How you got into this?

[AtticaFish]

May be a little off topic but... always love to know background info.

I came about tying lures a little backwards. Picked up a tying kit at a garage sale, for $5, almost 20 years ago, now I'm 30 or so. I didn't have a fly rod then...... or even knew what a crappie was! Spent years makin bugs and spun deer hair flies to fish behind a bobber on my spinning gear for bass and gills. My Dad bought me a fly rod around age 14 and have tied flies and some jigs for bass off and on ever since. My biggest lrg. mouth to date was caught on a fly rod with one of my own spun deer hair mouse/hackle tail.

I got into the jigs about a year ago and have trouble thinking anything else. Switched over from a bassman to crappieman pretty much. Had done well with store bought marabou jigs before, but have many bags of crappie and gills in the deep freeze already this year and most have come from my own jigs. Just love doing this and would like to know any info on how ya all got into tying jigs. - AtticaFish

Personal Goal: Gona make a jig that will catch perch on Erie like the live emerald shiners get em!!!! Wanna see my Dad's jaw drop. :rolleyes:

[OKSTATEjiggy]

Good thread. I got into fly tying when I was around 14 or 15 shortly after my parents got divorced. I have loved fishing since even before I went fishing the first time; Dad's fishing rods and lures and the stories behind them captured my imagination. But Dad never really was into crappie fishing, never flyfished, and he dang sure didn't tie/make his own lures. So I got interested in flyfishing when I saw some shows about it on ESPN on Saturday mornings (I graduated from Saturday morning cartoons to Saturday morning fishing), which led to a visit to Lawton, Oklahoma's only flyshop, Cache Creek Fly Shop. I had tried tying wet flies without a vise, by just holding the hook in my left hand and using my left index finger and right hand to wrap. Then I tried vise grips and needle nose, then finally bought a vise (thanks Mom!) from the fly shop. Tying flies just did something for me to either make sense of the confusion of my parents and their sh**, or just allowed me not to think about it. Then, I discovered vertical jigging for crappie about 5 years ago on the brush-bottomed docks that are common on lakes in Oklahoma. I started off using tube jigs, then tied my first marabou jigs. I found out shortly that the jigs I tied, if fished right, would seem to get more bites than plastics would, and we all know about the gratification felt by catching slab crappie on a jig you created. I too think about little else. If I put half the amount of thought into school and studying the LSAT that I do into jigs and crappie, I would probably have all of my school paid for.

BTW, I think I have my mind set on the jig I will enter in the next swap.

[brimreaper]

A friend of mine is a guide on Lake Wiess and he was working with several other guides when one of them decided to quit the business. He wanted to sell everything that he had for crappie fishing down to and including his boat and rods and reels. I had just got into long line trolling and to start with it was long line jig losing. I was breaking off 20 to 30 jigs a trip. My friend told me that this particular ex guide had "a bunch of jig making stuff for sale". He told me to come by and see if I wanted to buy any of the stuff. Well I bought all he had so I could pour my on jig heads and stay out of the poor house from replacing jigs. There was a ton of marabou and chenille and hooks and lead and tying thread and a cheap vise in the pile but at the time I was only interested in pouring jig heads. I used to fly fish a great deal when my grandfather was alive. He carried me on enough trips to stoke the fly tying fire but when he died my love for fly fishing died with him. I just couldn't go without him being there. I had all this tying material and this vise sitting there so one day I decided to try to tie up a jig...mostly out of boredom. Well the tying bug bit again and I started looking on the internet for information on jig tying and I found the best bunch of people in the world. I have come to enjoy crappie fishing almost as much as I did fly fishing with my grandfather. I just wish both he and my grandmother were here to do it with me. Thanks Crappie.com people for all you have given back to me. I have to add a special thank you to Skip...he answered a thousand newbie questions for me. Fowlmood77 for getting me into the jig swaps and AWmiller for giving me the confidence to do it. Flatfish46 and Cadman for helping me to really enjoy tying again. Flatfish has treated me more like one of his family than just some nutjob on the internet and I will never forget it as long as I live.
......Well you asked and there it is.............brim...PS No Doc Crappie I didn't forget you...thanks for helping me with all my 1/100 oz jig questions and thanks to illigiller and jigging joe for telling me how to tie that pain in the butt kiptail.

[skiptomylu]

Been fishing all my life and was disabled after big time back surgery in 1989. About 1991 I started trading stock and did very well for a long time, but after my Heart surgery (in 2000) I knew what to do but just wouldn't so after losing for two year I said the heck with this and that was 2005 near the end of the year. Actually for about 1 1/2 years (after 2000 Heart Surgery) I didn't feel like doing anything even fishing, but I forced myself to get back to what I do. In the first of 2006 I got frustrated by just being able to fish just so much because of my back mostly and TV all day was not doing it for me. I had a cheap vise that had never been used and a few materials from some sorry kit and I just started tying a few and thought good God these look horrible.

So I started doing research about fly tying and some things that would relate to jigs. After a short time I bought my first true rotary which was a Danvise and started tying with what I had taught myself and posted a few pics on a few boards and some started asking if I sold them. At first I said no just doing this for something to do, but soon changed my mind and made my own web site and kept learning and started selling jigs about April or May of 2006. So I am self taught and proud of what I have been able to learn and do. Now sometime I get too much to do and now last spring I didn't get to fish as much as I wanted so need to do something to change that next spring, LOL!

And that is that.

Skip

[Black Crow]

Great thread. It's good to know more about you guys.

I have fished my whole life. My dad used to take me out and sit me down when I was a baby even before I could hold a pole. So fishing is as much as part of my identity as my blue eyes and last name. Jig tying became an interest because it seemed like a next step or graduation for me. I have fished about every store bought jig and tube out there, but I thought I would find more satisfaction if I could convince a fish to bite a jig I designed. It's in the same satisfaction family as getting ducks to respond to calling. Anyway, last year at about this time I was in "love" with a girl. She and I fished all the time together and she had heard me talk about wanting to get into jig tying. Summer came around and she gave me some news that she would be moving away to North Carolina in a month and she asked me to come with her. I told her I'd think about it and I decided to help her move to NC to give myself a chance to look at the lakes and to see the general area in which I would potentially be living. Long story short, she gave me a parting gift the night before I had to leave to come back home. It was my first vice. I came home and tied my first jigs with it and I loved it.

Time passed and we eventually parted ways. I'll be honest and say that when I sit down at that vice I still think about her sometimes. Not in a sad way though. In a good way like you remember childhood. I still got my jigs though and I still got my fishing. And I'm about as happy and blessed as a fella can be.

[JUNGLEJIMJIGS]

Great thread. I started flyfishing 15 years ago,The price of flies were so high that I bought a cheap vise and materials and went to work tying my own. I'd ask my wife how the looked even though she doesn't fish. One day she told me they would look better if they had eyes. I had some painted jigs so I tied them and liked the way they looked.I started buying jigs in bulk,discovered powder paint,started painting and tying,started selling them to guys at work.The more you tie the better you get.In 2004 I put some on ebay and they sold so I put more up and they sold.Honest,my record amount for a dozen of my flashducks sold for $61.00 this past February.I've learned even more thanks to cc,which is my fun site.Thanks everyone...

[flatfish46]

Great Idea ATT!
I grew up in a modest family My dad grew up all through the depression learned how to life off the land and respect the things that the Good Lord had provided for Him, He passed this on to Me when I was 7 I set in My 1st deerstand by myself with a model 37a 410 and 3 slugs thats the same age I started tying jig's My Dad trout fished and crappie fished most of his life and was a Master ty'er He had quite impressive bug collection to study for fly or jig patterens He taught Me a penny saved is a penny earned even seen him make custom hook's he taught Me alot of thing's forgot more than I remember wish He was here now for a refresher course,but I learned you can always make something better than you can buy that's massed produced also you can target the forage your speices is feeding on one time on the White River we through everything but the sink at them then a wise Old Man said Son you gotta give'im what they want not always what you got ? well we went that night and rounded up a bucket full of brown june bug's from the 7-11 parking lot's under the street light's next day caught the largest Rainbow of My life 7.1lbs Yhat Old Man was right ! so was My Dad that's why I do what I do today and people say how do you catch so many fish I think of them Old Men and tell'im I just give'im what they want !

[redear]

1968, I was 8 or so and dad would take me to the russian river in alaska, 3hrs. from the air base, to fish for salmon. standard procedure was to use a brightly colored bucktail streamer, with about 1/2 oz. weight up the line from it. I marveled at the bucktails, and that christmas dad caught me in the basement making unusable streamers on his bench vise, using those hooks you use to hang ornaments with, and tying on that christmas tree tinsel. we moved to colorado and trout country. by the age of 11 I was pretty good, and mom and dad enrolled me in a tying class taught by a pro. he told dad that I already had all the basics down, and dad bought me a kit that today would cost hundreds of dollars. caught trout on the flies in colo. then germany. at the age of 13 I would sit in my room and tie literally hundreds of trout flies. I used that vise up until about 4 years ago. now when I hold it in my hand, it means more to me than the dynaking I use now.

[shipahoy41]

HOW I GOT STARTED

I can remember, back in 1970 at the age of 25, taking a bb split shot, flattening it on a jig hook and making "Aspirin head jigs". Yes I painted them with a shot of spray paint, not fingernail polish. I made a "Poor man's fishing bucket" with a detachable rod holder for fishing from the bank. I made "The Quiver carrier" out of PVC to carry rods through the woods and keep them safe from the trunk in your car. I have made bank rod holders out of PVC cut in half and welded to the iron posts that realtors use. I have invented a "Circular worm incubator" to keep your redworms from dying on your boat or on the bank while you are fishing. and many other things. I think in a previous life I might have been George Washington Carver or some inventor.

When I was 29, back in 1974, I started making lures to sell. I started with a "Pinmin" which is short for pin minnow. That is what caught a lot of BlueGills in Akron Ohio. Fishermen at the Portage Lakes, Mogadore, West Branch and Wingfoot all used them. A sports writer for the Akron Beacon Journal, Carl (Big Daddy) Bachtel would always catch a ton of fish using pinmins, so that is what I started making too.

The bait shops sold them, but I was friends with Jack Manda of Manda's bait shop. He told me to order the blank shell, flux, solder, hooks and some powder paint and he'd show me how to solder them up and make them. Man, I was hooked on making my own lures then.

After I fooled around with the pinmins I started to try and tie a jig. A guy named "Dave" showed me how to tie one holding the jig in my hand right behind the bend in the hook. I wrapped a few strands of tying thread on the hook, put a half hitch in it, grabbed some cut off marabou, tied it on, made some neat wraps, put some half hitches in it and cut it off. I used clear fingernail polish and soaked the threads real good and said...there is a jig. That was all I needed, a jig and some waxies and I was in heaven. That was how I fished from 1974-2000. I was a school principal and taught chess and hooked on fishing to the students in my after school group called Positive Young People. I wanted them to be able to use their brain and to have an activity they could use to stay off the streets

In, 2000 I retired and moved down south. I bought my first rotary vice for tying fur and feathers and started to research about tying. Over the years I have saved a ton of money by making my own Bluegill and Crappie Lures and that's all I make because that is all I fish for. My pastor did ask me to make a few bucktails for bass fishing but it is the same techniques, only with a larger jig and different materials. I guess I'm telling everyone that tying is a ball, and making things that work for you is fun. Pass your knowledge on and keep our sport alive.

[LedHed]

Never fished freshwater until I moved stateside from the Azores, was into spearfishing and diving. Started freshwater fishing and wrapping rods in the early 80s and when my favorite UL jig (Turner’s micros) went from .75 to $1 – decided I could do that and started making my own.
Back in those days there wasn’t the internet so a lot of the stuff I do is self taught. Did a lot of reading about flyfishing and practiced more tying. Couldn’t find the lead heads that I wanted so had to make them also. Now I have a mold collection that is over 700 molds…. Make a lot of saltwater jigs and pour swimbaits as well. There wasn’t much info on painting jigs either – didn’t find powder paint until early 2000.
About five years ago started flyfishing and really enjoy it – still won’t replace ultra lite fishing with jigs. Went to La Arenas, Baja Sur last October and caught 10 different species of saltwater fish on the fly (check out tailhunter-international.com). The year before that was in the Sierras catching Browns, Rainbows, and Sacramento Perch. Also river fish in Costa Rica (check out PezRey.com) – a real close friend has a ranch in Quepos. For now – have a pontoon on Lake Perris for the big Bluegill. Really enjoy fishing all these places, especially up and down Baja, and catching fish on gear and lures that I have custom made.