High Pitch Day

I was finally able to go out! I missed my last 2 trips due to the weather. The weather changes every 3 days in this time of the year.

The ocean is having the major seasonal change now. Shifting from winter tide to summer tide. Summer tide has the bigger tide difference in the day. Winter tide has it in the night. Now it’s almost the same in day and night. In a couple of weeks it will be the summer tide, which makes it hard to do vertical jigging due to the strong current. Now is between the seasons and the time when big amberjacks come close to the shore.

Started fishing at 150m to 170m line at 8:30.

Today, I wanted to try some new stuff.
Usually I have the rod butt under my armpit when I make actions. Sato Sensei is recently suggesting that we should have it under our forearm and elbow. This way, you can use the full length of the rod. More mobility range than when you have it under the armpit. This enables you to make all the actions as you keep the rod tip 90 degrees and up. When the rod is angled at 90 degrees and less to the line, you use more elasticity of the rod, therefore, you can use a heavier jig in slow actions. I used to put up to 180g jig on my 3oz Slow Jerker. But I can put on up to 260g jig, still the rod springs up to pitch the jig. And up to 320g jig to my 6oz Slow Jerker.

I wanted to explore all the actions with this setting. I was determined to stay with my ace jigs, Rector and Gawky, to see what differences I can make.

First to catch was this Aza Hata. My favorite delicacy.

Cephalopholis sonnerati

210g Recotor with 3oz Slow Jerker.
3 slow pitches up from the bottom and a short fall to have that contact.
It was very interesting to play with a light rod with a heavy jig. The spring-back action is not so strong so that the jig should not be flying on the side at the end of the pitch. It’s more like laying the jig on the side and letting it fall.

But on the boat, my fellow anglers had other determinations that day. They wanted to try out their new jig on the high-pitch jerks.

It was Mesiah from Seafloor Control.
It’s the lastest long jig. It’s recommended to high-pitch jerk a heavy one like 350g, 400g, 450g, in deeper than 130m of water.

And they were hitting nice amberjacks of over 5kg, up to 10kg sizes.

Then everyone on the boat switched to high-pitch. And they kept getting contacts. Someone on the boat caught a fish in every run. But I was not getting any contacts since my first catch.

Now I have to think.

Is it the high-pitch that’s working?
Or is it the long jig?

Will I change my game plan?
Or stay with slow-pitch so that I will be different? Because a lot of times being different from others on the boat can be very productive.

But it’s not happening. I’m not just doing normal slow-pitch. I’m doing very slow-pitch with heavier jig.

High-pitch jerk is not hi-speed jigging. The pitch is still slow. Utilizing a stronger rod like High-pitch Jerker, you give stronger impacts in each pitches. Then the jig flies out on the side for a long time. You have a line slack while the jig is flying. Eventually you will feel the weight of the jig, which means it’s hanging. Just before you feel the weight of the jig, you give another pitch. Sometimes it’s 1 second, 2, or even 3 seconds before you give another pitch.

Slow-Pitch, High-Pitch, and Long-Fall Jerk

I haven’t bought Messiah yet. I didn’t bring my High-pitch Jerker 501. I have 600, lighter High-pitch Jerker.
Hmmm… I decided to keep on slow-pitch for a little more. But I changed to my only long jig that I brought, Deepliner Spy5 180g on my Slow Jerker 3oz.

It was my first drop with SPY5 and I was up about 10m. And this guy contacted on the fall.

Variola louti

Now I’m confused.

So, it’s a long jig?

Still not knowing what to change, the boat moved on to shallow area.

Basically I stayed on my original plan. I got some lucky hits on the drops and on pulling-up, and picked up a couple of tunas and a small amberjack.

But that was it for me today.

It was good to try out very slow-pitch, but I really don’t feel complete today.

At the end of this month, I’m going out again with Mr. Hirota, the owner of Seafloor Control and leading angler. The boat is Yurika. We’ll definitely go to the deep. I’ll buy some Messiahs and get ready.