Home made bait jig rod

[stevemid]

I found a youtube video that showed a guy making one of these so I decided to give it a go. I bought a 4M length of conduit which is enough for two rods. I attached the Ambassedeur 6500 reel with two hose clamps and used a dremel-like tool to drill a hole for the line to pass though into the rod at a 45 degree angle and then used a round headed little bit to deburr the inside and outsides of that hole. The size of the hole keeps the swivel from exiting the rod at the reel end. For the bugle end, I heated the end of the conduit with a heat gun then pressed in with the butt of a large wood file handle this formed the perfectly flaired end. I also deburred this with the dremel tool.

In practice, some times one of the hooks on the sabiki jig will catch on the bugel, but its only a matter of letting the sinker pull out the jig again, pointing the rod end straight down and retrieving the jig into the rod. The conduit has enough stiffness to pull up 3-4 Yakkas at a time but I'd hat to catch anything more sizable on it as it is fairly floppy. Maybe underground conduit - the orange stuff might be sitffer.

Anyway this works really good. The Yakkas seem to be the first things attracted to my burley. Also I keep it in the cockpit and whenever I see a bait ball, I mark it and return for a drop of the bait jigs. Perfect. At the end of the day when I'm rinsing the reels and motors with salt-away I just fill up the tube with salt-away and put it away assuming the fine little hooks won't rust away.
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[Nick H]

Good set up mate, well done on the manufacture of it, you'll find most underground conduit isn't uv stable, so I think you've gone the right way about it.

Nick

[shaungonemad]

That looks like it turned out ok. I bought a proper one from eBay for next to nothing keep an eye out for them.

[Jsmfun]

Top effort I might have a crack at that also

[hainsofast]

mate of mine did it, yeah good idea but they have pretty crappy action

[scottar]

mate of mine did it, yeah good idea but they have pretty crappy action

Indeed. Been there, done that, went back to a standard light action rod as with both the conduit and the store bought sabiki rod I found I was pulling too many hooks. Bait can be hard enough to get to bite to start with let alone having them come off. They certainly do make bait jig management a breeze though.

[stevemid]

Yeah well I'm just learning. In fact I found the video for making the rod whilst searching for how to catch yakka. My experience is that the Yakka are first come around when using a good burley ( not just bread). The they are easy to catch. Today I'm out burying with bread and I can't catch a one. The boat next door are jigging twitching with very light rods and they are steadily catching Yakka. So live and learn


I stand behind everything I say, except usually I'm prone.

[scottar]

Wasn't having a go Steve - if it works for you great. Up our way we are generally jigging bait on the bottom in 20 - 30 metres. I simply found that using the stiffer action of the tube type sabiki rods and the homemade conduit gave the bait fish more of an opportunity to throw the hooks than a light spin or baitcast setup. We don't tend to be fishing the same areas that we are gathering (or trying to gather) bait and as such anchoring and setting up a burley trail on the bait grounds is not a practice that is common although I am sure if we tried it would work. You never stop learning when it comes to fishing - the day you do is the day you start pushing up daisies. That's part of the pastimes appeal.

[stevemid]

Wasn't having a go Steve - if it works for you great. Up our way we are generally jigging bait on the bottom in 20 - 30 metres. I simply found that using the stiffer action of the tube type sabiki rods and the homemade conduit gave the bait fish more of an opportunity to throw the hooks than a light spin or baitcast setup. We don't tend to be fishing the same areas that we are gathering (or trying to gather) bait and as such anchoring and setting up a burley trail on the bait grounds is not a practice that is common although I am sure if we tried it would work. You never stop learning when it comes to fishing - the day you do is the day you start pushing up daisies. That's part of the pastimes appeal.

I didn't take it wrong, Scott. Others have also pointed out weaknesses of the rig for catching fish (which I'm seeing) as well as the strengths it has for keeping the Sabiki bait jig tangle free. This is the great thing about the time we live in - great instant access to how-to information as well as opinions from experienced people. Lets you give anything a go and very quickly come up to speed.