Best micro jig for anchovy season?
Printed From: The Fishing Website
Category: Saltwater Fishing
Forum Name: Soft Bait Fishing
Forum Description: Anything to do with this latest and greatest way of catching our favourite species
URL: https://www.fishing.net.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=134891
Printed Date: 08 Jun 2026 at 7:13pm
Topic: Best micro jig for anchovy season?
Posted By: The Tamure Kid
Subject: Best micro jig for anchovy season?
Date Posted: 17 Jan 2021 at 4:31pm
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Team, I'm keen to mix it up during the Waitemata late summer anchovy season action - and have a go at casting some micro jigs, rather than just soft baiting. Thinking 20-30g for flicking ahead in 10-20m depths and fish it basically like a softbait, a few hops and lifts on the way back to the boat. Last year I tried a 30g Little Jack jig in anchovy colours that Greg from GoFish sold me, and it worked well. But I seem to have lost it. There seem to be so many jigs on the market, some leaf shaped, some much narrower. What jigs would you recommend? |
Replies:
Posted By: smudge
Date Posted: 17 Jan 2021 at 4:42pm
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Crikey that's a good question TTK. One of those little flea jigs would go well. Dunno what colour would be best but snapper don't appear to be as fussy out west ------------- Best gurnard fisherman in my street |
Posted By: Muppet
Date Posted: 17 Jan 2021 at 6:26pm
| Yeah they are great. Still did not sell my hard vibe baits so might give them a go too |
Posted By: Ecko
Date Posted: 17 Jan 2021 at 7:10pm
I've just ordered some of Kavemans micro whippets since there are so many anchovies where I'm fishing. Looking forward to trying them out! |
Posted By: The Tamure Kid
Date Posted: 17 Jan 2021 at 7:47pm
Interesting Dan. I bought a couple of hard vibes over in Oz - had never seen them before - but typical, haven't used them... Nomad has a new soft vibe in the Aussie market which flutters on the drop as well as vibrates when pulled. They look dynamite for snapper, but I'd be reaching for pliers to get the little trebles out! |
Muppet wrote:Posted By: The Tamure Kid
Date Posted: 17 Jan 2021 at 7:55pm
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That matches the hatch, for sure Ecko. Looks incredibly like the real thing, great attention to detail including the red gill plate. Let us know how you get on. It'd be great to hear from Kev what the various actions are of his micros - including the Whippet. e.g. I presume that one flutters on the drop, doesn't appear to be tail weighted to drop fast. To see if I could find a description I typed "Kaveman micro Whippet" into Google and it spat out a rocket scientist forum comment!! i guess it found "micro + Caveman + whippet"  "Here's the curve from a Caveman micro hybrid with a paper fuel grain and the small nitrous whippet:" A few years ago a few guys on the forum spoke very highly of his Orange striped CJ which looks similar to the Blue Blue Searide. But I imagine that has a very different action to the Whippet. The image below is the Little Jack lure I got from GoFish. Also looks very life like and fluttered and flashed on the drop. It has a strange bend in the body to assist the fluttering. One of the assist chords got bitten off, but I still caught on the remaining hook.  |
Posted By: kaveman
Date Posted: 17 Jan 2021 at 10:08pm
They work well echo but nothing will beat the hornet in Lumo colour. It beats ever lure by 4;1 without fail when anchovies are around -------------  www.kavemantackle.co.nz
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Posted By: kaveman
Date Posted: 17 Jan 2021 at 10:09pm
------------- www.kavemantackle.co.nz
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Posted By: The Tamure Kid
Date Posted: 17 Jan 2021 at 10:24pm
Great tip from the man himself. Thanks Kev. How should we fish the Micro Hornet? Cast into the edge of the action and just let it freefall? When would you use a CJ? The trickiest thing for me when considering small jigs is trying to decipher the various lure shapes and what they are best used for. I don't want to spend and hour fishing the wrong lure or the right lure the wrong way, catch nothing, and go "micro jigging is rubbish".
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Posted By: Ecko
Date Posted: 18 Jan 2021 at 11:41am
Thanks to Kev for updating my order by text message and including Lumo Hornets
Master salesperson |
Posted By: Ecko
Date Posted: 18 Jan 2021 at 11:46am
Keen to now also hear how to fish the Hornets, big slow lift, followed by a wind, pause, repeat? |
Posted By: kaveman
Date Posted: 18 Jan 2021 at 1:20pm
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The hornets are very easy to fish, they are a minitaure knife jig so sink very quick. I cast in front of my drift line and just give subtle lifts and let fall again. 99% of strikes are on the fall. Dont over work this jig, snapper seem to pick it up off the ocean floor. The CJ and Ridgeback models both have way more action, especially the CJ, it darts and dives very erratically. Seems to drive fish wild, have caught snapper to over 10kg with this lure. Fishes very well in the rod holder too especially when there is a bit of swell. Lumo silver , orange lumo and our new red lumo colours fish extremely well on our east coast fish Good luck ------------- www.kavemantackle.co.nz
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Posted By: kaveman
Date Posted: 18 Jan 2021 at 1:23pm
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Micro jigs fish extremely well when fish are a bit picky, being small, the snapper seem to be eating them under any type of workup as they look like bit of food fluttering to the bottom Best time of the year is right now running up to June, fish are starting to feed up hard after spawning and putting on condition
------------- www.kavemantackle.co.nz
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Posted By: Muppet
Date Posted: 19 Jan 2021 at 9:45pm
| Forgot the Blu Blu jig in 20 gram blue colour probably is my favourite. Micro and slow jig in one, flutters like mad. |
Posted By: kaveman
Date Posted: 20 Jan 2021 at 6:26am
yes, the blu blu were made for shore jigging, my CJ(short for "casting jig") are a bit similar. My jig is quite a bit wider in the body than blu blu but similar action They have the most action of any jig i have ever seen ------------- www.kavemantackle.co.nz
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Posted By: Barbary B
Date Posted: 20 Jan 2021 at 3:02pm
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My top three 1. Metal Addict number 3 - purple/blue or brown in 30 or 40g. Will get hits on anything from snapper, kahawai to kingfish  2. Ocean Angler tungsten flea in silver or silver with red stripe - 14 mainly but sometimes 21g 3. Yakamito demersal jigs - the red one and the green and silver - when the fish are holding higher in the water column  ------------- "Look ahead, look astern, look to weather, look to lea Look down along the coast of High Barbary..." |
Posted By: The Tamure Kid
Date Posted: 20 Jan 2021 at 4:38pm
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Great input, BB, thanks for that. Broadening my education for sure. I've never heard of the Yakamito brand. How do you fish the 03 shape, just dropping in the water column? They have a bizarre shape, unlike any other lure I've seen. It's hard to find the Metal Adicts now. Greg at GoFish appears to be one of the last worldwide with stock of Little Jacks of any type. The manufacturer may have gone under due to Covid. Greg says the supply chain has ground to a halt in many cases. |
Posted By: Barbary B
Date Posted: 20 Jan 2021 at 4:44pm
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I cast the 03s downdrift as far as I can - count 1 second for every metre's depth then if it isnt hit on the way down do three or four sharp raps - wait for slack line again, reel in a couple of turns and repeat all the way back to when the line is vertically down by the boat.
------------- "Look ahead, look astern, look to weather, look to lea Look down along the coast of High Barbary..." |
Posted By: MB
Date Posted: 20 Jan 2021 at 6:15pm
| It's cool you're getting in to it TKK. Don't think I can add much to the other posts, just consider hook strength. Kaveman hooks are good, but I've had hooks from other more expensive brands break on decent snapper. |
Posted By: The Tamure Kid
Date Posted: 20 Jan 2021 at 7:52pm
Again, thanks for the help. It'll be fun to add another string to the bow, after only a very quick attempt last summer before Covid popped up. |
Posted By: The Tamure Kid
Date Posted: 20 Jan 2021 at 8:03pm
Thanks MB. I actually bought my first jigs at Tisdalls on Queen St as a teenager in the 1980s craze, when Lethal, Grim Reaper and Branks were leading the charge. I remember watching Geoff Thomas' Snapper Secrets on VHF over and over, with a segment on jigging with one of the instigators, Bruce Riley (who was a regular at my fly fishing club too). Something about lure fishing just appealed to me back in those days. Convincing my dad to give it a try wasn't so easy. But one day we had a go in the Motuihe Channel, attaching 40g plain chrome Branks lures with single hooks attached to the 'bottom' of the jigs to heavy mono lines and yo yod up and down on old fibreglass boat rods! It was an incoming tide and we drifted past anchored bait fishos looking at us like we were nuts and almost immediately each hooked twin 6lb trevally near one of the buoys, and then some nice snapper. We were amazed. But dad never fully trusted the method and the next season I had to go back to what he knew - bait. Those old tail weighted jigs will still be in his garage somewhere, I should try to find them. Thank god, decades later we have vastly improved gear with braid and graphite rods, all the Japanese-led jig designs, and I have my own boat so I fish lures and try different techniques as much as I want...  |
Posted By: MB
Date Posted: 20 Jan 2021 at 10:48pm
| Sound like good memories! |
Posted By: viscount
Date Posted: 21 Jan 2021 at 5:17am
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Any Japanese tackle stores has a range of TG micro jigs that look like pilchards or anchovies, ------------- Calling fishing a hobby is like calling brain surgery a job - Paul Schullery |
Posted By: The Tamure Kid
Date Posted: 21 Jan 2021 at 12:35pm
| "TG" being tungsten? |
Posted By: pjc
Date Posted: 21 Jan 2021 at 1:14pm
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Geez TK buying from "Tisdalls" remember hewlit & bale when they were on Quay st?? use to catch ferry from Devonport run in to HnB grab what was needed and if quick caught same ferry back. Been in touch with Tzer and hes given me some good advice,just need to put it in to practice now.Bl@#dy wind.
------------- Sex at 58.Lucky I live at 56 |
Posted By: Fish Addict
Date Posted: 21 Jan 2021 at 2:37pm
| I remember Tisdalls well from the early 1960s. As a kid I was into all sports but primarily tennis and fishing and any trip into the city would result in much time being spent in Tisdalls and also Frank Wisemans which was nearby. Good days. |
Posted By: smudge
Date Posted: 21 Jan 2021 at 2:49pm
Ha I used to call in there as a kid whenever I went to the city - about 3 times hehe ------------- Best gurnard fisherman in my street |
Posted By: The Tamure Kid
Date Posted: 21 Jan 2021 at 4:36pm
Haha, sure do. When I first started tying trout flies in the '80s as a teenager, I got pretty good at it despite using very budget vice and equipment, and one day when I'd gone in on the bus to buy some fly tying hooks etc one of the shopkeepers at Hewitt and Bale asked me to tie flies for them in my holidays. I think I got paid 40c a fly - mostly nymphs and Rabbits using skins I had from shooting, and Parsons Glories; and they sold them for a dollar. I think overall I earned less per hour than a child slave labourer in Bangladesh!! I grew up in Howick, and The Gun Shop was my treasure trove in the main street. Fishing and hunting gear, along with cricket bats etc. The owners had a bach near the Waitahanui, from recall, and i talked their ears off about trout fishing - which fascinated me despite having no family history or mentor in freshwater fishing. ditto re the wind, it's like spring again. The anchovies will be heading inshore. I'm ordering a few lures online from the advice in the thread and looking forward to having a rod rigged up ready to go, alongside my usual softbait rod, and a light top water kingie rod. A couple of years ago I hooked a kahawai out from Eastern Beach among huge anchovy schools, handed the rod to my boy to play and the kahawai got taken by a kingie - needless to say it spat the kahawai after a blazing run, but now I go prepared for marauding kingies. |
Posted By: Barbary B
Date Posted: 21 Jan 2021 at 4:54pm
If you are using the Metal Addict 3 - use 40lb flouro as getting a kingy hit directly is on the cards if you cast straight into the middle of a work up. ------------- "Look ahead, look astern, look to weather, look to lea Look down along the coast of High Barbary..." |
Posted By: Muppet
Date Posted: 21 Jan 2021 at 7:49pm
 Still my favourite little jig catch on a 11.5 gram with a seal up its arse for the fight. |
Posted By: The Tamure Kid
Date Posted: 21 Jan 2021 at 8:04pm
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Great catch, Dan. Elephants eat peanuts, as they say. I remembered you mentioning you'd done well on micros at times, and discussions on the forum about the best ones to try, but I couldn't find a thread with the info I was after. The tips on here have been very helpful. Greg sold me some of his last Little Jacks yesterday.
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Posted By: viscount
Date Posted: 22 Jan 2021 at 4:45am
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Yes indeed, have a look at the gungun jigs and soul jigs. ------------- Calling fishing a hobby is like calling brain surgery a job - Paul Schullery |
Posted By: Kandrew
Date Posted: 28 Jan 2021 at 9:37pm
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I’ve been fishing micro jigs on and off for a couple of years, brought some hornets from Cave Man and they are a good quality product. I was fishing the flea titanium jigs over Christmas in bruised banana which had a great catch rate but after a couple of hours there wasn’t a lot of paint left on the lure, so for the extra dollars I’ll stay with the hornets. I like to fish SBs and The only thing I find when using micros is that I do catch a lot of smaller fish, probably the way I fish them. But I do think SBs catch larger fish. Because of the small hook you do have play the fish with a very light drag, no pumping or high sticking the rod or you’ll pull the hook. Great way to fish love lure fishing, good luck |
Posted By: The Tamure Kid
Date Posted: 28 Jan 2021 at 10:24pm
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Thanks for those tips. Certainly interested in adding another string to the bow in that 8-25m depth i fish 90% of the time. I'm definitely a softbaiter first, but it won't hurt to have another lure method to try, just to mix it up.
Interesting comments about smaller fish on micros. From what i've read about micro jigging for snapper - particularly around anchovy season surface action - is that the order of fish tends to be kahawai first, then small snapper second (usually right under the action), and the bigger snapper come along third, as they're feeding down current in the exhaust. So according to at least two articles, it's better to fish away from the immediate action rather than right into it (if seeking larger model snapper).
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Posted By: Kandrew
Date Posted: 29 Jan 2021 at 7:36am
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Interesting good information about workups, I was fishing at Christmas over at the firth of Thames on the sand, just drifting with a curly tail dragging out the back and casting a micro around. I noticed the SB caught the bigger fish. So I started dragging the micro as well which worked real good and I got a couple of nice fish on it, but all in all I thought the SB caught the bigger fish. One good thing I like about the micro is you don’t have to worry to much about the bait being pulled down the hook when you get a couple of bites like it does on SBs |
Posted By: The Tamure Kid
Date Posted: 29 Jan 2021 at 10:01am
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If you haven't already, maybe try using Lightbulbs or (I think better) the TT Lures jigheads with Z Mans - they are specifically designed to hold them with a large gap between the 'ribs' and the front of the jighead that the rubber is pushed into (you actually hear a little 'click' if you listen closely). I almost never get tail drag downs.
Below are excerpts from 2 Paul Senior articles in NZ Fishing News (available on the Forum) that make sense to me re anchovy workups in the Waitemata Harbour with mutton birds and terns: ...The usual situation typically consists of a flock of birds feeding in one direction, constantly dipping into the water just ahead or directly on top of feeding kahawai. So if it’s kahawai you want, cast just ahead of the moving birds and retrieve your lure at a medium pace just below the surface. If it’s snapper you want though, try and imagine the snapper doodling behind and below the feeding kahawai; cast your lure just behind the feeding birds and ensure your lure spends more time in the bottom third of the water column. Keep on fishing for five minutes or so after the birds have moved through, and often you will catch the snapper straggling behind the kahawai and feeding on work-up scraps. Kingfish require a different strategy. They hang out around the edges of the working birds and a bit deeper down, so cast just to the outside of the birds and work your lure about halfway down using a medium to fast pace. If the lure stops and you feel a heavy weight that does very little for a few seconds, it could be a large kingfish just figuring out it has been hooked – so get ready for a big battle! And in an article two years later... What generally happens is that a wave of action comes through and everyone hooks up on kahawai... Once most of the kahawai have passed through you will start to catch baby snapper, which can be frustrating, but don’t move just yet. I like to carry on fishing, drifting away from the action. Pretty soon the larger snapper show up, lagging behind the action and hoovering up the leftovers from the bottom. I reckon bigger snapper are lazy and don’t like chasing things around, and because they are smarter than the little ones, they prefer to move slowly and pick up the easy-to-get leftovers. |
Posted By: Kandrew
Date Posted: 29 Jan 2021 at 10:10am
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Yes your right the light bulbs are a great jig head, its just they can split the small curly tail body easily. Thanks for the info though, always good to get another perspective.
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Posted By: The Tamure Kid
Date Posted: 29 Jan 2021 at 10:34am
| Cool. TT Lures aren't as bulky in the ribs, but have the same gap designed for Z Mans...and the hooks aren't as thick in terms of gauge, but are quality Mustads. |
Posted By: Muppet
Date Posted: 29 Jan 2021 at 10:47am
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I have many days casting all day right in the kahawai boil ups and all I was catching was snapper. It was because my soft bait did no match the hatch which the kahawai want but the snapper are not fussed. |
Posted By: The Tamure Kid
Date Posted: 29 Jan 2021 at 10:55am
Well, there you go...another expert view that makes sense. I love a feed of kahawai for sashimi and other dishes, so I might try the 'match the hatch' for them, and 'odd man out' for the snaps... Hopefully the anchovies will start arriving en masse in the next few weeks and I can put all of these tips into action!
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Posted By: MB
Date Posted: 29 Jan 2021 at 11:14am
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Might be hard to track down, but these are a useful cheaper option. I bought a couple for catching koheru I think?! Ditch the treble obviously.
https://ibb.co/NrbkMtD" rel="nofollow">
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