(02-12-2021, 02:30 PM)filletedalive Wrote: My experience with the jackers comes down to two factors.
1. Is my jig presentation as close to horizontal as possible?
2. Are the height, length, and trigger pressure set correctly for either a light or medium action rod.
I can’t point you to a specific rod but previous years I used medium action rods with near perfect hookset (the hook was all the way through the roof of the mouth)
This year I tried a light action rod with the height settings as high as possible and the length setting short to match the rod.
I got equal success. Which, surprised me.
The jacker caught dozens of white bass, perch and a number of trout on the light action rod with one miss at bountiful lake.
The second part of my response did not post. So here it is.
The first year with the jacker, I went with stiff action rods I had around the house and set them with maximum force when triggered.
This resulted in dozens of miss hooks. A would guess a 2 hookset to 10 trigger ratio. Not good.
I switched to my cheap medium action rods $10-$20 range and set them to medium force (find the maximum then adjust the height settings down one) and switched to horizontal presentations.
That resulted in a huge difference. I would say 8 hooks out of ten triggers.
That’s good.
One note on the rod eyelet. The rods I use on the jacker have the two guides on the side of the main eyelet. This is where the trigger loop is attached. I don’t know if it’s related to it’s success rate. But it bothered me to have the trigger loop in the eyelet where the main line was.
Prior to any trip I take the rod and the jacker and set it up on the table to find the setting one back from the maximum.
I hope this helps. But you may already have the “right rod” hopefully you can save some cash and improve the catch rate.
I am jealous of the ten hook ups for 8 triggers.
I have not worked with the length setting at all. I'll have to try that out.
I started with stiff rods and would rarely hook up. When I did hook up and land a fish it would have rips in the tops of the mouth. That's why I went to a slower rod. This did help some.
I also tried a rod where I had to have main line in rod eyelet and I did not like it at all.
You mention trigger pressure set correctly. In my frustration I run the trigger pretty much as light as possible.
Is this a bad thing?
How do you determine correct trigger pressure?
Next year when they become available again I am planning on getting a jigging base.
Do you have any experience with these?
Are they worth the $100.00?
(02-12-2021, 04:42 PM)DailyAngler Wrote: I have had good luck with the Shakespeare fuel ice combo (red and black). Seems like a good balance of flex to backbone good drag system and guides and only around $15 i just bought 2 more and put braided line on for good hookset.I had not thought of trying braid on jacker rod.
I will swap out the reel to one with braid on it and see how it goes.
I will also take a look at try the action of the fuel ice rod.
Thanks