Hey Jay, yeah we have just booked back in for Jan next year as well, hope you guys get some good weather in April
Jig sizes, we found around the reef's edge where you are mainly jigging 60-100m, 200-300gm jigs were good, in any array of lengths (I mainly stuck with medium length jigs, but the guys were using some shorter ones like sea rocks too and they worked well around the reef). I prefer 250+ even for that depth because they get down quicker so there seems to be less tangles when fishing multiple anglers as less drift of your jig
For the sea mount, 300gm+ jigs are the go....we got all the doggies on approx 300gm medium length jigs, I know mine was a 300gm Daiwa speed jig, Tim's was a Shimano Butterfly, I think around 300gm too, both were blue also....I used a 400gm jig for a while but with the conditions we had it was unnecessary, you might want to pack one just in case though Adrian has a few in that weight range too
My suggestion would be pack a few 200-250gm and a few 300-320gm jigs....we didn't lose many either, maybe 7 or 8 betwen 3 of us for the week lost mainly to toothy critters so no need to go overboard on numbers given the weight restrictions etc
Rods....you can find a million posts on here debating that question haha....as I said earlier, I used my Hots Wei World 52XH and Tim used his Smith AMJ 52EX, both rods did the job admirably, the 52EX was a bit easier lifting the fish in the last stage of the fight, I did have to work pretty hard at that stage really pump the fish using hte butt of the ord and very short strokes a the Hots isn't as stiff, but it wa sa very comfortable rod for the fight for a small guy like me and the fish came on board so....Rods I can think of would include those two, the JM Powerspell range, probably the 300 or 350...gosh, there are heaps more actually....I think the main factors that would influence my actual recommendations would be how big/strong you are, and what if anything you are going to use the rod for apart from catching doggies....if you are going to use it for lighter work too you may want to go towards the lighter end of rods that are up to the task, such as the Hots, rather than go get say a heavy Carpenter
