The tough summer tide
This is a report on my fishing trip on last Wednesday. The boat was Tengu.
What we call the summer tide is, to be typical, multiple layer currents, the water is stirred up and down everywhere, very active, but not really running, the fish like tuna family and dolphin fish are active around the surface but fish at the bottom is not so much. Matured amberjacks are starting to move to the deep. Big groupers are sometimes active.
Well, this day was like that.
We started out good. The current was running. It was the very active water.
The first catch of the day was a 4kg Almaco Jack. He’s my friend, a field monitor of Xesta. The rod was Xesta. But the jig was off-the-record Seafloor Control Cranky, he honestly admitted.
I was actually doing well this morning. I caught 4 back-to-back Almaco Jacks, leading the boat.
Busy morning, indeed.
Because of the active water, the line felt really heavy. Probably we had 2 layer currents. We were at 120m to 150m deep. I didn’t feel right with 603-6 on 240g – 270g jigs. I ended up with High Pitch Jerker 600 with a 300g Rector.
With this case of multiple layers of active waters, Cranky is the textbook choice.
He’s got this beautiful Longnose Emperor, Lethrinus olivaceus, with 260g Cranky too.
I tried Cranky 260g with 603-6 too. But I wanted to go quicker that time. Even though Rector is susceptible to the current and not so suitable with multi layer situations. It’s too slow to fall. But I hoped the heavy weight of 300g and the strong setting with High Pitch Jerker 600 would make it work. And I think it worked better.
Here’s some video.
Recently, I’ve been practicing Messiah 220g with slow pitch setting, normally with SJ603-6. Even with soft application of slow pitch rod, Messiah shows amazing ability to slide and swim to the side, and to suspend and fall back.
Today, I tried with HPJ600. I wanted to see how much punchy I can get without getting the rear hooks tangled with the leader. Now I think I know the edge. And I caught a 5kg Almaco Jack with it! I hit it in the kind of timing that I wanted to get the fish bite in the series of my actions.
It made my day. It was a good lesson.
Then the tide stopped. This is the proof of that. He miraculously hooked and pulled this pufferfish out of 110m deep. They can only bite on the jig in the slack tide.
Everyone is switching to Cranky and Gawky now. Hoping to attract big groupers out of the rocks. This fish is extraordinarily delicious too.
But this was all she wrote for me for the day. The later half of the day did not move the tide. The water was active, but not moving.
I guess I had enough lessons for the day…
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Hi Totos my friend,
I love the grin in the video … lol
Cheers
Ed
Thanks Ed. I’m trying to be nice to cameras!
I am lovin the hat! 🙂
I’m actually missing my straw hat… The sun is getting nasty.
1. Excellent high pitch technique!
2. Respect for the ikejime
Many thanks for sharing!
Thanks Dimitri.
Slow Pitch and High Pitch are just difference degrees of punchiness. There are a lot of degrees in between. Let’s explore!