Jigging Rig

[Lenny41]

G'day Fellas,

New to the site, first post. I picked up a cheap Okuma Catalina 30L overhead and 300yds of 80pd braid at a closing down sale recently and was wondering if this reel would be suitable for deep water jigging? The guy I bought it off didn't seem to be able to offer much advice, no doubt why he was closing down but I bought the reel anyway - $150 seemed like a good price. Whilst it is a levelwind the mechanism appears very sturdy and the reel has an oversized gearbox.
Also, I was after a jig stick to match. Something in the 37kg range perhaps a blue rose, T-curve or jigwrex. Shimano seem to do quite a few but I haven't seen much else around. Any other brands available that you'd recommend?

Lenny

[mattooty]

Cant comment on how it would go for jigging but one of my mates uses the same reel for longtails off the rocks and seems to go really good. the drag on them isnt amazing but its really quite smooth. I think max drag is around maybe 7 or 8kg maybe...maybe...

[metaloid]

G'Day Lenny,

The T-Curve is quite versatile and sounds like a good match for your reel, or if you want to save some $$, you could try the Silstar Crystal Blue Heavy Jig.


Now having said that, I'm not too sure that you've picked the best tool for the job (deep water jigging). That does not mean that you can't use the Catalina for jigging, but imo you're going to be restricted both by lure speed and drag pressure. Again it's not mandatory to retrieve 0.9m per crank at a million miles per hour, or to fish with 10Kg of drag but that's nice to have the choice! It'll all make sense once you've been smoked with what you thought was a locked-up drag!

[Lenny41]

Cheers fellas,

Metaloid, I suspected that would be the case. I'll give it a run though as I don't plan on jigging that often and being a glutton for punishment the thought of being smoked is somewhat appealling. Ha Ha.