North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

Heya, whats everyones take on Jigging Vs Bait....

Im always hearing stories of people not even taking bait and just packets of gulps/jerk shads and coming home with a full esky... Is there a secret to it that anyone wants to share?

Bait has always been the go-to seen you can feel small bites and seems like more of a hook up rate...but jigging with shads are becoming the craze....

Anyone keen to explain?

Bait is a great way to explore new areas for fish, and will produce more nibbles than jigging. once you are confident about spots that usually fire up, then jigging is a great way to catch the bigger fish whilst screening out the little guys. catching a small fish will still happen from time to time, but jigging in my experience produces consistently bigger fish. In our warm climate, heading out with no bait in the esky can make cleaning up a lot easier when you get home.

It's hard to make the switch, but the sooner you commit to heading out without any bait in the esky the sooner you will master jigging. you become a child again and the moment you catch your first fish, connections will start forming in your brain really quickly

Or you could cheat like I do and pin strips to your jig. Sometimes bait will out fish jigs, sometimes jigs are the go and sometimes the combo wins out. I can never pick it
if i get a small fish ill pin it on as a livey

nomad wrote:Or you could cheat like I do and pin strips to your jig. Sometimes bait will out fish jigs, sometimes jigs are the go and sometimes the combo wins out.

I'm with Nomad on this one, jigs are great and nice and easy to use but some days they just don't produce.

Yep , jigs are great and I've tried to commit to them but some days bait works best.
Still like to have a choice and often sweeten a gulp with a small bit of bait as well.

Yep, I've had both kind of days, killed it on jogs and then not a touch on jigs but bait has cleaned up. Back home if I could get live bait I'd take a emergency stash of bait just in case no live bait could be found so I could get a few snapper or flag for bait if the jigs weren't working.

Jigs are fun and as above if it's a known spot to fire throw the jigs first then be ready to switch as needed if you're looking for a feed. Jigs are hard if the tide is running and the depth deeper than 20m. I as fishing 55-60 most times so in that car it was bait, live or dead but from 40m in id go jigs for a bit of fun

Had a great day jigging South Gutter a couple of weekends ago. I didn't touch bait and my mate was using bait though. He caught more but I caught consistently more solid fish.

They were on that day though. I saw some thing on FB where a guy threaded the silver foil from a packet of chips and caught fish, tried this and it also produced.

Thanks all, some wicked ideas floating around there. I think I just have to commit, sit there and watch everyone else catch fish and just wait for the stonker to see the jig... Thanks all

Dont discount the cheap halco twisties and raiders for reefies either, i've been picking up plenty of snapper, trout, trickies, salmon and assorted bits and pieces just jigging 20 -30 gram slices, have been outfishing the fellas in my boat using bait as well most of the time. If the fishing is slow or the bite starts dropping off sometimes swapping to the jig will get fish coming over the side again.

What wombat said, i've been giving the 20 gram ones a go and they have been out fishing any other jig.

NT Wombat wrote:Dont discount the cheap halco twisties and raiders for reefies either, i've been picking up plenty of snapper, trout, trickies, salmon and assorted bits and pieces just jigging 20 -30 gram slices, have been outfishing the fellas in my boat using bait as well most of the time. If the fishing is slow or the bite starts dropping off sometimes swapping to the jig will get fish coming over the side again.

Yep been getting good results for ages. but they rent cheap anymore. I use the bigger ones for more distance and they are nearly $10

Biggest trick is matching the jig head weight to the conditions. You want enough weight to get to the bottom but only just. If the jig head is too heavy the gulps ect lose their natural sink rate and fish are less likely to hit. Ie, the last trip i dusted a mate up catching 80 percent of good fish. I had a 1 ounce jig head and he only had 1.5 ounce ones. Knowing when you are on the bottom or what depth your lure is working at is the other key. Watching a good sounder is the other key. Find the fish and target them takes all the luck part out of the game and produces better results

cuddlescooper wrote:Biggest trick is matching the jig head weight to the conditions. You want enough weight to get to the bottom but only just. If the jig head is too heavy the gulps ect lose their natural sink rate and fish are less likely to hit. Ie, the last trip i dusted a mate up catching 80 percent of good fish. I had a 1 ounce jig head and he only had 1.5 ounce ones. Knowing when you are on the bottom or what depth your lure is working at is the other key. Watching a good sounder is the other key. Find the fish and target them takes all the luck part out of the game and produces better results

That's a little gem just there. I have never had too much luck with the gulps, but think I have been using way to heavy jug heads. Cheers fr sharing

Thanks all, im sticking with it for a while. Hopefully no more smelly bait water in the esky for much longer

Get on YouTube mate and watch different retrieves for different jig types. That can make a huge difference, there's a group of guys in Makay Qld, I think there called reefari or something. They show alot of different types of jigs and different ways to use them.