I fish for porgies from shore almost every day in summer. From my experiences, porgy most certainly do take jigs. In fact, from the certain area I fish, they outproduce bait. The reason isn't much in the motion though as it is in the color. Of the jigs that I have used, 1/4 oz neon yellow twister tail jig heads work well since they are so vibrant. Either with a soft plastic or tied as a bucktail, they always get hits. I noticed that porgy liked biting bright colors years ago, when I was casting a bright jig head with soft plastic for fluke, and I started hooking into porgy. I used this to my advantage by making a rig that would get the best of both the bait and jig worlds of porgy fishing. I use a 1 oz weight, followed by 2ft of mono, and then a 1/4 oz jig head. I fish this rig with what ever shellfish I can find on the beach. I fish it by casting it out, and taking short, very slow sweeps of the rod tip, followed by a long pause. If done correctly, I get fish every cast. I have found only one flaw with this technique; it doesn't work everywhere. I have used the bright jig head idea out in deeper waters fishing from a boat, but in some cases, bait most certainly outproduces. I have not a clue why it is that some places the porgy will hit the jig head with bait, and others they won't even look at it. But as far as I know, there are spots where jigs heads are king!
So take this post with a grain of salt, because the technique doesn't work "everywhere." But whenever the bite is slow, it might just be worth it to throw on a bright color and see if they take it.
1/4 oz as bucktail
1/4 oz plain for use with bait (shellfish, squid, leftovers, lol,
, etc.)