Is this fishing method the real deal? Bradenton anglers put their skills to the test
Fads in fishing come around every so often.
Whether it’s the Banjo Minnow or the Walking Worm, sometimes they’re designed to catch fishermen as much as they are fish. But, occasionally, there’s a new style of fishing and not the product itself that can prove effective in the long term.
Enter slow-pitch jigging.
It’s a hot topic in the offshore fishing world and one that has shown it can catch fish overseas before recently catching on in Florida. The style involves using skinny artificial metal jigs with assist hooks that hang off the front and/or back. By using light tackle, the jig can erratically dance while falling in the water column and produce results.
“I’ve been pretty obsessed with slow-pitch jigging,” said captain Derek Engle, who learned of the technique nearly three years ago. “It’s using the right tackle and the technique to allow the jig to do what it’s designed to do. Light poles, light line, light jigs. Back in the day before slow-pitch jigging, I did speed jigging and bottom bumping. I was creating the action. With slow pitch, it’s letting the jig create the action.”
Popular slow-pitch jigs range from 30 grams up to 500 grams for deeper water, with the intent of imitating wounded baitfish or squid. When Engle heard that a jig-only fishing tournament was being hosted through Bradenton’s Fisherman’s Hut, which specializes in jigging tackle and techniques, he signed up.
“I reached out to Mike Warren of team Big Game, and we got a crew together. After the captain’s meeting Saturday, we headed out and started focusing on fishing depths from 140 to 270 feet.”
Per the First I.J.C.A International Jigging Casting Tournament, no baits were permitted on the boat. All anglers would be using jigging-only techniques for fishing, something Engle was used to doing.
“I jig probably 90% of my time offshore now. Many trips we don’t bring bait. There are advantages with the time savings and never really having to question if you have a bait on our not,” Engle explained.
“We started in the evening and figured it would be a tough bite. We started with some red snapper and red grouper. It was a bit of a grind and we bumped out deeper and got a 6-pound scamp grouper, 15-pound red snapper, 8-pound red grouper and a 9-pound mutton snapper. When the sun started to go down, we ate some dinner and fished a bit into the darkness, but there was no bite, so we called it a night.”
The crew woke up before sunrise and started getting back to fishing when a school of blackfin was the wake-up call they needed.
“We tripled up, but one was sharked then another pulled a hook. Benny Ortiz hooked another and we were able to land one out of the four. It was 22 pounds, and we needed every point we got from it,” Engle said. “I told Mike the whole time it was going to be a grind and if it was slow for us it was going to be slow for everyone else, and that’s what we heard. We stuck with that mindset and stayed positive.”
Back at the weigh-in on Sunday afternoon at Tarpon Pointe, the crew of team Big Game took the lead halfway through the weigh-in with 365.43 points with their diverse and quality catch. It would hold up for the victory over team Wake and Bait at 359.6 points.