Fernando Almada of Catch22 Sportfishing out of San Carlos in Sonora has been putting charters into slow pitch jigging for deepwater grouper. What first boomed in Japan and Southeast Asia has taken off in deepwater grounds in Mexico where Capt. Whereas narrower jigs and Butterfly style offerings are designed for more vertical deployment with anglers cranking hard from bottom up or allowing for a slight flutter straight down on the drop, the center-weighted slow pitch jigs move with a more pronounced, side-to-side swing as they fall (quite similar to how Sato Norihiro found prey fish escaping horizontally). Slow pitch jigs are center-weighted and mostly leaf-shaped in design, allowing them to dig and dance in more horizontal fashion on the drop. The slow pitch style jigs differ greatly from others on the market today, and the approach to fishing them is equally different. While many of us were introduced at an early age to the rather exhausting approach to speed jigging or squidding, newer designs out of China, Hong Kong and Japan – where many of the world’s most cutting edge tactics are often developed, often out of necessity – in the first part of the 21st century we’ve also been introduced to flutter style jigs, and the long and narrow Butterfly jigs or beetle-shaped Lucanus from Shimano. Over the past two decades, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic anglers have been introduced to a variety of new jigging tactics and techniques. “He even created a new way of pitching the rod,” Cheung said, explaining this as “the most basic beginning of slow jigging technique.” Mother of Invention Frank explained that it was Sato Norihiro who developed the first slow-sinking jig, testing it along the shallow waters like where he watched those first fish boils. “Through this natural phenomenon, Sato san started to think, ‘why not make a jig with a longer time-lapse fall to imitate a shocked or stunned bait fish’ so that the big fish will have more chance to bite the jig,” said Frank Cheung, managing director at Maxel Reels.

Finally, predatory fish would focus on prey not hurt during the initial attack but fleeing in straight line, away from the group.

Big fish would then turn their attention to wounded prey fleeing in helical fashion.

The bigger fish first attacked the small fish which were shocked and stunned after collision during the assault, thus falling in defoliation form.

He was so intrigued by the sight of the blitz that he jumped into the sea to observe the action up close, intently studying how predatory fish went about catching smaller fish:

Norihiro saw how tprey had nowhere to escape, thus foaming the water surface in a boil. It’s said that the “slow pitch” jigging fishing technique was born in Japan a decade ago when Sato Norihiro sat in study of the water in front of him. Slow pitch jigs differ greatly from other styles, and the approach to fishing them is equally different. Soft tips and plenty of backbone give today’s high tech rods the “slow pitch” focus with plenty of versatility and outstanding price points.

Maxel platinum slow pitch rod