Perth samsonfish jigging with Ajiking's new heavy duty Wahoo spin reel PDF Print E-mail

After having watched Seabreeze all week we were stoked to see that Saturday's weather was going to hold up so we were up at 5.30am Saturday and on the water by about 6.30 for a day of jigging.

For those that don't know each year from around December to February / March samsonfish aggregate off the coast of Perth to spawn. This is obviously a win for anyone with a boat suitable enough to take 30-40kms offshore to the spawning grounds and for local charter operators.

In the main aggregations the fish are found in water between 80-200m deep, the more popular spots are around 100-120m deep. Last year the average fish size was 35kg but the larger sizes went to over 50kg - which when you think of dragging one of these monsters up through at least 80m of water it represents a fair bicep-tearing, lower back breaking, tackle-testing challenge.

 

Ajiking WahooThis is also a good place to test out new gear and so for this trip, and for the rest of the season, I had chosen a Lemax SlimMax rod and a new Ajiking (pronounced Ar-jy-king) Wahoo reel. The Wahoo reels are jigging and popping reels new to Oz. They boast a 30kg / 10-piece drag, 8BB, stainless steel gearing, waterproof aluminium body and are a cosmetically appealing piece of kit competitively priced with an RRP around $350 depending on where you shop.

Armed with this and a few other new products we made the one and a quarter hour trip to back of Rottnest Island in good time. On reaching the first spot I dropped down a 350g Bakau knife jig and when it hit the bottom started cranking the jig back up through the water column. I was on straight away! Seven or eight minutes later we started to see colour and eventually a 10-12kg fish came to the surface. It wasn't huge, but it was a good start. 'Not a bad way to kick off the day' I said to the guys on the boat.

Samson fish in WA

A few more drifts later Craig took the SlimMax / Wahoo combo off me and gave it a go. It was his first time out jigging and he'd found the action difficult to get with an overhead setup so I recommended he tried the spinner. It was a good choice because he found his rhythm a lot easier and then suddenly he was on! This was his first ever sambo and after six or seven minutes of intense lower back pain another fish around 12-15kg came to the surface.
For the rest of the day fish were harder to come by than they have been in the past but we were still hooking up every 2-3 drifts.  The next test for the Wahoo came in the form of a 13-14kg fish who was reluctant to come up to start with, but with a bit of gentle, and sometimes not so gentle encouragement it came to the surface.
Perth Samsonfish Jigging with AJKIng

The sizes ranged from 10-12kg for the smaller samsonfish to around 25kg for the largest and last fish of the day, also thrown into the mix was also a small amberjack.

Perth Samsonfish Jigging

It was soon time to begin the hour and a quarter trip home via a short stop off at Carnac Island for a brief snorkel and a cool off swim. All in all it was a good day - the fishing provided us enough entertainment to keep us occupied, the weather was fantastic and the Lemax SlimMax and Ajiking Wahoo handled everything with a breeze.

For more information on Lemax or Ajiking products including the gutsy new Wahoo spin reel visit Four Fish Australia or email This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

 

 

 
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