“You should learn gentleman’s jigging, Dave,” my friend Nigel said to me.

“What’s that?” I asked.

Nigel then sent me a YouTube video of one of Japan’s Jigging Pro-Staff Instructors, demonstrating Slow Pitch Jigging. It looked interesting, but I didn’t think much further of it at the time. Four days later, Kaz invited me on my first fishing trip on his boat out to the 50m mark from Omaha. The timing was perfect. It was an awesome trip.

We binned up with mostly Snapper, one big Trevally, and a good-sized Kingfish. What stood out for me was that the bigger Snapper and the Kingfish were caught by Kaz using Slow Pitch Jigging, while I caught the smaller Snappers on Kabura. I was convinced. I showed a photo of the fish to Nigel and told him that I wanted to learn Slow Pitch Jigging.

I was lucky—I already knew a Japanese Slow Pitch Jigging expert. Kaz agreed to teach me SPJ on the next trip and recommended some online sites to read all about it. A lot of the techniques and terminology didn’t make sense at the time, but it became an important foundation for my Slow Pitch Jigging journey.

I had a long time to study up because six months of COVID lockdowns went by before we went on my learn-to-slow-pitch fishing trip. I still wasn’t committed, though, and I started the day off with Kabura, catching a Gurnard and then a Snapper. Meanwhile, Kaz caught a Frostfish and a big Snapper on the Green Hybrid Contact. I found the Kabura fishing a bit slow-paced, so it was time for me to try learn SPJ.

Kaz gave me a quick lesson on how to slow pitch. The basic premise is to lift the rod, then lower the rod while watching the line as the jig falls, and work more of the water column by adding a half-wind during the lift. It didn’t take long to hook my first Snapper on SPJ, then a second, and a third. From then on, I was addicted to SPJ. What makes it a great fishing technique is that you’re actively working the jig to imitate a dying baitfish. It’s the best feeling when the fish takes the jig, most often during the jig’s falling phase.

Fast forward two years from when I first started learning Slow Pitch Jigging. I have now been on numerous SPJ trips, catching a huge variety of species such as Snapper, Kingfish, Kahawai, Trevally, Frost Fish, and Blue Cod. While I’m still learning this technique, my fishing friends were keen to learn SPJ from me. On one trip with Johnny, I recorded the whole tutorial on video and created the YouTube video (CLICK HERE to watch the video). To date, this video has reached 140,000 views, which is something I’m incredibly proud of as part of my fishing journey.

So how do you get started in Slow Pitch Jigging? Just do what I did: get two specialized jigs in two different weights, rig double assist hooks at the top, drop them to the bottom, and lift them up and down until you make contact with a fish. If you were to ask me which are the two must-have jigs, I would recommend the Ocean’s Legacy Long Contact 130g and 170g in Pink Glow and Sardine. Everyone has had success with these two.