Art of Jig tying

[Len]

Actually how did the art of jig tying get started? I am sure that tying flies has been around for a long time but was wondering how jig tying came about.

[AWMiller]

You gotta go way back in the eons of time!!! I've seen archeological reports showing a bone that was honed into the shape of a hook and hair that had been woven together and then that was used to catch fish. I'll see if I can find those links cause they were really interesting!

[Redman]

Stay tuned, I am trying to put together a paper on the history of the modern jig. Believe it or not there is not much documented history of this best of all lure. Will try to get something out. It might come in installments.

Redman

[hays47]

Here is where my mind goes off on a tangent and produces this image :

Some primitive cave resident strapping on a whole dead emu on a 905/0 hook carved from mastadon rib bone. Using grapevine for thread. To angle for some leviathan from the deep that was considered delectable. There was no need for the traditional greeting " any luck " as the entire community would be involved in landing the beast once he fell for the bait. Rod used was a 25' medium heavy palm tree. With a stone ax shaved handle for a comfort grip. Since rulers were not invented yet the leviathan fish were measured by how many fingers the lake went down when fish was hauled out.

I can just hear Gronk the caveman angler telling his friends " You should have seen the one we lost yesterday. " OK OK I will stop.

Thanks Len for putting this image in whats left of my mind

[ShilohRed]

It started when Jonah was the Bait and the whale came by.
Pete

[grubfarmer67]

saw a documentary on Ben Franklin once",he used woven horse hair to fly fish w/ a bamboo type rod,and home made flys tied much the same",But I know it go's much farther back in time"I thing'k jigs derived from fly tying"personally":rolleyes:

[Redman]

Hays you are right it was Gronk that most problily the first. What I want to do is to take it from1947 to present.
We can thank Hitler and Tojo for most of the innovations in the fishing industry. It wasn't utill 1947 that we began to get things like nylon, Spinning reels , and Fiberglass rods.
WWII the USA was able to experiment and the sleeping giant had to do something after the war get the service men back in the general population and to work.
I just hope that there is still some of that sleeping giant left to help get us out of the current economic situation,

More will come

Redman

[Fatman]

When some poor jig fisherman got tired of a fly fisherman kicking his butt and catching all the fish and started tieing patterns on a jig head. And the game was on.

Fatman

[hays47]

In all seriousness now I believe some flyfisherman reasoned out a weighted fly was equal to a jig. He went home slapped a jig in his fly tying vise and a fish catching machine was invented.

For those of you who do fly fish you already realize working a fly is not much differnet than working the jig. By the way I used to tear up crappies ( mostly small though ) on a wet fly called the white miller. It was supposed to be a dry fly but a tiny split shot on the leader fixed that. I used to debarb the hook and caught them for stocking private ponds. In exchange the owners would grant me permission to fish his pond. I was probably the only 12 year old with a " little black book ". But it was filled with info on these ponds. From about 11-18 years of age I fished primarily for bass. Crappies were just a tool to gain entrance to some great ponds.

[grubfarmer67]

Hays you are right it was Gronk that most problily the first. What I want to do is to take it from1947 to present.
We can thank Hitler and Tojo for most of the innovations in the fishing industry. It wasn't utill 1947 that we began to get things like nylon, Spinning reels , and Fiberglass rods.
WWII the USA was able to experiment and the sleeping giant had to do something after the war get the service men back in the general population and to work.
I just hope that there is still some of that sleeping giant left to help get us out of the current economic situation,

More will come

Redman

This reminds me of an National Geo book back in the early 80's that explained the ego's between the sleeping giant as you so put it,Japan.both countries had sent our U.S. scientist a thin fiber no thicker than 1/100th's of a frog hair to prove them inferior to us"needless to say"we drilled holes through the middle of those fibers and sent it back to them,and the fiber optics concept was then born on to us..."Your wicked smart Ole' Red"DaddyO