheap Dexter wedge lure (aka One Eyed Jack). I have had so many cod and pollack slow jigging this cheap piece of metal. As a bonus it's a great attractor if you fish a single feather/tinsel lure on a dropper above it. Probably the best combination I have found on a slow drift in summer when the weather is calm and the water clear.

Before I gave up the inshore boat fishing I found a seller on ebay that was offering a variety of small, dense but intriguingly shaped lures. They were cheap (important for rough ground fishing!) so I took a punt and bought a dozen or so.

No idea if they were designed for this job but with a little input from me with the rod they looked great in the water. The fish appreciated them, for sure!

I am not too sure on the design of the rods for SPJ. For my purpose I found a rod about 8.5 ft and have a fine tip for feeling the lure but a lot of power lower down for lifting cod from fairly deep water. Hence my choosing a couple of fast action spinning rods. The through action rods I did not like in the least for this job, I did try a couple!

That photo of the boat was Lomond, sure the photo is tagged with that. Did a bit of pike fishing there and that boat helped catch a lot of fish around Scotland. The sea lochs were my favourite hunting ground, plenty of pollack, ray and common skate (best 200 lb+). The pollack have always been my favourite though, great fun on light gear fishing around the kelp.

Missing all that but my age, and Scotland being cold, dark and windy, eventually conspired to force me south. Anyway, consoling myself with some wonderful river fishing now!

Enjoy your new style of fishing!
 
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There's an article on slow pitch jigging here. The author of the article has had huge success with slow pitch jigging for bass off the south coast as well as in warmer climes. All of the fish you mention will take a slow pitch jig, as will wrasse, gurnard, whiting & pout.

Bottom line though is that you have to find the fish first. No amount of jigging over empty ground will catch you a fish.
Seems to have a lot in common with what I do! PH
 
When i was a kid holidaying in I O Man we used to go out on boat with a bloke (Mr Harper i think) from Castletown who caught mackerel cod etc and had pots.
On thing he used for catching cod, he called it a "murderer" as i remember it was shiney and looked like a load of gaffs on the end of his line and he would jig it up and down, it would lip hook and foul hook fish.
Proper fishing!!!!
 
I suppose you could try using a very soft actioned rod and the heaviest Toby lure you can lay your paws on (nice fluttering action) strip off the treble and attach an assist hook up the top. Obviously wouldn't work in deep deep water but should be OK up to 40-50ft if the tide isn't too strong.
 
Thanks all:cool: Theres always something to learn in this all encompassing sport!

Warby I have been thinking of trying ABU Koster lures rigged with assist hooks...

Stevie I was raised fishing on The Loch. I'm from Shetland originally but my folks moved to farm near Rowardennan when I was still a boy. I still love the place and fish it at least a couple of weeks each year despite taking a ghillies job further south.
 
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