Jiggle it just a little bit, why dont you etc...

[Hooked]

Just a quick question to everyone fishing deep water such as the Blackwood in the coming AOY as to how they rig up fishing this great system or similar one's.l have recently turned to fishing plastic's in this system with some good result's yet a huge and frustrating amount of timber hook up's resulting in lost jig's, bust off's with the odd removel when down deep by using the old harp string technique.
What lm essentially asking is do you go the weedless technique to which l believe result's in a fair amount of lost hook up's due to less hook exposure or do you fish pointy mean and just put up with the lost and caught up jig's when fishing timber deep.
l do feel more confident in fishing the exposed hook as opposed to the latter but find it frustrating too.Try as l might to read the lay of timber it is always full of unseen dangers and smaller branche's.l was just wondering how other's combat this kind of fishing and if they just put up with it or just except it as the peril's of fishing deep timber structure.

Thank's for any thought's or help.

Steve...

[Brad Y]

Strikeback lure retriever, saves jigs for sure. You still lose the odd one or two though. If i get through 3 jigs in a day then its fairly good. Jig sponsorships are handy too :rolleyes:

I will never go weedless. Not in a comp anyway. Ive had some absolutely smashing hits on texas rigged hawgs but they just dont bite home.

Read the article on sewellys winning ways in the first WAFM and it tells a pretty standard across the board technique of fishing deep rocks, then just apply to snags. I go for 1/16th jigs and get them down, especially with grubs as it gives them a better wiggle.

[deacon]

i found last year that fishing some thing like grub i got less snags becouse of the why i retreve the if u use a rrrrrreeeeeeeeeaaaaaaallllllyyyyyyyyy slow lift u cand feel the sticks were as twiching it just rams the hook in to the wood.

and being a non boater i just put up with the losses rather than annoying the boater all day.:D

deacon

[Hooked]

OT:Curious to me what non-boaters feel about having to bust off if caught up or do you expect to have your jig retrieved?.l myself as Deacon did always bust off rather than annoy a boater when l fished as a non-boater in comp's.lt was no big deal to me myself to do so but sought of concluded off my own bat to do so.
As boaters do you expect this courtesy or dont you give a rat's.Will only be my second year as a boater and wonder what other boater's and non -boater's feel about this matter.
Turning into a two part thread now but what the heck been a while since lve had something to say.:)

[Brad Y]

Mate I try and do the right thing and retrieve snagged lures. Obvioulsy there have been times when my patience wore thin. I dont want to brag but sometimes when i know im down and out I will deliberately try to get the non boater some more fish.

However I will finish a retrieve before attempting to retrieve a snagged line or will ask the nb if they mind me covering the water with another cast or two as well.

The only time i ever fished as a non boater is with mullet in a ssns round when Ira was still involved. I snagged a couple of times and he went straight in and got it out.

[vegasbreamman]

you could try dropshotting that is a great way to catch deep fish with the texas rig i fished fairley hard over the weekend and only missed one fish caught three others i think it has more to do with the hook and size and weight i got some really small hooks and some 1/32 and 1/16 size weights from america and they work a treat

[Bear]

Part of the reason I've been using the 1\40th HWS jigs is that they tend to sit lighter on the timber. Amazing how much of a difference it makes.

[deacon]

i dont get to worryed about jig heads and normally just busted off tho most of the time the boater will ofer to retreve them.

deacon

[Acanthopagrus]

Part of the reason I've been using the 1\40th HWS jigs is that they tend to sit lighter on the timber. Amazing how much of a difference it makes.

OH, 1H || 2H Bear?

You'd think weedless set would further reduce snags.

Im surprised with flourocarbon, just the hook and in no current how well SPs sink anyrate.

Even some of the higher current spots the bream smash them as they descend with the current.

[Bear]

1H on the worms Dawsy. The other one I do like is the Enviro Minnow heads. I find they lay side on and you just have to ask the guys that have fished the Blackwood with me to see the difference it makes to ball or bullet heads.

[brad mcdonald]

good topic steve, hope you get lots of differnt answers as well.

as for me ... not sure how to avoid snags but after fishing with yatsey last year in the blackwood aoy and seeing how much gear he saved (a lot of it was my gear as well) with the lure retriever, i got me one of them;) although i think i might need an extension or 2 for the deeper holes.

as far as B / NB snaging / retrieving proticol. after fishing last year as a NB i'm happy to say that everyone i fished with was happy to head in once i hung up, but i did not expect it so i tried to fish acordingly if that makes sense. i agree with yatsey that the snag should be fished out by either party before heading in and potentialy spooking the school.

towards the end of the season i got into the habit of asking for the rules of the boat, first thing in the morning or even the night before. i found that it put me at ease staright away, and hopefully the boater as well, so i did not have worry about any agro i could just focus on fishing. i was also able to cover other issues up front eg where to stow my gear, where the landing net is, how the boat works just in case i needed to move it for the boater, obviously snag retrieval, even down to loading the boat at the end of the day.

so i'd say have a chat about it up front to save any "crap" later on...

macca

[Shane]

Weedless - I have had a bit of success with unweighted SP's in topwater fishing, but never really fished them deep. I bought some weedless weighted jigs and lost all the packet in 1 sess. So not sure, I just have some to throw when nothing else has worked :D

Jig retrieval in comps, I have pretty much found that most boaters will just start heading into retrieve your snag without asking. The others will ask if you think you can get it back. Firstly I try not to get snagged :D but when I do I just weigh up, how badly, what kindof country the pointy end is coming up to, and if I need a break. In the end, jig and SP I am happy to snap off. HB's less happy.

But NB's win gear, so lots of snags hopefully = lots of fish = prizes :D

[AtomicGrant]

Have used Owner weedless jigs a fair bit and they give you more confidence in casting deep into snags and leaving it in there. The hookup rate is definately lower when compared to open jigs but hopefully fishing deeper will attract more action. On days when bream are short taking the plastic i try to drop it back quickly before striking at the take. On these timid days if that technique doesn't work then its time to go to other setups (open jig, vibes, etc).

PS. only use snapbackgrubs and berkely tourny grubs for thinner profile for better hookset. HTH

[Hooked]

Thank's for all the replys guys much appreciated.