7 minute read
‘CUSTOM’ HALIBUT JIGGING TIPS
TACKLE MAKER, CHARTER SKIPPER TALK FISHING FOR FLATTIES WITH YAKUTAT-BASED WRITER
BY RANDALL BONNER
Tony “Famous” Davis came to Yakutat to fish his jigs in one of Alaska’s premier halibut fisheries.
While Dutch Harbor takes the cake for the biggest averages, Yakutat Bay is a close second. And although there are few things that fish better than bait, between Tony’s confidence in his own creations and Capt. Ty Wyatt’s experience as a local charter skipper, I felt assured that we would be loading the boat with plenty of fish.
As we exited the harbor, the overcast weather, mild swells and lack of wind were adding up to generate "comfortable" fishing conditions, but didn’t necessarily create the best environment for catching fish. That involves an alignment of tides, currents and wind to create an equation that develops a drift and covers water, rather than just dropping straight down and trying to jig vertically.
ON THIS PARTICULAR DAY in mid-May, we were fishing in roughly 250 feet of water. Our 14-ounce jigs were efficient at reaching bottom quickly, but Tony’s 5- and 10-ounce jigs would have done just as well. Minimal movement factoring into the drift can be challenging for a charter captain.
“For an ideal drift, wind, tide and current all move one direction,” says Wyatt. “Opposing elements in that equation can sometimes cause problems, but an opposing tide and current can offset and cancel each other out.”
Wyatt also prefers to fish as shallow as
‘CUSTOM’ HALIBUT
Yakutat Bay offers some of Alaska’s most epic halibut fishing, and as author Randall Bonner discovered, barndoor beauties couldn’t resist the jigs or jigging techniques he and his friends were using.
As local charter boat skipper Ty Wyatt explained, the parabolic action of the rods he fishes with allows “the tip to react with the jigging motion rather than trying to get action from a broomstick,” Bonner writes.
(KODIAK CUSTOM LURES)
Tony Davis’s double-hooked Kodiak Custom Fishing Tackle jigs worked brilliantly on this day. They allow you to rig a herring fillet so that it undulates with the lure’s skirt.
(RANDALL BONNER) possible and in areas that are less snaggy, and he avoids rocky bottoms.
Without a drift creating a scent trail, you’ll need visual attractors such as the contrast of black jigs with white skirts, multi-colored skirts or even the addition of flashing lights. Baits and scents are more relevant to fish holding on to a bait rather than finding it.
“The addition of bait often affects the action,” says Wyatt. “The bait needs to be as unobtrusive as possible.”
Davis, who is the owner of Kodiak Custom Fishing Tackle (907-486-1974; kodiakcustom.com), demonstrated how to filet a herring and thread it onto the doublehook setup on his jigs so that it will undulate with the skirt without inhibiting the action of the jig. Wrapping bait onto the lead portion of Kodiak Custom’s jigs is a little more timeconsuming and requires some effort, but is another effective method of drawing strikes during a slow bite and won’t interfere with the action of the jig’s skirt.
Wyatt adds that wrapping a bait like a herring filet with the scales out can improve the visual profile of the jig by adding flash and not just scent to the presentation.
IF CREATING THE PROPER jigging action is an artform, then the style of fishing is the medium. If fishing on anchor, the creation of a scent trail and placement of multiple presentations in a spread is vital. Avoid drifting under the boat and place lighter jigs between heavier bait rods. This will allow the visual aspects of the jigs to come into play while they’re fishing inside the scent trails of the bait.
On this day, we were drifting at about 1 knot. First and foremost, there’s a method to the madness of making your initial drop before you even begin to start jigging. Capt. Wyatt explains that one of the most integral pieces of the puzzle to his jigging program is to “Anticipate bottom – slow the drop when you’re nearing the lower end of the water column and beginning to reach the fish, because they’re there and they’re waiting on your jig,” he says.
Wyatt went on to explain that part of being in a prepared position involves pointing the rod tip down to the water during your drop, allowing you to be able to lift and swing, rather than giving yourself a handicap by fishing parallel to the water’s surface.
Dropping is also much different than casting, and the positioning for casting is not nearly as efficient as holding the rod and creating a fulcrum jigging action with one hand near the reel, and the other pushing down on the butt end of the rod to lift the tip.
Point the tip at the water’s surface and try not to jig above your waist, rather than starting at your waist and jigging with the rod tip up in the air. This will give you twice the range of movement to recover slack during a deep-water hookset.
Proper cadence is vital for maintaining the interest of fish. Davis explains that proper jigging action with his products can create a plug-like action during a drift. Wyatt explains the cadence as jigging continuously five to 20 times, with a five- to 30-second pause between sets, and then continuing with random variation.
“Think of your jigging cadence as playing a musical instrument,” says Wyatt. “You don’t play one note and stop, but you might play a series of chords, then pause just before the chorus.”
While the ocean was calm that day, waves do create “free jigging action,” and a rod can simply be left in a holder with the presentation just off the bottom, but it needs to be supervised. Pounding bottom is really only effective if the ocean floor is more level and consists of a soft, forgiving substrate without snags. Dragging bottom, particularly in an area with constantly changing depths, will result in snags.
WYATT STAYS ON TOP of equipment technology. He uses Shimano Talica 16II two-speed reels engineered with high and low gears so powerful that they allow an angler to tow a fish to the surface rather than the standard charter boat “pump-and-reel” technique. Wyatt explains that fighting fish that big at such depths only aggravates the fish on their journey to the surface, which prolongs the fight. Advanced technology makes
“Think of your jigging cadence as playing a musical instrument,” tips Wyatt. “You don’t play one note and stop, but you might play a series of chords, then pause just before the chorus.” (RANDALL BONNER)
it more efficient to winch the fish up by reeling steadily.
He also explained that his Trevala PX rods have a more parabolic action, allowing the tip to react with the jigging motion rather than trying to get action from a broomstick. He suggests sticking with matching the weight rating of the lure to the rod to maximize that action as well.
AS MUCH AS I would love to expand upon the story of our day on the water and give the play by play of each and every fish we caught, the action was fast-paced and we were done fairly quickly. More accurately, we were ready to throw in the towel because we were so exhausted from reeling up fish that we couldn’t keep up. More than once, one of us said, “After this fish, I’m taking a break.”
That’s when Wyatt would grab a rod, drop down a jig and usually have a fish on before any of us could make it into the cabin and avoid a handoff. It was almost a sinister game by the captain to keep us all engaged and catch our limit before we reached our physical limitations.
The bite sometimes dies as quickly as it happens, so Wyatt describes timing the bite as a race, and in essence that race is often a sprint, rather than a marathon. ASJ
“The action was fast-paced and we were done fairly quickly,” writes Bonner (right, with Kristin Dunn). “More accurately, we were ready to throw in the towel because we were so exhausted from reeling up fish that we couldn’t keep
up.” (KODIAK CUSTOM LURES)
The gang – Davis, Dunn and Wyatt – also managed to bring up a hefty lingcod on this great day of fishing. (RANDALL BONNER)
