Flat Fall Jigs - Any experience on here?

[Denis_Ruso]

Originally Posted by goldenglory18

Bah, I know its a full day trip, limited load out of Channel Islands. We are leaving dock at 4:30, and I fully expect us to primarily target rocks, with a few hours spent looking for any trophies that are close.

Whatever I get, I'd like it to also be applicable to how WE fish in yaks as well, so I dont really want to go to 200+ oz jigs for this upcoming trip, unless of course it makes sense for Malibu/LA Co/LJ as well.

Personally I have not had any experience fishing calico bass for them so I cant comment on that. But they are great for Sandbass, rockfish and of course fishing offshore for tuna.

Given you will be most likely fishing Ana Capa or Santa Cruz Island there will be no tuna there. You will be targeting yellowtail in the morning. The yellowtail in my experience are not big fans of this jig, although some people do land yellows on these, I have not seen it outside of a hot bite when everything is getting bit. (some would disagree with me on this) For yellowtail I personally would focus more on a surface Iron or a coltsniper or the flylining the liveliest bait in the tank.

As far as rockfishing, the flatfall is about a good as it gets jigging off the bottom but you will be fishing 120-300 feet and you will want one as heavy as you can get it. Sinking a flat fall 2-300 ft with a boat full of people can lead to tangles if you are drifting and the jig is not heavy enough. Jig directly off the bottom. Problem with using them this way is the hooks get snagged on the structure and it suck loosing a 15$ jig rock fishing. I personally keep flat falls for the tuna fishing.

No sense in using a 15$ jig when the rockfish will bite anything down there that's tipped with a squid strip.