Captain Ron asked if I wanted to try the slow pitch jigging technique in relatively shallow water. We had talked about trying over the past couple of years but something had always come up, usually the wind. I jumped at the opportunity but warily watched the wind forecast. 2 days before our outing, the winds ended up being stronger than predicted, but the day before our trip was pretty calm. Capt Ron said the main purpose was to shake out his 18 ft Boston Whaler that he hadn’t run in a while, and we’d try to find suitable jigging grounds not too far off the beach.
One of the two Honda outboards was having some ignition and throttle issues but didn’t make it unsafe to run, so off we went. The winds were about 10 -12 mph with gusts to 15 mph, and was making us drift faster than I preferred. We started off with jigs lighter than an ounce but they took too long to make it down before we had drifted away so we went up to the 1 oz Live Deception. In 65 ft of water, I finally got a hit. Hage… but hopefully we found were the target fish were hiding. The drift was still a little fast and my line extended a ways from the boat so I pumped the jig back in. Hanapa’a! The fish was shaking its head but bending the soft tip of the Shimano Game Type F light weight rod, but didn’t feel like a papio.
At color we saw something orange. Weke nono, the deeper water weke ula. This was one of our target species and the fish was a couple pounds so I kept it for my parents to steam. Unfortunately the Live Deception’s treble hook got stuck in the net even though I had crimped the barbs down. Guess I didn’t do a good enough job. By they time we freed the lure we had drifted off the spot and had to start our drift again. A while later a lizard fish came up so we decided to go deeper. Small pockets of fish showed up on the sounder but we couldn’t drop the heavier jigs down quick enough before drifting past them. We ended the day fishing in 17 ft of water off the reef and saw predators attacking bait fish on the surface but couldn’t reach them with the 6 ft jig rods.
It was a slow day jigging but a good shake down for the boat. Capt Ron patiently put me on the likeliest of spots but the fish didn’t want to cooperate. It was a good safe, comfortable first outing with him. We’ll have to try some rockier areas on a very light wind day.
MMMM …. WEKE ULA!