Thread: casting jigs/soft plastic

Originally Posted by bee

My #1 is a 3in. curly tail. ice out till ice in.

a friend & I caught and release over 75 crappie this evening, and kept another 22 to eat. ranging from 8.5'' to 10.5''.
all on twister tails. tried alot of different lures, just to see... the twister tail rules at this time.

Sounds like a great trip.

I use all of the offerings at one time or another. Some of the time the action of the bait isn't as important as the time they have to look at it. Using the right action body on the wrong weight head will still not get it done. I tend to use light heads and the "pitch and glide" where you pitch to a given target and take a half a turn on the reel while holding the rod tip at 10 o'clock, creating a long bow in the line, and let it fall. As it does you watch the line, much easier with hi-vis yellow, and set the hook from the wrist if the line does anything you didn't tell it to. Different weight heads give the fish more or less time to react to the bait as it drops through their happy zone and changing this gives more options. I started one day with a 1/8 head with no results. I lightened the hed 4 time and each change to a lighter head generated more fish til I got to a 1/64 that was giving almost a fish on every cast. Curly's, stingers and assassins still ride my box and get used when the fish tell me what they want. You will find what works best on your waters and then you will become confident in a certain presentation and the process will get easier.

great tip, i'm going to try that. i can see how that would work perfect.

Originally Posted by skeetbum

I use all of the offerings at one time or another. Some of the time the action of the bait isn't as important as the time they have to look at it. Using the right action body on the wrong weight head will still not get it done. I tend to use light heads and the "pitch and glide" where you pitch to a given target and take a half a turn on the reel while holding the rod tip at 10 o'clock, creating a long bow in the line, and let it fall. As it does you watch the line, much easier with hi-vis yellow, and set the hook from the wrist if the line does anything you didn't tell it to. Different weight heads give the fish more or less time to react to the bait as it drops through their happy zone and changing this gives more options. I started one day with a 1/8 head with no results. I lightened the hed 4 time and each change to a lighter head generated more fish til I got to a 1/64 that was giving almost a fish on every cast. Curly's, stingers and assassins still ride my box and get used when the fish tell me what they want. You will find what works best on your waters and then you will become confident in a certain presentation and the process will get easier.

I prefer stinger tail when long lining, paddle tail when trolling, and tube tails when slip floating. Each has a purpose.