Jigging is Sustainable

We catch Rockfish of several species, Pacific Cod, and Lingcod, by mechanical jigging.  Jigging, not to be confused with the dance of the same name, is fishing with hooks suspended below the boat. A main line is lowered from the reel with a weight on the end. Up to a dozen hooks are attached to the main line, each attached via a short leader so that the hooks stick out from the main line and are arranged vertically, each one a bit higher than the next. The mechanical part is an electric motor that pulls up the jig, which is especially helpful on rough days when we are using weights of up to ten pounds to help lower our hooks to the desired depth. We lower the hooks to a spot where we hope our target fish are waiting, and if our luck is good, one or more fish take the lure or bait. The fish are then reeled up to the boat and individually removed from the hook.

Jigging results in very little bycatch, or the capture of unintended fish. Each fish is individually removed from the hook, so the occasional halibut or sculpin that we catch can be released safely.  During the jigging season we also "hand troll" which is the Alaska Fish and Game terminology for fishing with rods. We find hand trolling to be a quick way to check if the fish are biting at a new spot before we lower the jigs. Most of our Lingcod are caught by hand trolling using very large lures that deter most other fish from biting, allowing us to focus on Lingcod. We hand troll Rockfish and Pacific Cod too, but once we locate a good spot the jig