Having a variety of jigs and lures in the tackle box is normal practice. The bait business now is a $30 million annual industry.
The use of artificial lures to catch bottom fish - as distinct from game fish such as marlin - goes back to the late 1960s when a group of Californian sport fishermen visiting Whakatane brought what were known as diamond jigs with them to try on the famous White Island kingfish.
These were slim, angled silver lures which the local anglers scoffed at. They were accustomed to drifting in the lee of the famous volcano with a slab of skipjack tuna hanging under the boat, hoping that a kingfish would swallow it. There were so many kings at White Island in those days that occasionally the system worked.
But when the American jig experts dropped their flashing metal lures to the sea bed and then worked them up and down the kings went crazy, and Kiwi fishermen had learned a new technique that would revolutionise angling in this country.
At the same time a handful of snapper fishermen in Auckland were experimenting with silver lures to catch snapper. Prominent were a pair of innovative anglers named Frank and Bruce, and they started by taking the handles of old spoons and drilling holes in each end. With split rings and a hook and swivel at either end they were in business. They quickly realised that snapper would eat practically anything, provided it was moving; and to prove a point they rigged up a spark plug and caught fish. But snapper fishermen are a conservative lot, and it took a long time to convince people to try using jigs. The approach soon caught on, and tackle companies starting importing metal jigs in a maze of colours and shapes. The basic technique is the same - you drift with the current, flick the lure ahead of the boat, thumb the line as it sinks, then when it hits the sea bed jerk the rod up and down so the jig flies up and then flutters down, repeating the action while letting some line slip out as the boat moves away from the lure. When it is too far out to be easily controlled it is wound in and the process repeated.
