Line recommendation for Doggies

[Michael Sammut]

Hey Guys,

I'm going to Fiji in March and i am going to be doing some jigging for doggies.  I'm not sure what line i should go for on the stella 20k for maximum capacity and breaking strain.

The Varivas Tuna Pe5 is 78lb and Pe6 is 85lb otherwise do i need to go for a heavier line? 

Apparently we could be jigging up to about 250/300m and i will be using a Smith Nirai Rod.

[Dmitrii Novgorodtcev]

??5 and PE6 are what I mainly use for doggies. Considering the depth you specified, PE5 would be better choice by my opinion, because of less drift and more capacity. Smith Nirai is soft enough to be used with PE5 with no problems.

[Brandon Khoo]

Use PE5 and nearly every single doggies you jig up is going to un-releaseable. The combination of lactic acid build-up from a long drawn out fight and the depth you pull them up from will almost guarantee a dead fish.

I've never heard  of anyone jigging for dogtooth in 250-300m! Again, fishing in this depth and pulling them up to the surface will ensure dead fish.

I'm sorry I keep harping on about this but I don't want there to be any doubt that if you want to target doggies in deep water and/or with lighter lines that there will be a very, very high mortality rate.

[Peter Morris]

These questions have many variables...

It really comes down to the terrain you are fishing in.
On a recent trip to Vanuatu we jigged with PE 8 (100lb) over a sea mount and got torn apart.
Doggies were just unstoppable in this extremely challenging terrain.

You have to weigh it up where you are fishing for them but I doubt I would ever use anything less than PE 8

Pete

[Mark Harris]

Just out of interest, do Dogtooths even live as deep as 250-300 metres?

[Stu Hardy]

I agree pe8 a bare minimum, I think pe 10, best reels you can find and add 2 thumbs on the spool and expect to get beaten up. Ceratinly our experience at the Chesterfields. I also agree with Brendon protracted fights were a problem even with this gear, either the sharks got them or they failed to swim away when released.

[Michael Sammut]

thanks for your input guys.  the depth i'm not too sure about, just what i was told from someone so could possibly be around the 100 mark.  wont know until i get there.  bit of different input there between having PE5 or PE8 as a minimum. pe 8 will give about 350m.  should be enough or haven't really got much option?

[Brandon Khoo]

Michael, I sincerely doubt it was 250-300m. Jigging at that depth requires a quite different approach. The guys who jig these depths use lines like PE4 to minimise the line drag.
I have no idea if you find doggies at depths like this!

[Mark Gwynne]

If it does turn out to be that deep I guess this is one of those examples that justifies the new Stella 30000 coming out. Monsterous capacity and monsterous drag.

[Jon Li]

Extreme deep jigging is anything from 500 ~ 1000 m deep using reel with capacity 1200m / PE4 using jig 700~1000 gr.

Jon .

[Michael Sammut]

thanks guys.  I might go for pe8 and see how i go.  I might try to find a yumaya max spool too just incase.

[Brandon Khoo]

John, I think jigging at those depths os with electric reel.

[Jon Li]

John, I think jigging at those depths os with electric reel.

Hi Brandon ,

They use " slow pitch jigging " technique and the results have been quite surprising . Definitely not for everyone .

Jon .

[Brandon Khoo]

I can't imagine going hard with a one kilogram jig!! 

[Dmitrii Novgorodtcev]

I dare to disagree that PE8 is the minimum choice for doggies. Of course, there are situations, when it is good to use such a thick line, but in general situations one has to be aware of its disadvantages:
- In depth more than 80-90m it would be very hard work. You have to use heavier jigs and can not use a fast jerk technics ("from the hand") so liked by doggies sometimes during any long period of time because of your fatigue.
- With such a thick line you will be limited in your tactics. You will have to make less retreives during one drift, because the line angle. And you won't be able to fish next-to-bottom layer for long.

The main idea is that the line selection should be appropriate to the used rod, not the fish. It is the rod that makes a pressure to the fish, and line is just a link. Many anglers have their line broken just because they use rods stiffer than it is appropriate for given line. Or vice a versa, some use thicker line than reasonable for given rod, which makes it difficult to work the jig, though give you no advantage in fighting the fish. There are rods which provide you less fighting time with PE5 than other rods with PE8. So, I think it is not correct to say that "dogtooth must be fished with PE8 or PE6" or any. The line should correlate to the rod and the fishing conditions.

It was mentioned that the rod meant to be used is Smith Nirai. I see no reason to use PE8 with Smith Nirai which is a relatively soft rod with relatively low lifting power. I used such set up and I think it won't give you considerable gain in stopping and lifting the fish in comparison with the case it is equipped with, for example, PE6. If you use Nirai, and especially in the big depth, I would recommend you to use PE5 or PE6 set up and make a shock leader longer. Long shock leader will be a good compensation to the high drag and make it possible to use high drag settings with thinner PE like PE6. Fortunately, this is not casting where we can not use 7-10m shock leaders.

As for the impossibility of successfull release, I think most of doggies bigger than 50kg lifted from 100m depth are hard to be safely released, unfortunately. This is one of the the reasons I tend to like GT casting more recently.