Vertical Jigging near Tsushima Island

May 20th, 2005

This a trip I have been looking forward too for a long time. The weather finally cooperated with us and the waves were not too high. Our jigging boat was the Hiyoshiomaru a famous jigging boat that has a great reputation right within the city limits.

We started the journey at 5am and headed out to Tsushima island, the boat ride takes about 2 hours of straight driving to reach the point. If you're a little sleepy you can always take a nap like these guys. At 7 am we were told to get on out and start fishing!!! Jigging was not so hot to start off with but at 8am the first fish got caught, it was a nice 7.5kg (15lb) maguro tuna. In fact at about this time we could see tuna jumping and attacking the flying fish. (tobi-uo) It was very cool to see a nice 10-30lb tuna surfacing and attacking these bait fish. About an hour later an angler who was fishing near the port of the boat got a HIT and it was a large hiramasa (yellowtail) of about 8kg (16lb)

Overall though the action was slow with not allot of fish caught, a total of 4 yellowtails, one tuna and two rock fish got caught. I myself didn't fair too well along with my partner, but his friend did pretty well with one yellowtail and one tuna caught. I think he won the battle of the first, the most and the biggest, he gets the triple crown on this one! I think the large off shore fish like yellowtail and amberjack are done for the season (until the fall) but on the up-side it looks like tuna and mahi mahi are sure to follow next.

Tight lines,

Nigel Paquin