Slow Pitch Jigging off a kayak

[SoCalEDC]

Originally Posted by FISH11

Awesome catches, especially from a Kayak. Is it normal to have a trailing hook also dig in on the side of the body, three of the pictures have it and at first I thought the first picture was a foul hook up. Congrats and thanks for sharing, that just gives us more inspiration. Tight Lines!

Yea this is normal. the assist hooks are pretty light and "foul" hooking is part of the game. Not the best tactic for catch and release but fi your intent is to take fish the hooks dig in and spread the force of the fight out, less pulled hooked.

RE: Original Post

Its still pretty fresh out here, I havent met many others outside of my circle of buds who are getting into it. I picked up the technique last year after watching Capt Mike from Florida Sport Fishing and Benny Ortiz talk about its success in your waters. It absolutely kills everything we fish for on the bottom out here but good lord it gets expensive having to replace snagged jigs. I haven't sprung for one of the higher end ($400+) rods yet, but I am using dedicated slow pitch gear, (I have a pe2-4 and a pe3-6 combo). And they have done fine. Albeit we don't fish as deep as the Florida guys do, so if I want to move into the real deep water I will probably need something ith better recoil.

The only pelagic fish I have landed on SPJ thus far has been barracuda and of course mackerel (couldn't even get my jig through the bait ball and i was getting them 2 at a time on both ends of the jig), no yt, no tuna, no bonito, etc. YET.

Bottom fish are a different story, I have nailed halibut, sculpin, sand bass, etc. and a bunch of different rockfish species as would be expected with such gear in anywhere from 180-450', although due to CA regs on ground fish I just run 2 assist hooks on the front of the jig, and leave the opposite end hook-less (this also helps me not to lose jigs so its not all bad). Does a good job of weeding out small fish, sand dabs, etc. and other by catch typically encountered when using bait on the bottom.

[FISH11]

Thanks for the reply. I only have used Shimano Flat Fall jigs with the assist hook and they are awesome, but I only have the assist hooks on the trailing end, not on both ends of the jig.

[FullFlavorPike]

some first rate fish in the original post -- last fish is an almaco jack, right? You guys never eat the AJs in florida because they're full of parasites (or so I hear), but the almacos are good eats, I'd imagine.

I catch a lot of calico when I send a flatfall down here in SD, but I've never caught a real gamefish on it.

[katchfish]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XYM4lM8kIA

[DanaPT]

Cool video and instructional.

Nice east coast flavors!