Slow-Pitch Jigging in Long Island Sound
From starboard to port side of the Nancy Ann IV, the only things visible through pea soup fog were clouds of gulls and terns dive-bombing the surface. The aptly named Great Gull Island looked like a scene from Hitchcock’s 1963 horror film, The Birds, only slightly less ominous.
As we motored through a light rain toward The Race—a famous rip southwest of Fishers Island—camera shutters clicked and smiles spread like wildfire in anticipation of the day’s fishing ahead. A strong spring run of bluefish were stacked up in the deep, craggy mouth of Long Island Sound gorging on sand eels. Joined by my coworker, Matt Haeffner, we mugged double-digit blues on slow-pitch and high-pitch jigs to usher in the summer of 2023. Needless to say, my hopes were high for our return to the Eastern Sound one year later.
Setting up for Slow-Pitch Success
We met our cohorts at Duryea’s Orient Point Marina before sun-up. Matt and I were guests of Syd Rives, the marketing manager for Spro and Sea Falcon, who organizes this annual trip to test out Sea Falcon’s jig lineup in Northeast waters. As we lugged our gear down to the dock, Captain Rich Jensen, who has operated Nancy Ann Charters for nearly 50 years, greeted us with firm handshakes. With blue skies and immaculate conditions, group morale was high.
As we steamed around the south side of Plum Island, the Sluiceway—one of three historically fishy rips skirting the Eastern Sound’s edge—appeared on our left. I noted the lack of bird activity and hoped that a quiet surface would translate to action deeper in the water column. Aside from the crinkling of breakfast sandwich foil and clicking of split-ring pliers as we added assist hooks to our jigs, the boat was quiet. There was no bird show and no acres of surface-dimpling sand eels to steal our attention; our collective focus was on tackle tinkering so we’d be ready for the first drop.
With slack tide approaching, Jensen set up for a slow drift in 50 to 60 feet of water. Depths from 40 to 100 feet are his favorite because, in his experience, fish tend to be shy of the Nancy Ann’s rumbling inboards in less than 40 feet. We’d be dropping small, slow-pitch jigs in the 20- to 55-gram range to porgies and black sea bass to put some fillets on ice before focusing on stripers and blues once the tide turned.
Unlike bottom fishing with baited rigs—when you want to be anchored directly over top of structure, Jensen insists a slow, short drift is crucial to slow-pitch success. “Jigging for sea bass, at least around here, is typically better when drifting, and it all boils down to presentation,” he said. As a captain, maintaining a proper presentation requires being slightly more aggressive at the helm; it involves a lot of repositioning the boat and keeping an eye on the fishfinder at all times. “In the Sound, we have a fair amount of current on anchor, even around slack, and for a jig to work best, it needs to be fished straight up and down. You can’t really achieve or maintain that vertical presentation when you’re anchored … you wind up scoping out.” That slow-moving current, he added, enhances the natural action of a slow-pitch jig, which makes fishing both sides of slack tide the prime window for black sea bass early in the season.
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Just before the first drop, Jensen announced we’d be drifting over areas of changing bottom composition. “It could be gravelly, or it could be very sticky with lots of boulders. It just depends on where we mark them,” he said. “I like to find a happy medium to avoid hang-ups. We’ll usually find the sea bass right on the edges of the nasty stuff. They’re almost never over open bottom unless they’re on schools of sand eels.”
Bottom-Fishing Hardware
Our jigs, armed with assist hooks of various sizes, were ready for action. I opted for a jig that became a regular in my kayak-fishing rotation after our 2023 trip—the 45-gram Sea Falcon Z Slow. It’s compact, about 2 inches long, and like most slow-pitch jigs—which are center-balanced—strikes tend to come on the drop. The Z Slow produces an erratic but tight zig-zagging action as it falls. On the other hand, a flatter, fatter profile slow-pitch jig like the Sea Falcon Drain Inchiku falls through the water column like a leaf off a tree, with a wide side-to-side flutter. As a result, both jigs are most effective in slower current, but I opted for the Z Slow because of its tight shimmy on the drop. However, when lifted with a long, upward sweep of the rod—which I later learned is called long-pitch jigging—it swims side to side. In other words, the Z Slow provided the best of both worlds. It may get bit on the way down, but it also draws strikes from fish as it’s jigged upward.
Matt opted for the jig responsible for the bluefish beatdown during our 2023 outing, the Sea Falcon Cutlassfish. With its long, slim profile, it mimics sand eels better than any other jig on the boat. The Cutlassfish is considered a high-pitch jig or “speed jig.” It has sloped, knife-like edges that slice through the water so it sinks quickly, which is why it performs well in deep-water environments with swift current, like The Race. High-pitch jigs fish better with a stronger fast-action rod that can deliver a more deliberate jigging motion, whereas slow-pitch jigs are best fished on a softer blank with a powerful reel that does most of the heavy lifting.
Short-Pitch and Long-Pitch Jigging vs. High-Pitch Jigging
Slow-pitch jigs can be fished one of two ways: with a short pitch or a long pitch. The difference between the two techniques lies in the angler’s approach to lifting (or pitching) the jig.
Short-pitch jigging calls for short lifts of the rod tip to impart a subtle fluttering action on the jig. The Sea Falcon Drain Inchiku works best with a short-pitch approach. It flutters with minimal effort—a brief lift of the rod is all that is needed to get the jig moving.
Long-pitch jigging demands a more exaggerated yet deliberate lift of the rod tip. A long, upward sweep is needed to move the jig through the water and generate the desired action.
Then, there are high-pitch jigs, which are not slow-pitch jigs by definition; they are in a league of their own. High-pitch jigs require a speed-jigging approach to impart action.
Before long, Matt and I were swinging scup and sea bass over the Nancy Ann’s railings to be measured and thrown back or bled and tossed in a cooler. There were a fair number of short fish in the mix at first, and with our slack-current window dwindling, Syd beefed up his offering with a 120-gram Drain Inchiku. A rubber squid skirt adorned his assist hooks to enhance the jig’s lifelike action, and in short order, Syd hauled in one of the biggest sea biscuits of the day. I was ready to switch to the same offering when I noticed a stylish little jig sitting on the fillet table. Its profile was S-shaped, but from the side, it appeared stout like the Z Slow. I learned it was called the Pesce—a new addition to the Sea Falcon lineup of slow-pitch jigs.
The Pesce is unique in that it is designed to be cast and retrieved or vertically jigged to cover different levels of the water column. The S-like profile allows it to swim like a traditional spoon. Eager to see it in action, I tied it on, and moments later, I landed a chunky keeper sea bass of my own.
The fish box was filling up faster than anticipated and we needed heavier jigs to accommodate the now fast-running tide, so it was time to shift gears. We had a short ride to The Race ahead of us, and in those few minutes, Jensen’s son and mate, Rick Jr., stowed the lightweight slow-pitch gear in exchange for only slightly heavier stuff.
Heavy-Duty Slow Pitching
Rob Bulla set his tackle tray down on the fillet table with a clang. It was loaded with long, lean jigs that were perfect for the 120- to 150-foot depths of The Race. This is an area where, historically, one of the most popular tactics is to fish bucktail jigs on a 3-way rig with sinkers from 10 to 16 ounces. Instead, we’d be dropping larger models of the same jigs used for sea bass earlier that morning, and most of them were less than half the standard sinker weight for a 3-way rig. I once read that a good rule of thumb for slow-pitch and high-pitch jigging is to start with one gram of weight for every foot of water, then adjust from there based on current speed. With that in mind, I clipped on a 90-gram Sea Falcon Cutlassfish Semi-Long to get down quickly, while Matt and others opted for 115-gram Sea Falcon Dashing Sliders to start.
It didn’t take long for a big bluefish to hit the deck, where it promptly revealed its half-digested breakfast of juvenile silver hake and sea herring. As we’d soon find out, metals would be the top producer of not only gator blues, but striped bass, too. It felt appropriate to be jigging metals—albeit with a different approach—in the waters that birthed the original Bridgeport Diamond Jig.
Our group was into bass and blues with every drift on the incoming tide, and there were some nice ones in the mix. According to Jensen, “Early in the season, you really want the incoming tide. But as we head into midsummer and fall, the ebb tide produces better because it runs harder here in the eastern Sound.” The rising tide had blessed me with a few stripers, but nothing of size yet. Still, I held faith in the Cutlassfish; its sharp, erratic movements generated a ton of flash from the slightly angular sides, and it was a close match to the size of silver hake we had seen spit up by our catches.
I watched my jig dance its way down again, waiting for it to hit bottom so I could swing it up and away from snags. But before reaching bottom, line stopped coming off the spinning reel and went slack. I hurriedly closed the bail and cranked rapidly until I sensed movement and drove the hooks home. My rod doubled over and bounced with each ferocious headshake. “Please be a good bass,” I thought. After some give and take, Rick Jr. netted and hoisted what was possibly my largest-ever bluefish over the rail.
Steady action continued for a couple hours until half the group had tapped out and Jensen said it was time to head for port.
The Fine-Tuned Details
The Northeast is still catching up to the rapidly growing slow-pitch scene, and as I learned on this trip, having the right rod and reel for the job makes all the difference.
I was able to catch bass and blues with the 90-gram Cutlassfish because my 7-foot, moderate-fast inshore rod was powerful enough to impart action on high-pitch jigs. However, the anglers on board who fished with slow-pitch-specific rods had a clear advantage when it came to working heavier jigs in the fast-moving current of The Race. Most were using Spro’s Musketeer Jigging rods, which have a softer blank that imparts a more precise short-pitch or long-pitch jigging action. The Musketeer’s spiral-guide trains also helped to reduce, if not eliminate, the chance of line wrapping around the rod tip—something I struggled with throughout the day.
Choosing a reel is equally as important as rod selection. Whether you prefer spinning or casting gear, a reel that retrieves between 38 and 46 inches of line per crank is the best fit for the job because it improves an angler’s ability to maintain contact with the jig, resulting in better control and a more natural presentation—crucial factors in deep water. A fast reel spooled with 20- to 30-pound-test braided line will also help to maintain a vertical presentation by reducing drag, which minimizes scoping. Plus, because slow-pitch jigs are often bitten on the drop or during the initial pitch, a reel with a faster retrieve will rapidly pick up slack line, leading to fewer missed bites and more secure hooksets.
With new knowledge and a handful of jigs to experiment with in my home waters of the western Sound, I concluded that investing in a slow-pitch-specific setup for my kayak was the next logical step in dialing in my presentations. The currents in the western Sound don’t hold a candle to The Race, but I’ve got my eye on a few deep rock piles that are sure to give up porgies, sea bass, stripers and more heading into the summer months.
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Source: https://onthewater.com/slow-pitch-jigging-in-long-island-sound
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