Hit the nail on the head, I don't believe jigging or plastics are any better than bait, I use all three techniques and I would pick a standard paternoster and bait over the others if I could only choose one.

Jigging is more fun and you feel the hits better but then there's always the element of doubt in your action, good old bait will be eaten no matter what if the fish is hungry, care free fishing.

 I've had many days when bait/jigs/plastic have their turn on outfishing the other by a mile ( 3 guys fishing all techniques).  For me, plastics have won on most occasions. 

Also, for me - Artificials will almost always account for the larger fish, big predators.. while bait will fill out the bag catching the just size pinks and balds. 

Jigging rods are good for jigging, but will struggle dropping any heavy weights/bait.. I prefer r6 foot Pe2/3 with plenty of action. 

Just my 2 cents 

 I'm no jigging master..... but I own a dedicated jigging setup . Jignesis pe2-3 Diawa saltiga td10. I bought this setup to give me as much confidence as possible, that is catch heaps of fish...? That didn't happen straight away. On a good day a dhu would smash my jig first drop and I thought this is it from now on. Not the case, with time and experience some things needed to change. No more long drifts like we do with baits, find the fish and drop on them. Most of my better fish were first drops. Getting the right weight jig for conditions and depth is important. Add to that a good understanding of style and rod bounce, to get that jig to flip and dance without over doing it! The rod should do 70% of the action, light as you dare leaders good Fg knot and your getting close. My go too action to entice a strike from dhu's is something I discovered by accident and it's definitely not classic YouTube quality

 And that what makes me think the rod selection is a bit of a fallacy. Its with all styles of bottom bouncing. First drop bang there on. That fish wouldn't no what rod im holding haha

And you see it time and time again with all styles of bottom bouncing, first drop, Bang, you will pull one or 2 fish out and its over move on.

But what your saying is 70% in the rod, if thats the case I'm going shopping haha.

You can use a broom stick and catch fish if there on, but I'd your talking specialized jig rods the parabolic bend and rebound imparts the action, horses for courses I suppose 

A dedicated jig rod suited to that style of jig is definitely a benefit. You say "would they catch more fish" ?? If what you are asking is in reference to just using jigs, two guys side by side on a boat, then yes I do believe a dedicated rod in the right hands will out fish someone using a mismatch. But, like anything, is not just the rod, there are soooo many variables.
Using jigs requires a bit more experimenting to work out what works and even some days the current and wind will make it nigh on a fruitless exercise.
Alot of people persist with jigs without understanding their gear or how to best use it, let alone weights, contrast colours, which colours for water colour or time of day etc.
Jigging entices a reaction bite, that is why more commonly bigger fish will target jigs so when these two guys fishing side by side on the boat and the guy who is working his slow fall jig correctly via the action in the rod will probably out fish the guy trying to get his jig to work on a rod that has little action and is alot stiffer.
One some days it will not matter, the fish are just active, this is more in reference to when fish are shut down, low light conditions, dirty water etc, those days when conditions require a bit more skill.
Nothing wrong with a paternoster rig, it works, just not my thing these days when chasing fish in deeper water but when conditions are pretty bad I do revert back to bait but even then I use a setup similar to a bottom meat.

 When I fish for bluebone I use the handine. 150lbs mono and is still my favourite way to do it old school. Same when I squidding, even thou their are dedicated rods for those.

Some great points made above. 

Got me thinking about a few minor tweaks in my approach so far.

Thanks Gents - I appreciate your candour!!

The two biggest reasons why I appreciate a proper jigging rod/outfit are;
   - comfort factor; with a good light set up you can jig for much longer without tiring so much.
   - parabolic rod; it's amazing just how much hurt you can put on huge fish with these very light parabolic jigging rods.

I've been mostly jigging with a proper jigging outfit for about 4 years now, but my first 6 months prior to that, I was using a heavy 7foot Terez spin rod.
And it caught lots of good fish on jig, but I only used it to lift metals 2m off the bottom and back down.
I now have so many more jigging tricks and techniques available when using the jigging outfit.

On the topic of baits vs jigs, I have always happily admitted that good baits will most of the time outfish the jigs.
But, on many occassions, I have absolutely smoked the baited opposition with the jigs. There are just some days when the fish are there, they won't touch the baits, yet they smack the jigs. I first got sold on jigging when on a charter boat trip at the Monties (2017) with 12 people fishing on a still calm day, I got 5 good fish, all on within seconds, while the rest of the boat was getting nothing. I've had about a handful of these types of days when fishing with a large boat of bait fishers.

The comfort and weight factor for myself, works better when jig weight is rated to the rod correctly but not always possible as I go well over on my light rod sometimes.

Big thing as mentioned above, finding and dropping on the fish!! jig wont usually hit the bottom.

 Biggest thing is having a reel with an anti reverse bearing, or you will miss more than you catch.

My little Saltist 40 O/H reel with PE5 must of landed over 250 Sambos in it's time, and all I had was an Ugly stick black tiger rod, 12.5 kg of drag and started with 300gm jigs and went up to 500gm jigs for the deep water on the Derwent or to keep it straight up and down when the boat was moving a bit too quick for the lighter lures.

I was using 300gm out on the Jemini wreck in 30 odd m of water as you need a big lure to tempt a big fish, got 11 of them in about 4.5 hours out there once just using the Red/White 300gm Sea Rock jigs, it was my go to lure for over 5 years jigging the entire Sambo season when the weather permitted (Nov to Feb).

Best fish was 1570mm long.  Biggest Sambo I saw landed went 1655, BIG female got a tag stuck in her and slipped back to the depths to keep on breeding, I recon I kept 10 fish in the 5 season's I was helping on a charter boat.

Cheers, Brendan.

PS If you are fishing metal lures off the beach you should be using a reel with an anti reverse bearing too, I use an Emblem pro 5500 and a Saltiga Surf 6000 with carbontek drag washers for most of my spinning from the beack or rocks.

Double  post