Deep-drop jig
A deep-drop jig is a big bait fished on the bottom in water deeper than most boats ever fish. At 16-48 oz on a circle hook it wants a rod that is as stiff as rods get and bends through its middle, printed as extra-heavy. Useful when bait-stealing fish make rigged baits impractical. The drift also has to be slow enough to keep the jig near vertical.
A heavy metal jig, usually with a luminous finish, dropped to the bottom in deep water and worked with long slow lifts. It replaces a natural bait when small fish are stripping baits faster than they can be rigged, and it lets an angler keep working the bottom without hauling everything back up. It asks more of the angler than a rigged bait does, since the jig only works if it is being moved.
How to Fish It
Drop to bottom. Lift the rod through a long slow arc, then reel in the slack as you lower it again. Repeat for ten or fifteen turns of the handle before dropping back.
Rated for clear and stained water, because 6-12" of bait is found by sight and the water has to be clean enough for a fish to pick it out at distance.
800-1800 ft is the band it fishes, and it does nothing worth doing shallower than that; below 1800 ft a different bait is the answer, because this one is absent and not merely slow.
It is sold 6-12", and length and weight move independently: that range is wide enough that its smallest and largest are different baits to fish.
When to Throw It
Useful when bait-stealing fish make rigged baits impractical. The drift also has to be slow enough to keep the jig near vertical.
Wrong in a fast drift that puts the line at a steep angle. The jig never reaches the bottom it was meant to work.
Letting a Circle Hook Set
A circle hook — a point curved back to catch the jaw's corner as line tightens — is turned by the fish, not by the angler. Under 16-48 oz of bait it slides to the corner of the jaw and rotates there against a steady pull, so the rod is chosen for how evenly it holds a bend. Swinging at the bite pulls the hook out before it can turn.
16-48 oz rules a rod in or out before anything else does, and one profile here covers it: 5'6" extra-heavy, moderate action stand-up, whose card says what it is bad at.
5'6" extra-heavy, moderate action stand-up
- Length
- 5'6"
- Power
- extra-heavy
- Action
- moderate
- Casts
- 32-200 oz
- Line
- 80-200 lb
Nothing about this rod is about casting, so the usual questions do not apply. Its 32-200 oz window takes that weight without being at either end of it.
Cannot cast, and nothing under two pounds will bend it at all.
The One Fish It Catches
Swordfish
- Water
- saltwater
- Mouth
- hard
- Line floor
- 60 lb
Swordfish have to be lifted by the rod, not wound in, so the line under this bait starts at about 60 lb. A swordfish is caught in 1,500 to 2,000 feet of water, and that depth decides the tackle before anything else does.
Everything else this fish is caught on is on its lures page. This bait is one entry there, and not always the first one to try.
The Method It Belongs To
Deep Drop
- Where it sits
- vertical
- Power
- extra-heavy
- Action
- moderate or moderate-fast
- Difficulty
- advanced
A short, extra-heavy rod keeps the weight close to the angler and lifts against several pounds of lead and drag without the tip folding.
Swinging to set a circle hook, which pulls the hook out of the corner of the jaw instead of into it.
Where This Decision Goes Next
Rigged squid deep-drop bait
Fished the same way in clear water at 64-160 oz. The swap to make when the water changes, not when the plan does.
Find a rod that throws a deep-drop jig
Five questions, four of them skippable. Answer them and you get the rods that cast this weight for the fish you are after — or, if you name a rod you own, whether it is one of them.