The jigging setup is a 2-3 foot jigline with small shiny hooks on 2-5 inch leaders tied oppositely every 8-12 inches along the line, which has a small weight on the bottom. You simply drop it off a dock and jig it up and down until the fish hit the hooks. It's common to bring in 4-6 fish on a single cast. It helps to chum them in with a bit of corn meal or fish feed.

Today most people won't even bother to dig their own worms, but…

Thirty years ago many frugal fishermen would jig their own herring instead of spending their hard-earned money for not as fresh bait. The fishing trip consisted of finding a school of herring and jigging a couple dozen for bait and then fishing for salmon or other fish with either live or cut bait. Even though herring are not nearly as plentiful today it's still relatively easy to find a school and jig up a good supply.

If you watch carefully for gulls repeatedly diving to the same spot and get there quick you just might find a "herring ball." These "balls" of herring are formed when auklets and some other birds cause a school of herring to compact into a spherical mass near the surface. Should you be lucky enough to find one of these "balls" you can dip more herring than you can use with a couple of swoops of a smelt dipping net.