Accomplished whipper and new fly fisher, Jeremy, returns to his fishing roots.
Jeremy: Since I’m still working from home and traffic has been good, I’ve been trying to get in a short session before my workday starts. I get to the beach around 5:30am and need to leave by around 7:15am, so not much time to fish, but it’s a nice way to start my day. I’ve been fly fishing a lot more recently and been in a dry spell, so I decided to switch it up and bust out the spinning gear again to help increase my chances of catching something. On this day, I decide to try out a spot where I’ve been lucky in the past and where I know the grounds really well. Tide is a little high, so I decide to just work the inside reef. I wade out a bit, to around thigh deep, and begin casting. I’ve seen fish in this particular area in the past, so I fan out my casts to really comb the area and hopefully find a hungry fish. And right around 6am, I get lucky. I’m slowly bouncing my jighead on the bottom and feel some slight resistance.
I lift my rod tip and feel something on, but it feels like only a nibble. I rapidly crank my reel to try to set the hook, but the fish is swimming towards me and I’m just hoping he doesn’t spit. After what feels like a few seconds, he finally realizes he’s hooked and takes off on a blistering run. Yes!!! Finally hooked a fish and I can tell it’s a good sized one. He takes out about a 100 yards on the first run, I gain line back, and he makes another screaming 100 yard second run.
It’s a back and forth battle and after 7 minutes, I get him close and finally net him. Chee!!! Big boy!
I take a measurement, get some quick pics, and release this beautiful 25″ o’io. This matches my personal best for biggest o’io, which I guess to be around the 8-9lb range since this bugga was FAT! I’m super stoked and luckily I got this one on the GoPro so I can relive this moment over and over, LOL. Awesome scrap and it’s always a nice feeling to see the fish strongly swim away. Hopefully I can catch him again when he’s double digits.
Nice catch brah! I’ve tried the jig head method for oio and I’m terrible at it LOL maybe I’ll try again soon
Thanks! It can be boring at times since you’re just retrieving slowly, but when you finally hook up and hear your drag screaming, it makes it sooo worth it.
That’s a nice fish! Have you been able to apply anything you learned from fly fishing to jigging?
I think the biggest thing for me is just fishing spots long enough to figure out where the fish are most of the time. When fly fishing, you spend a lot more time just trying to spot fish, and at most places, you see fish in certain areas, so I’ll spend more time working those spots.
Yup, I came to that same conclusion. Spending time to sigh fish a spot definitely helps for blind casting later when the tide comes in. You know where to target!
What are you using on the jighead you are bouncing?….grubs? bait?
that thing is THICK! Mean scrap that must’ve been.