Evening all.
I am building a 3 to 400 gram deep jig rod on maybe a Japanese Seed blank, I like the look of those JR Jones reel seats, has any one had experience with them? any pitfalls? Also I am considering a spiral bind to alleviate braid tip wrap, the blank is 5' 7" long, will a spiral work on something so short? Any thoughts on Seed blanks. The reel I will strapping to it is an Ishidai Z40. Any comments would be greatly appreciated. Regards Paul.

Paul you delima is very interesting to me. There has been some noise on this board about the vertical jigging blanks but not a lot of hard type experience information. I have done some preliminary thinking on the Japanese style rods. I would think the only way to work with one of those style blanks properly is to use spinning equipment or spiral wrap for the reel on top. The spacing of the guides, due to the extreme flex of the blanks, would require too many for practical placement on top. Please - Please as you go along keep us updated hopefully with pictures. What are you intending to use the thing for when done - fish, depth, anchored or drifting. I use spirals on most 5' 6" standups to great advantage - just not the blank type you are dealing with.

The rods are in service in the Gulf by a few captains chartering for Japanese clients. The customers bring their own rods and many many jig strings. It really is wierd to look at an upgraded Sabiki Bait rig upsized for big yellowfin. What is surprising to most of us is that they consider this a real sport where getting the fish to the boat occurs only less than 15% of the time after hook up. My meat customers will have nothing to do with this type of fun and games.

Gon Fishn

From the sidelines:

It sounds like this is a rod blank with an extra-fast or super-fast taper (maybe 10% of the rod tip?)...? ....
CORRECTION: They are super-SLOW TAPER rod blanks.
Jay Lancaster wrote: "In some of the Shimano videos, I have seen the blanks take their 90 degree turn almost right down to the foregrip. I personally don't understand the logic." -J.L.

And the terminal tackle uses a 10 - 14 oz "knife jig" (whatever that is shaped like) ... ? ...

And there is a Christmas tree rig of other baits with hooks above the one huge-heavy jig ... ? ....

It sounds like a Boston MACKERAL rig super-sized for schooling tuna. ...

Or adding some tube teasers above the lone diamond jig on a deep-water North-Atlantic COD rig. ...

It seems that clever Yankees have been using variations on such a theme for terminal tackle since before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Sixty years later they are deciding to use a super-SLOW taper-action rod blank to winch tuna to the boat, ...

And the mystique that surrounds the whole operation is born out of the same intense competition among hook & line fisherman for a highly valued & heavily fished species. ... Otherwise, with all due respect, What else is new? ...

I'll sit down now, since if it were not for the little I have read here at RBO or the sketchy references that I have seen in fishing magazines, I would be completely ignorant of what a "Knife Jig Rod" is.

Thanks, Bill Stevens for your detailed comments on all this. And thanks to Paul Kneller for bringing up such an interesting question. ...

It seems that in the lower Florida Keys, some of the fishing competition has made it necessary to go farther offshore to 200-400+ foot depths with 15# braid line and heavy jigs and multiple hook rigs to get the snappers & smaller groupers that used to be readily available in shallower waters and nearer to shore. The Florida Sportsman magazine had an article with Ralph DELPH & Sons on this subject in the last 2 years. Very interesting, but highly specialized.

I guess we can all learn something new here,
Thanks, Cliff Hall, Gainesville, FL-USA.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2006 02:12AM by Cliff Hall.

Paul,

On the Jones seat, just make sure that the mounting bosses for the hold down studs are compatible with your reel(s). You may have to modify your mounting hardware (screws VS studs) to make it work. I like the idea behind these seats. The only downside that I see is set-up time and the fact that you'll need tools to tighten the reel to the seat, which is no big deal unless it works loose with a fish on.

I've never seen/heard of a Seed blank, but I assume it's typical of the new breed of vertical jigging blanks coming out of Japan? Small diameter, fairly slow action? My only concern in spiral wrapping it would be getting the line UNDER the blank in it's shut-off area, as well as using guides that aren't too rigid. Titanium's would be a good choice.


Mark Griffin
[]
C&M Custom Tackle
San Dimas, California

I personally am not a fan of these super slow blanks. Now don't get me wrong...my opinion is simply that, my opinion. I have never fished one of those rods. I just don't like the way they look. In some of the Shimano videos I have seen the blanks take their 90 degree turn almost right down to the foregrip. I personally don't understand the logic.

Mr. Cliff...he is refering to the knife jigs like Shimano Butterfly jigs.

They are very interesting and I would LOVE to try them offshore in the tuna and wahoo water.

Jay

Blanks tend to be slow action, bending almost down to the handle on a large fish. I like them cause I think it fun to catch fish on them, although I've not caught anything huge on them, I have caught 35lb Amberjack on a little Accurate 197 and 30lb braid. I've used them and caught everything from King Mackeral, sharks, red and gag grouper, 12lb hog snapper, porgies, blue runners, bar jacks, suzuki seabass, skipjack tuna, mahi, ribbon fish, plus others, all on the Japanese style jigs. It can be a productive way to fish. I won't limit myself to the jigs if something else is working better though.

Spiral wrap WILL work with the short blank, just a matter of making it work out for ya. I've seen the blanks here in Japan, and even the commercial ones tend to spiral on the heavier baitcasting blanks. Too fast of a tip and you'll probably have a hard time working the jig.

Don't know anything about JR Jones seats.

There was just a rather large article in Saltwater Sportsman or similar magazine about this whole deal.

Phil

Thanks Guys.
I think you all touched on different bits of what this deep jigging is all about. Cliff it has a lot to do with fishing further offshore as I think it would be fair to say that in every "Developed?" country their inshore fisheries aint what they use to be. I first tried what was then called vertical jigging some plenty odd years ago, we had Penn Senators and alike coupled to something called JS980 rods and 50lb mono line, these lovely things weighed about the same as a small SUV and handled very simular, from memory you could pull a 220lb man off his feet with your thumb and fore finger, often here we will jig in water between 100 and 300ft, in 300ft of water working 400+grams of jig you want the rig to be as light and strong as humanly possible cause if your rig is not close to ergonomically perfect you won't last long jigging these sort of depths without a little lie down. The blanks are typically slow in action to cope with the jigging action and as in nearly all cases with all rods you probably spend 95% + of your time casting or in this case jigging and around 5% fighting fish. Other factors are that slow tapered graphites seem to able the handle the extreme punishment dished out without failing. We sell 50lb and 80lb Shimano jig rods through our store here in Oz and they are a faster taper than the typical Japanese blanks, these rods lockup about 12" up from the foregrip and suprise,suprise that is where they are breaking, even though the graphite has a wall thickness of around 3mm. I guess as with all graphite blanks if it don't go oval it won't fail. The fish most commonly encounted here on jigs are Samsons, Cobia, Amberjack, Kingfish etc.
Mark. The only titaniums I am familular with are the Fuji's, although we have others available here to us, could you reccomend a model for 60 to 80lb PE braid? Thanks for your imput. Regards Paul.

Uh Ohhhh! Paul you have now made a mistake. Evidently from your post YOU know some real time facts about these things that several of us have been searching for. The Shimanos have recently appeared here in several retail outlets and are being sold as the "optimum" deep jigging rod. This is a market that is presently open to custom builders for sportsmen who want to do someting different. People are asking a lot of questions and we surely could use the experience that you seem to have. One real question is can a rod like this be used from an anchored boat in a crowd to tame a large yellowfin without clipping the ball and chasing down the fish? What drag settings are really feasible? Can you "horse" a large bottom fish away from a submerged oil platform? A jigger here can work for about three minutes before hitting the keg and flopping on the deck! The Amtak titanium frame guides are the most flexible we can find to use on these things when spiraled. The flexibility, style and footprint on the blank of the guide frame is really an important factor. I am also looking for someone with narrow spool reel experience to match up with one of these things.

Gon Fishn

My main concern has been with the slloowww action blanks. In the videos I've seen the Shimano rods look like limp noodles...bending all the way to the foregrip. How can you move a fish with such an instrument? It seems to me you would have to keep the rod bent and use the reel to crank the fish in. I, as many other anglers, are used to pumping the rod to gain line. The super slow actions rods seem somewhat useless to me at actually catching the fish.

How different are the jappanese knife jigs to other jigs used here for years? I think the guys in the NE use faster action rods for their jigging...faster as in at least a moderate action. Would these rods be feasable to use with the knife jigs?

The Super Seekers are advertising extra hoop strength. Would those work well? What about the CTS blanks?

LOL sorry for the onslought of questions.

Jay

Jay - Good Shot! Maybe if we "slought em" we can get some information.

Jay,

The Super Seekers are still pretty fast for the application. The blanks action has to be slow on these jigs for the right presentation. Calstar's Butterfly blanks are about 1/2 way between their normal fast action counterparts (GF700M VS GFX700M) and the softer Japanese models. They have a soft tip for presentation and they still shut off about 20" in front of the spool. They aren't the tiny diameter of the stuff coming out of Japan and are only rated to 50lb. I've tugged on plenty of the Japanese blanks and have no idea where they get their 200lb. ratings. Pictures of these guys swinging dumb bells & tires from them don't do a lot for me, cuz I don't fish for either.

Bill,

Please just bite the bullet, build one of the little Japanese blanks with some light weight Fuji Titaniums just like Shimano uses, then take it out and hang a 200lb YFT at anchor under a rig. Nobody seems to agree on this stuff. I trust your jugement. Lemme know how it worked out. lol

Mark Griffin
[]
C&M Custom Tackle
San Dimas, California



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2006 02:40PM by Mark Griffin.

OK Mark - if you have a complete set up send it to me (400 gr or higher) - you have my credit card number and address - I will build it - and test it!!. If it stinks you will hear all about it! If it works you will hear nothing! It will not be tested on blocks of concrete.

Gon Fishn

Jay,
I can see what you mean about the slow action having these things bend all the way into the foregrip. All I can say is when grab one of these skinny Japanese style rods and hang onto the tip and pull down it, then grab a faster taper more conventional rod and do the same. Often I do this with a customer in the shop and they are impressed with how the fast action rod nearly pulls them off their feet but unbeknown to them with little effort from my part. Fast action blanks on up and down fishing put the leverage point further out in front of body and fatigues you quickly, both fighting fish and jigging, that's just my opinion! The other thing is that most of these things while being skinny in diameter have a wall thickness of around an 1/8" or better, bend graphite with this sort of wall thickness and it wants to recover quickly.
Bill.
We have two different styles of Shimano jig rods here in Oz for sale, the first and most common is produced for Shimano Australia and sold under the name T-Curve, this is the fast action one with a wall thickness of about 1/8", they are sold as spinning and overhead models and in 50lb and 80lb classes. It is in these faster action rods that we are starting to see the odd failure as they lock up in front of the foregrip and seem to bust about 10 to 12"s up, it must be said though that this is only under extreme pressure. The second is the Japanese slower action rods sold under Jigwrex and Blue Rose? what the? I have only had a lttle experience with the Jigwrex rods but they look the real deal, and no failures to date that I have heard of. I don't know how they will go on your big Tuna as I have only seen a few small ones caught on them. Any of the large Tuna I have caught were done on more conventional tackle but we had the luxury of planing them up with the boat and not allowing them to circle, Samson fish have a simiular way of circling during the fight like tuna and these rods work fine on them. Grab the components from Mark and build one up and see how they go. Thanks for the heads up on Amtak. One other thing we have found is IMHO stay clear of the really narrow spool design reels for jigging, there is know way you can thumb the braid back on the spool for long without wearing a groove in it, with the wider models there is a little more margin for error without line bunching on the spool. My concern with the spiral bind on this sort of fishing would the bunching be more previlent. Paul

Thanks for the time and the detail - this is what I have been looking for!

Finally! Great information!

Thanks Paul & Mark.

Jay

Paul I built a jig rod on a seed blank (s-57H) 5'7" 80lb 300g-400g 10kg max drag for a friend a month or so ago I had a fish with it too a very nice blank indeed the price was a little over the top. I prefer spinning to overhead for jig rods just much easier to jig with unless you have a boat with high sides I can not see any problems building a spiral as a lot japanese rod manufactures have spirals in there jig rod range. I think the best guides are the Fuji silicon ICMNSG or MNSG for heavy jig rods. The Daiwa Ishidai z40 is also a very nice reel 15kg max drag strait out of the box I dare say you will have a killer combo in your hands. I am a fan of the Ian Miller designed t curves I run 20kg drag on mine and have nearly gone for a swim a couple of times from what i understand the t curve is a big improvement over the american equivalent butterfly jig rods I think Ian Miller understood the jigging consept better than who ever designed the butterfly rod they cost about the same money and the t curves got fuji silicon guides. I have seen the jigwrex and blue rose rods they look very good I have heard good reports from jig mad fisherman in asia.
Bill I have heard you say that about the sabiki bait rigs a couple of times I dont understand what you mean I dont think a deep water jig looks anything like a sabiki bait rig and I would say the % of fish landed would be no less than any game fishing a lot more than 15% mine would be at least 50% and there are some very big fish being landed by jig fisherman 50kg samson fish, 80kg dog tooth tuna, 100kg black marlin ect are not uncommon.
Cliff a knife jig looks very much like a bread and butter knife and there are people who make jigs out of bread and butter knifes butterfly jigs look like a leaf the different profiles move differently through the water as a rule of thumb at least 1gram jig weight per 1' of water eg: 300' of water 300gram jig. Jigging was around a long time ago and its easy to see why it died out heavy fibreglass rods with soft tips and mono line any action you tried to impart on the jig was lost even today with light weight rods braided line ect it still takes me a week to get over a days jigging.
Jay like paul said the slow taper has to do with getting the right action on the jig, jigging for extended periods and durability as well as fighting the fish with a locked up drag. About the best deep jigging rod I have built is on a calstar GF760L with 1" cut from the tip the rest from the butt until its 5'8" this was recommended by Allan Bevan the man who started jigging samson fish on his charter boat Shikari in Perth Western Australia back in 97 its what all serious jiggers use and prefer over any other jig rod good for 80Lb braid and jigs 300-500grams with up to 25kg drag. From what I have seen and heard I would like to get my hands on to new lamiglas CHJ6680 regards
Simon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/03/2006 12:54AM by Simon Oakley.

Thanks Simon great info. That is the Seed blank I am looking at, I agree with you about the spinning reels being the way to go as far as comfort and longevity of the angler, Man I ache after a days jigging, I have seen the Saltiga spinning reels in action, awsome reels. I am just to set in my overhead ways, but your right! I Jig from a 30ft Black Watch so the sides are fairly high. Regards Paul.
Ps: Are the Blue Acre boys bringing the Lamiglass Jig rods to Oz?

Thank you Simon for the post. If this keeps up I will eventually figure this stuff out. My reference to Sabikis was the length of the bait string and the style of jigging. My physical condition will only allow me to work this hard to catch hardtails for bait ten feet from the surface. One of the earlier references about depletion of fish stocks causing the growth of this style explains a lot. This is really a lot of hard work to catch fish! Thanks goodness our fish stocks do not require that level of effort to catch fish ALL the time. Our interest in this style of fishing was created by the Butterfly Jigs. We routinely use Knifes for amberjack.

Now maybe one of you can help me out with my real question. One of our primary fisheries in over a "mud lump", 300 foot water depth, in surrounding 3,500 ft of water. In the winter months the big yellowfin gather around this lump. The general area is quite small and sometimes a hundred boats gather up and anchor in a strong current. The boats are quite close and attached to clip balls. The top tuna bite in a chum line with chunk bonita lasts normally for three to four hours a day and then completely shuts down. We do not know if the tuna leave the area or go down. We think the jigging and the Butterfly vertical jigs just may be the ticket. We can not test this until the middle of December when the fish move on to the Midnight Lump. Most charters will catch at least one yellowin in the 150 - 200 pound range a day with several smaller ones. The boats are so close that it is impossible to release from the ball and chase fish down for safety reasons. Are these rods capable of bringing a fish to the boat or does the boat need to go after the fish. We still have about three months of time to get ready for this years season.

The vertical with Butterfly Jigs I have seen done around oil structure platforms for large bottom snapper and grouper by tourists with the proper equipment does not enjoy a very high catch rate due to fish tangling on underwater cross beams and cables. To get the big ones we normally over-rig with rod and tackle and crank up and drag them away after hooking!

I understand that some of you guys use another internet board for jigging equipment information and thank you for bringing your knowledge to this board.

Thanks again for the information - I will use it!

Gon Fishn



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/03/2006 08:36AM by Bill Stevens.

from what i have heard, the shimano for bigger fish may not be the choice..one boat i fish on had some 125+ tuna and after the fight the front grip was trash..they may not break.but they dont seem to be the right rod. for these guys.... Paul that seed blanks sounds interesting....all i have here is the jigging master blanks for now. they have brought tuna to around 125+ withthe 300g model....i Just got the lami 6650 and 6680 that was backordered..but i have been so busy i havent had time to build....Jay..tuna and wahoo..maybe aroad trip...Bill...i think i spoke to you about the ocea jigger being a good narrow reel?

NERBS

The Japanese vertical jigging blanks by Andrews (part of Matagi), are rated as fast action. Particulary the FIXER which is a glass/graphite composite as light is as a feather and a skinny little bugger. The FXJ60 has a max jig weight of 13oz. There is the Feeder also rated fast action., but for smaller jigs. Actually have sent a few of these to Australia. Waiting to get some feedback.

I believe there will be some at the Merrick show to check out first hand, unless I sold them all. Might check with Scott at Merrick.

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Pete
ACK Fishing
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