Coach Haru: Japanese jigging tips – Part II

Coach Haru is a well known and well respected MMA striking coach. He’s been effectively jigging off his kayak in Hawaii using techniques learned in Japan and would like share his insight with us.  We’re super blessed to have a jigging sensei share such hard earned knowledge. Coach Haru feels that jigging can be very effective when done correctly, and the assist hooks allow for the safe release of fish you don’t want to take home. He loves the challenge of using lures only to capture his prey. Currently he’s in Japan and hopes to return to HI when the quarantine lifts.

Coach Haru: Tairaba (see previous post) is 100 years old. Started in Nagasaki Kyushu and Tokushima Shikoku. It was just round lead with a hook and put shrimp on to catch Tai (red snapper). But shrimp became expensive so commercial fisherman started to use plastic instead.  

There is a Japanese proverb “catch Tai with a shrimp”, back then red snapper was not high end fish. Shrimp was more valuable and expensive.

It was in March, 5 min from my house in Kobe, I got a Buri (wild hamachi) with the 40g halalu color.

New style jig has a flasher plate in the tail. Bass shop sells those plate. Putting it on the tail of jig is popular right now. This is by Hayabusa Jack eye Maki Maki.( reel it reel it). It can cast very far then just retrieve it fast and stop and go. In the morning, most of predators on the surface casing bait, then sun comes up, they go down. Cast it when jig hit the water, fast retrieve and stop for the moment then go again for a couple times. If there is not bite then drop a jig to mid range. Still not bite then drop to the bottom. Just reel it fast.

Now retrieve jig instead jig up and down is popular because easier and anybody can do, not get tired for fishing all day long. Especially from kayak, sit down to fish has less angle than stand up to jig. When stand up most of time tip of pole is down. Jig up to straight but sit on kayak, pole points straight and jig up. When fish bite and have to set the hook, there is not much angle to set the hook hard because tip of rod is already up. Miss fish more than fish from stand up. That’s why retrieve lure is better for kayak fish. I had a Hobie Pro Angler that allowed me to stand up to fish on the kayak just like boat. But changed to Hobie Revo 13, it was harder and lost fish a lot because fish wasn’t hooked well by short angle of rod position. 

There are many jig sabiki in market. There are from super light to heavy. When fish are not biting lures, use smaller like tungsten then still fish are not biting, I use jig sabiki. Size of flies on sabiki is are an inch or less, leader on fly is 15lb to 30lb. There is Nomase (live bait fishing) sabiki which can keep the bait fish on sabiki continue to fish not detach the bait from fly. The leader of fly is longer than normal sabiki that bait can swim better.  Use a jig instead leads. Prefer swimming jig but not long center waited jig can tangle line and flies easy.   TG bait or Jigpara are good. I don’t put hooks on jig because I dont wanna lose especially TG bait. Also I put 2 flies out more than that. I had tried home made jig sabiki had 4 flies, Kawakawa hit it more than one, I lost entire set up so I use just 2 flies. Also it’s shorter that easier to use from Kayak. Jig is swimming jig, when reel it, jig wiggles makes flies dance good. I will post a picture when I make my own jig sabiki.