Thread: My DIY Projects and Great Adventures

After some thought, I moved the blades in closer to each other and swapped out for a smaller size as well. Bent the wire a little differently so as to hide it alongside the body. Just take a little more fiddling to get the look I want.



So…..if the curly tail grubs put off enough vibration/sound as they pass by fish, maybe downsizing blades is appropriate.

Originally Posted by Micanopy

Attachment 408087

An idea here. A real ‘What If’s. Yes the underspin wire is crudely formed.

I’ll think some more about all this trolling jig thing.

So these fish have no problem keying in on a plastic flapper thingie going by, and snatch it almost off the aluminum hull itself,……maybe adding jingle bells isn’t a grand concept after all. As soon as I set it down to beholdeth my creation, I was reminded of a bass lure. Looks similar, but much smaller. Jingle Bells gets played while the crappie get slayed.

I think it’s cool, and I possess the only legal votes, so I am gonna explore some more.

They folks used to throw dry catfood out in a cover and them troll through the cover pulling plastic worms back behind the boat and catch bass

Downsized blades yet again.



Starting to look more compact.


These will be my new dangle next to the hull jigs. I was absolutely stunned to see just how close the fish were willing to come to the hull to hit the jig. At one point I was unhooking a fish and flipped the jig overboard to keep it from snagging something. Then went to recast and what do you know- Fish On. It had to have been riding within inches of the boat and maybe a few inches deep. BOOM

Last trip I would say most of my fish were right alongside the boat. Doesn’t make sense to me but they are there. Think of it as spider rigging out the side without the heavy weight stretching the leader out straight. Heavy jig instead. So I had two long lines out the back with 1/16th oz jigs, two in very close to the back of the boat with heavy jigs, and two heavy jigs on 11 foot rods sticking out the side with maybe ten feet of line out the tip. I need to add two more rods where the lines are right beside the boat. I will have to have these at an odd angle, almost parallel to the boat’s sides. In tight so as to avoid fouling when landing other fish. I think I can do it.

My crappie friend(s) use trolling sinkers tied on about a foot ahead of small 1/16th oz jigs. These they dangle off the sides and down a little and do well. I think they would just use heavy jig heads if they had them. Anyways an experiment for next trip out. Can’t go Wednesday due to projected high winds all day and thunderstorms in the morning. So it might be a while before I get to go again.

I really like that Bat Jig and made some new jigs up last night. I was using a 90 degree bend Victory size 1/0 hook for the jigs with the spinner blade wires, and the 1/4 oz jig heads no under spin wire, and a Do-It Whacky hook size #2 for some 1/16th oz jig heads without under spin wires. I had serious issues a while back, losing fish with the Whacky hooks in size #6 and was losing at least half my fish before they could be landed. Very compact jig heads that looked fabulous, but they were not providing a good hook set. I tested out the size #2 Whacky hooks these past couple of trips and because the hook point stands well away and is somewhat further behind, the hook sets were actually very good. Crappie hooks tend to have long shanks for a reason, and that reason has to do with where it catches them. Short shanked hooks work well in stick piles where you would be vertically dipping in between things, but trolling is a completely different game.

So much so in fact that I wanted to use the 60 degree bend Whack hooks to see if they swam better. There are straight hooks, 26 degree, 30 degree, 60 degree and 90 degree jig hooks. Each will “set” differently when pulled and each will swim differently. The forward movement of the boat is setting the hook using my style of fishing, and I just reel them in with maybe an easy twitch to get things started. So the trick is nabbing all the fish that sample my lures by having a tricky little deal in place. Grab this and you can’t spit it in time to save yourself. The tip sticks and then the boat pulls it taught and the fish panics and thrashes and sets the hook himself.

Sharp hooks are also involved in the deal here. The sharper hooks consistently nab the samplers, the nibblers. I have seen my Eagle Claw Lil’ Nasties miss fish. I see the rod flex and then nothing. The Victory hooks this is almost non existent. If the rod indicates there will be a fish on. The biggest difference between these hooks is not size or shape, it is the sharpness.

The fish have thin membranes surrounding stiffer tissues to allow them to guide water backwards and through the gill plates when they suck in a minnow. Hooks hung in that membrane tend to rip free pretty easily. I have been nabbing them just inside the outer edge of their lips, piercing that membrane and the lip tissue holds them for the big wind in. I can measure the quality of my “hook sets” very easily by allowing the fish to flop about on the deck. The EC hooks will usually pop loose all on their own after a few quick flops given a slack line. The Victory hooks do not. I am handling the fish to remove the hook far more often. Which is good….I guess.

Any small deviation in jig design seems to have some sort of effect. I no longer believe that I will discover a perfect do-it-all jig design. That variety will be needed so I can quick switch up designs based on conditions, and…..well their mood. Fickle little fish. The trick seems to be to get them to want to attack by providing a quick stimulus. Reaction bite basically. Swim a jig past them and they might stare. Swim another design by and get another stare. Add a small blade and WHAM here he comes after it. So variety will be what is best going forward.

I noticed that colors are not seeming to play as large a role as most indicate they do. I get bites on orange and chartreuse, but just as many as white or purple and green, etc. The John Deere pattern green and yellow, seems to do best though. So it isn’t that the fish are wanting a different color, rather they are able to catch certain colors better because they can home in on them better. Chartreuse anything seems to be a great choice and it has to do with the stained waters in my local lakes. Had we clear water, I would use white much more often.

This is all kind of like doing a crossword puzzle…..without the benefit of seeing the picture first. Trial and error in the dark, using one hand, missing two fingers, having to pee while mosquitos are biting. Cumbersome and challenging. Just when I think I have part of the puzzle solved, something else comes at me screaming for attention. What about me you big dummy. You forgot about me didn’t you.

Big blades are good. No little blades are good. No no blades are good. What about two blades ? Well we shall see.

DockShooter, those tournament fisherman would put dog food in onion sacks and plant them on Tuesday and then fish the area on tourney day. Minnows eat that and big fish eat little fish. Very effective. Meat fishermen do this too.

Nasty day outside so no fishing. Home making jigs.



Fresh baked straight out the oven. That is some GLOW Yellow paint on top of a bright white coat. I wanted to make some new jigs that would enhance what I am using now. Chartreuse happens to be one color that is almost universal to my best jigs…..so why not add chartreuse jig heads to everything. Very bright in person and glow in UV light very nicely and glow in the dark fair. A great choice. Not sure I want to add eyes as it is kind of a pain in the butt and unless I seal them over with resin they eyes pop off. No fish has a round ball for his head, so eyes are probably not an improvement, but could be a detriment if the eyes were to cover over the chartreuse. Could be unhelpful.

I have taken to carefully trimming the jig heads after pouring and prior to painting. I use flush cutters to clip away bumps and such. I use regular cutters to squeeze around the hook eye’s shank area to remove any lead there as it attracts paint and works to louse the hole up. Then I use a large file, held in one hand at an angle to the table, gently stroke the jig like a mandolin cutting vegetables. Holding the jig over the heat gun I try to keep the hook eye up and away from the source. I also hold the head at the edge so as not to heat the hook shank. I like to swirl in cups of powder paint as my fluid bed is a huge waste as it spits and belches away more than I actually use.

I doubt that I need to bake them but I always do. All paints will transition during that process, and some require it, but simple paints not so much. Use homemade jig holders that need to be redesigned badly. Kind of a hassle the way these work.



Here is a sampling.

Top left is a 1/4 ounce Bat Jig with a 1/0 Victory sickle 90 degree eye, and my wire under spin.
Under that is a 3/16th oz FreeStyle Jig with that same hook and same under spin wire.
Under that is a 1/16th ounce Bat Jig, same hook same wire.
Bottom left is a 1/4 oz Bat Jig with that same hook, no wire under spin.

Right side

On top is a 1/16th ounce Bat Jig using the Do-It Whacky hook, size #2 with 60 degree eye.
Under it is a 1/4 oz Bat Jig, same hook, same 60 degree eye. I am wondering if this will make them swim better than a 90 degree eye. Makes sense that trolling around it would. I made Bat Jigs using each type.

The Whacky Hook in size #6 is NO good for trolling but makes a great jig to vertically dip into brush piles. The size #2 is much larger. Longer and stands higher. It has a shortened shank so many types of plastic baits fit it better than a traditional long shank. Short shank hooks are not really good for crappie, but this one does very well. The fish taste the jig and come straight to my hand thereafter.

Hooks make the jig not the head. Some hooks just work in a superior fashion to others….when being used in a specific manner. Switch techniques what might be a great hook becomes garbage. So my learning experience has revolved around finding a great hook for my style of fishing. So after testing- these two hooks came out on top as far as performance. I measured by seeing how many strikes I get and no fish, and how many pop off during the fight. Of course I was after which gave the fewest of each - right ? One trait each of these hooks contains is they are both very sharp. Smaller the hole during the piercing means less hole to allow hook to be tossed. The victims rise to surface and thrash and that is mostly when the hooks pops free anyways. Quick toss and gone.

Big jigs for close in to the boat and the light jigs for a little further back. That is my current technique. Trolling along at 1.2-1.5 mph.

I watched a video by Eugene the Crazy Machine and he was describing a new style jig called the Ultimate. As he drew out a diagram he seemed to highlight just one feature that made that jig the Ultimate jig, and that was that the point was above the eye. Said he bends regular jigs to achieve this. Both my hooks feature a point that is very much above the eye. I think Eugene knows things, and this was something he taught me.

I also learned elsewhere that the smaller the barb the better it works on crappie. Hmmmmm……I will test crushed barbs at some point. The boat does the initial part of setting the hook, and it keeps them busy fighting that rod, and I crank in steady and lift in one motion. Probably work fine, but would it work better, that is the question. But each of these hooks has a slender and limited barb. Maybe that has something to do with the repeatable good hook sets. Still the jury is out on that one.

I miss tying jigs but those silly little plastics rage in my head when I am trying to fall asleep. What if I slipped that bait on that head. Double spinners came to me that way and I like the idea. Just gonna take some more time to polish the idea up a little. BassMasters use spinner baits with multiple blades and most times they are each of a different size or style. Covering their bases also means only one is actually doing anything for them.

My under spin wire modification and design is solid and I am very happy that I came up with that. Virtually any mold can be easily converted to produce them without destroying it for the designed purpose. The wires are a lot cheaper than the inserts Do-It makes for the Herring Head. Lot cheaper and easier to manage, too. And the best part is they don’t wiggle loose or fall off the lure.

I see where there is a new CNC jig mold. Looking at the pictures it produces a rough looking jig. There is lead on the shank of the eye that should not be there and lead around the hook shank that should not be there. Maybe they used a thin wire hook in a fat wire mold. Something going on there as the Do-It mold I have does a little better with that, and it was $100 less and is not even a CNC mold. The mold also sports 16 cavities and that just makes me quiver with fine delight just thinking about how I could properly line up that many hooks, and not have one just a little off. Every single time. LOL Anyways I am sure production folks would love it. I pour pretty much one jig at a time even when using same mold for different sizes. Maybe that is just silly of me. Shame there isn’t any good money in producing jigs. Fishermen tend to run a little cheap you know. I would have just bought all my jig heads but knew early on that I would end up pouring my own so as to experiment some.

Anyways I am going to form up my new Go-To jig bait lineup and get everything ready for my next great adventure. Want to fill the freezer now. Not sure why I want to do that, but I do. Fun dialing in these lures and trying to reach the Holy Grail of a single jig that works every time on every fish. I doubt it will be possible but if I can narrow the field down to just three or four I will be in Hawg Heaven. Catch me some of them there Slob Croppie for the freezer. And I hate cleaning fish, too.

1/16th oz Slab Curly bait.