Reel Repair by Alan Tani

Quote from: Gfish on April 07, 2022, 03:30:55 PMWell anyway thanks for the posts on this. A healthy debate, spiced with some ego, and I get to learn some stuff where there was a big knowledge gap before.
I'd prolly go for the cheap jigs first, until I start to succeed, then look for the better quality and more expensive ones. It's to painful to lose expensive stuff. Can't help but think that dressing the SPJ's up a bit might make them more effective when they are fished that "slowly".

That's a strategy, just keep in mind the more effective jigs you use will directly effect how successful you are.

I lose approx 3-5 jigs a season and considering you'd probably spend more than that in bait per year, it evens out.

There are also methods to keep snags & hangups to a minimum, and reduce losing gear to the granite groupers. The most important is to stay vertical and not let your line go past the drift. When your line is at too much of an angle that's when you lose jigs.

Could you give me a little information on the 6 jigs on the right side of the second row?  I.E. brand, weight, rigging, and possible use as a tuna jig.  Bill

Ah-ha!, the angle thing. Sounds like me, wanting to keep my jig close as I can to the bottom for as long as I can—-oops. Thanks ninja.

Quote from: Bill B (Tarfu) on April 07, 2022, 07:41:02 PMCould you give me a little information on the 6 jigs on the right side of the second row?  I.E. brand, weight, rigging, and possible use as a tuna jig.  Bill

From left to right: Feed Flint, Jackall anchovy I, & II, Jygpro Stryke black, silver, Williamson Kensaki.

The first 3 I just got recently, haven't tried, the Jygpro black did really well on Lings last year, gets down to the bottom quick too, which helps on fast windy drifts. Kensaki too for Lings & big rockfish.

The SPJ anglers in Florida regularly use these for tuna and other pelagics.

As for rigging, there's options, I've been starting out with one assist hook at the top and adding a bottom hook if I'm not sticking all my hookups. The website I linked has a lot of detailed info on that stuff.

Weight, the rule of thumb is one gram per foot of depth, which can be adjusted for currents & conditions, and these jigs are slim enough and drop down so fast that you can get away with using a lighter jig and still have a good amount of vertical time.

Bill these jigs (Williamson Kensaki) have been getting bit well the last few years. You might have an easier time finding them in stock over the rip rollers.....

For what it's worth, I would advocate using cheap jigs while you get started. I probably lost more jigs in my first year of regularly jig fishing than I have in all the subsequent years combined.
They remain a staple of my jig bag - partly because some of them I just like, and partly because sometimes I know there are schools of very toothy critters around and there is a much higher chance of losing jigs in a way that I have no influence over. I'd rather have $15 of hardware snipped off than $40.

Thank you.

I think I know the answer, but a knife jig sinks faster than a flat fall.

So I could get a 350 gram knife jig to sink faster than a 350 gram flat fall due to the shape.

Last year in June, I could not get a 350 gram FF to stay straight up and down and after 5 minutes I was nearly trolling the jig due to wind and current. 

So with everything else being the same, i.e. main line and jig weight, with a knife jig I could get down faster into the fish zone and stay longer in the zone.  Bill

Quote from: Bill B (Tarfu) on April 07, 2022, 09:58:38 PMThank you.

I think I know the answer, but a knife jig sinks faster than a flat fall.

So I could get a 350 gram knife jig to sink faster than a 350 gram flat fall due to the shape.

Last year in June, I could not get a 350 gram FF to stay straight up and down and after 5 minutes I was nearly trolling the jig due to wind and current. 

So with everything else being the same, i.e. main line and jig weight, with a knife jig I could get down faster into the fish zone and stay longer in the zone.  Bill

I'm no expert but the answer is yes. You can also add a tiny bit of thumb pressure to the spool as you drop the ff and it won't flutter as much and get into the zone quicker.

I heard guys last year were completely stopping their jigs for up to 30 seconds mid fall in the bite zone and were getting bit deadsticking their jigs....

Thanks brother...

I appreciate being challenged.  I like debate.  Debate is useful I for testing assumptions and learning from both sides. 

The Sensei/student model- meh ...  I am interested more in the "why" of it.

QuoteAs my olive branch, this is my collection right now, if you want to know about any of them and how they've performed for productivity, and their use in different current conditions, just ask.

I am kinda curious about those ridges on the jigs in the top row (Secret Rector?).  Supposedly they are there to reduce resistance on the lift (maybe like a stepped boat hull), but I am curious if those ridges actually do anything noticeable on the lift.   BTW, the Rector is REALLY easy to to draw up a clone for.  Heard it from a friend

There is an interesting discussion to be had on what design changes actually affect jig action significantly.  I know a little from my experiments, but that is it.   What these jig companies do know, they don't seem to share.

QuotePS - As for learning the subtleties of how to work these jigs more effectively, the angler secrets site has tons on that, also look up Benny Ortiz on youtube. He's done some tutorials, and they're in english, both he & I had to learn from videos from Japan that seldom had english subtitles.

Thanks.  I wish there was more footage of jigs being worked in real conditions. Read about Benny Ortiz before. It is hard to weed through what matters. From Ortiz in a Saltwater Sportsman article:

"Be mindful to push the rod outward during the lift, to help direct the jig. Then let the jig flutter down..."

If the rod is pushed out a whole foot, and the jig is 100 feet down, in the best case scenario, you are changing the line angle on the jig around half a degree.  It should make no difference.

Not saying that a real slow pitch expert wouldn't easily outfish me using the same gear, and I am sure that they believe in what they are preaching but...

We should lock one in a room with a fluid dynamics expert and go over the lures, equipment, and technique.  And then a visual marine biologist to go over lure shape, color,decorative patterns, and movement.  I would pay to watch that

-J

Quote from: jurelometer on April 07, 2022, 11:23:50 PMI appreciate being challenged.  I like debate.  Debate is useful I for testing assumptions and learning from both sides. 

The Sensei/student model- meh ...  I am interested more in the "why" of it.

QuoteAs my olive branch, this is my collection right now, if you want to know about any of them and how they've performed for productivity, and their use in different current conditions, just ask.

I am kinda curious about those ridges on the jigs in the top row (Secret Rector?).  Supposedly they are there to reduce resistance on the lift (maybe like a stepped boat hull), but I am curious if those ridges actually do anything noticeable on the lift.  BTW, the Rector is REALLY easy to to draw up a clone for.  Heard it from a friend

There is an interesting discussion to be had on what design changes actually affect jig action significantly.  I know a little from my experiments, but that is it.  What these jig companies do know, they don't seem to share.

QuotePS - As for learning the subtleties of how to work these jigs more effectively, the angler secrets site has tons on that, also look up Benny Ortiz on youtube. He's done some tutorials, and they're in english, both he & I had to learn from videos from Japan that seldom had english subtitles.

Thanks.  I wish there was more footage of jigs being worked in real conditions. Read about Benny Ortiz before. It is hard to weed through what matters. From Ortiz in a Saltwater Sportsman article:

"Be mindful to push the rod outward during the lift, to help direct the jig. Then let the jig flutter down..."

If the rod is pushed out a whole foot, and the jig is 100 feet down, in the best case scenario, you are changing the line angle on the jig around half a degree.  It should make no difference.

Not saying that a real slow pitch expert wouldn't easily outfish me using the same gear, and I am sure that they believe in what they are preaching but...

We should lock one in a room with a fluid dynamics expert and go over the lures, equipment, and technique.  And then a visual marine biologist to go over lure shape, color,decorative patterns, and movement.  I would pay to watch that

-J

I'm glad you asked about those, they are the SFC Cranky, one of my most productive jigs, designed by Norihiro Sato Himself (the founding pioneer of this method). The ridges and shape are specified as an irregular or erratic movement jig, to really grab the attention of predators. For what I do, jigging in murky water, it's the best for that and considered an easy jig to get good movement with.

The Seafloor Control website has very detailed info on all their jigs although most of it is in Japanese, but it has underwater videos of the movements, and charts on the hydrodynamic research they've done.



The Pink/smoke jig next to them is a Rector, effective lure, but best in very calm conditions with less current. I believe it was the first true SPJ, secret Rector isn't far off from it in design, but not a good jig for NorCal waters so it doesn't get a lot of use.

As for technique, there's a lot of room for adaptation, and what anglers do in other fisheries and environments may not work well here and vice versa, and there's things Benny & I don't even agree on, but I just have a healthy respect for someone with more experience than I do. I spent 2 years of intense training in Korea so I don't have a problem with being a, or learning from a Sensei.

That's why I don't come here for debate, just to gain and share knowledge, I actually met Alan years before ever joining this forum and even then have always considered him the Sensei.

Quote from: pjstevko on April 07, 2022, 10:53:55 PM

Quote from: Bill B (Tarfu) on April 07, 2022, 09:58:38 PMThank you.

I think I know the answer, but a knife jig sinks faster than a flat fall.

So I could get a 350 gram knife jig to sink faster than a 350 gram flat fall due to the shape.

Last year in June, I could not get a 350 gram FF to stay straight up and down and after 5 minutes I was nearly trolling the jig due to wind and current. 

So with everything else being the same, i.e. main line and jig weight, with a knife jig I could get down faster into the fish zone and stay longer in the zone.  Bill

I'm no expert but the answer is yes. You can also add a tiny bit of thumb pressure to the spool as you drop the ff and it won't flutter as much and get into the zone quicker.

I heard guys last year were completely stopping their jigs for up to 30 seconds mid fall in the bite zone and were getting bit deadsticking their jigs....

The Japanese domestic model Ocea Jigger even has a new fall tension device feature, so yes, tension on the drop prevents flutter and gets down quicker.

Safe to say I have more knowledge now but more confused. With the formation this thread has produced I will have to sit down with a notepad, a pot of coffee  , and put my student hat on.  Heck, I was sorting out my hooks, and got confused. 

I do consider it a winning day to walk into the bathroom and remember why I went there in the first place.

Please keep the information coming, let's see if we can sow some doubt in PJ before his trip next week. bwwwhahahahahahaha 😂. Bill

Quote from: Bill B (Tarfu) on April 08, 2022, 06:52:03 AMSafe to say I have more knowledge now but more confused.

I know that feeling   

Quote from: jurelometer on April 07, 2022, 02:21:47 AM

Quote from: the rockfish ninja on April 06, 2022, 07:02:25 AM

QuoteI could be wrong

That, I agree with.

You can go on with a long winded contrarian debate but I'm not going to sift thru all that, too much to read to try to get a simple statement.

I think that the way that message boards are supposed to work is that you actually read the post that the other other person wrote before responding.  It makes for a more credible response.

QuoteYou might want to do some research on the mfgs I mentioned and the subject of slow pitch jigging (which these are knockoffs of) before trying to dissect this.

Here's a link that might help you get started to understand these jigs better.

https://www.anglers-secrets.com/slow-pitch-jigging/


I base my views on this subject from years of results, as I have been doing this method *exclusively* for almost a decade, and am probably the most experienced at this in the SF bay area.

You are making assumptions.  I did my research a long time ago. 

I have been designing and building lures for quite awhile now.  By using CAD/CAM  techniques, I was able to test the effects of minor and major variations of a couple of these new style jigs with some accuracy.  For science (not resale), I cloned a famous flatfall starting with nothing but a pair a calipers and a CAD program.  The final finished jig came out pretty close to exact in dimensions, weight and center of mass. Looks like exactly the same action to me, as well.  My experiments have led to my position that cloning these jigs fairly exactly is not very difficult, and small deviations in shape do not have much effect.

I do test/fish my jigs too. Lots more than some jigging "experts" (which I make no claim to be).  The pandemic shut me down for awhile, but I was out bouncing this baby today:




What I need to learn much more about are the nuances of actually fishing the jigs. But so far, the folks that I have bumped into in this corner of the world are either not that experienced, annoying self proclaimed experts, or both

Quote from: boon on April 07, 2022, 01:09:13 AMMy 2 shiny coppers...

In the case of the site listed, I'd say 99% sure they're just buying Chinese jigs and possibly having them branded, or they'll show up completely generic and just say "200g" on the side. The "Pebble" jigs are a complete copy of the Shimano Ocea Pebble Stick, even extremely similar graphics.
The "Speed jigs" look a lot like the classic Jigging Master Fallings jig.

So. As to whether it makes a difference..........

For "mechanical jig"... I'm going to say largely no, as the action is probably 80% angler, 10% rod, 8% other factors like line weight and water conditions, 2% jig. My most successful jig is a cheap, soft, off-brand thing that doesn't look quite like any other jig I've tried before.
The overall shape of the jig makes an enormous difference to performance; small variations seem to do very little. I also don't think hardness is actually important - the way we rig for MJ means the jig never takes any load; if the jig gets bent and dented, oh well, more action? 

For SPJ, it gets more complicated. The primary action is in the "fall" and all else being equal, this is much more influenced by the shape of the jig and even small variations.
What I will give to the japanese originators is that they are actually doing R&D. They are out fishing their lures, and there is a feedback loop. It's probably not terribly scientific but their pro team anglers and sponsored charter skippers will be out fishing the lures almost every day, so the feedback probably has higher quality than "anecdotal".
This differs from the Chinese companies producing the lures, who, chances are, have never held a fishing rod, and have no intention to. They take a known successful product, copy it to a reasonable standard, and hope it sells by virtue of the low price.
Setting morals completely aside for a moment, a reasonably good quality copy of a "developed" jig will, to my mind, perform similarly.

Well said, and mostly agree.  That product feedback loop you described is actually textbook anecdotal   My tests indicated that what I would call small variations did not affect action, but we would probably have to agree on a definition of a small variation. 

-J

They are too long winded and full of useless information. Who really needs this? It's just fishing related. Not science

Keith