Singapore Micro Jigging Fever Part 1

Catch Report

by Daniel Wan - Jun 30, 2014

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Singapore, one of the busiest shipping ports of the world with equally busy offshore traffic, surprisingly boasts some excellent micro jigging action if you know just where to go. The Southern Islands off Singapore have some of the best underwater terrain around, undisturbed by commercial fishing activities and pollution. Given the right tides and water conditions, many trevally species come close to these reefs to hunt and ‘boogie-woogie’ to ensure the existence of their kind. These trevally come in all sizes, from the size of one’s palm right to those that you could even serve afternoon tea on!

Trevally abound around the Southern Islands off Singapore!

There’s a growing community of offshore anglers that are downsizing their tackle to get maximum fun and thrill from small trevally yet still being able to handle the bigger ones should they come along. Micro jigs of 30grams and below are ideal to ‘match the hatch’ as the profile of bait here are rather small. As the range of trevally species are quite varied, specifically targeting them and getting consistent results would require some knowledge of their feeding habits and patterns.

Sagai absolutely looove erratic and fast-moving jigs such as the Storm Gomoku Gomame 15 grams

For example, Longfin Trevally (Sagai) love very sudden, erratic actions and they hunt throughout the water column. We’ve found short, frantic motions imparted to a jig using a snapping motion of the wrist repeatedly to work very well. Instead of cranking a full revolution of the handle each time you snap your wrist, turn the handle slowly and gradually while snapping repeatedly. This keeps the jig in the strike zone longer with each snapping motion creating a little flash of the jig’s side.

Slow jigging with Storm Gomoku Koika 40g close to the bottom can yield some pleasant surprises.

On the other hand, try to keep your jig very close to the bottom if one’s targeting Golden Trevally or Diamond Trevally. These species are predominantly bottom feeders (although they do occasionally chase bait far up the water column) and jigs worked about 2-3 metres off the bottom will have a good chance of attracting some attention. The key point is to go slow and easy on the strokes and concentrate on keeping the jig close to the bottom.

One of the common Trevally species often encountered.

Dawn and dusk coinciding with the rising or ebbing tides are happy hours.

Queenies roam all around and can be pretty pesky if you’re targeting something else. This one took a Storm Micro Jig 30g.

Like Diamond Trevally, Pompano also love sifting the bottom for food.
To have a chance at hitting them, keep the jig close to the bottom and go slow.

When the feeding time kicks-in, it’s not uncommon to have double or triple hookups!

Jigging with 20g slow-style jigs such as Storm Koika is still fairly new game but has yielded plenty of results in terms of size and variety.

The Storm Micro Jig is a versatile choice as it can be worked fast and slow in the Southern Islands.

To effectively work such small jigs, we often use light but strong braid such as Sufix 832 in 6lb rating and a lightweight micro-jigging rod such as the Storm Gomoku Keiryo PE0.4-1.