IS THIS THE ULTIMATE SUMMER POLE RIG?

Missing bits when fishing shallow? It’s time to dig out the Jigga!

EFORE I visit a fishery I always have an idea in my head about how I’m going to attack it. bites-to-fish ratio wasn’t great, to be honest, and I was missing more than I was happy with.

I needed a change, and while I was looking through my box for a different shallow rig I had noticed I had a few Yorkshire Jiggas made up that I have to admit I had forgotten about.

Out of interest I decided to rig one up, just to see if they were as good as I had been led to believe when they first arrived on the match scene a few years back.

I slipped on a caster and shipped out. Lowering the rig in slowly, it immediately became apparent that the elastic was already streaming from the pole-tip!

With a big F1 in the net I shipped back out and lowered the rig in for the second time with exactly the same result – I have to admit I was gobsmacked at just how effective the Jigga was proving to be.

It didn’t stop there, as literally every drop-in produced a fish within seconds.

I quickly came to the conclusion that when you are shallow fishing for F1s the Jigga is simply unbeatable, and I don’t make that statement lightly.

Every fish hooks itself so you never miss a bite – and you can’t get any better than that!

SO WHAT IS A JIGGA RIG?

There might be some anglers reading this who are wondering what on earth a Jigga is – well, let me explain. Basically it’s a dibberstyle float with a hole through the centre that allows your line to run straight through the middle. The short, weighted stem means the float will settle straight away.

You shot the rig with a bulk of shot as normal, but the float is able to run freely up and down the line, stopped only by a couple of float stops above and below it.

It’s a very direct way of fishing, because when a fish sucks in the hookbait it hooks itself against the pole-tip rather than the float, which offers no resistance.

I must mention here that when fishing the Jigga there really is no need to watch the float. When you get a bite the first thing you will see is the elastic pulling out of top of the pole.