Daiwa Harrier SLJ Super Light Jigging Rods

Super light jigging is a unique and popular Japanese style of bottom fishing, using thin and light line with smaller jigs. Because of how light and sensitive the rods are it is easy to tell when you’ve got a bite, and unlike other jigging styles these rods have a faster bend which makes it easier to bring fish in. We recently got introduced to SLJ by some Japanese colleagues from Valley Hill whom we took out to fish with us for some product development and testing. In the few hours we fished with them we were able to catch spotties, halibut, calico bass, sand bass, sculpin, square spots and vermillion reds and since then we’ve been using the same rods for a lot of our bass fishing because of how comfortable they are to fish with.

With this style you’ll want to be vertical, drop the jig straight down and bounce it near the bottom for the best chances of getting bit. They didn’t work as well when we tried to cast and retrieve them like other lures, but that is mainly dependent on the type of jig. I would recommend the Major Craft Jigpara Tungsten and Submission Sumo jigs to get started with, they’re very versatile and have a proven record for catching bass in SoCal. I’d recommend going even lighter than 20lb braid just to prevent scope, I was able to stay vertical in 150 feet of water with a 60g jig using a PE 0.8 or 10lb line.

Daiwa doesn’t mention this anywhere on their site besides the decal on the butt of the rod, but these rods come with solid tips or “Mega Top” as they call it. Instead of a tubular piece of carbon fiber, the tips are solid and glued into the rest of the blank which makes the tips on these extremely sensitive because of how thin they are while still being durable. The solid tips flex and recoil much better when working lighter jigs and have become popular in Japan with SLJ, aging and some bass fishing rods.

• 6’10” 1 Piece
• Solid carbon fiber tip
• Spinning guide layout