reverse tang 1/32 oz jig heads

[no1son]

This is sort of a customizing report on a modified jig head that I have been thinking about for quite a while.

Nearly all I fish are 32nd oz tanged ball head jigs tipped with plastics, mostly hollow tubes. The standard up facing tangs have either not held up the tubes properly or they tend to spin if retrieved too fast. The better the tang the more likely the spin. Given a hint that minnow head jig heads with the reverse tang do not spin anywhere as quickly I tried them but prefer ball head jig heads and could not find any with a good reverse tang. The tapered ones simply did not hold the tails up well enough; their tangs were next to useless. So the search has been on for a good reverse tanged 32nd oz ball head. I also use quite a few solid plastic tails, but for those I use a standard collarless ball. These jig heads are for hollow plastic tails.

Several on these forums have been very helpful, but I got the pouring bug. Finding a mold proved to be very difficult. I eventually settled on the Do-It weedless ball head with the parallel collar and the reverse tang, cast a few and trimmed off the base that fuses with the weedless attachment. That is a bit of messing around but I got a couple of dozen decent ones the other night. Powder painted them, and tonight I got to test one of them on some open water in the falling snow. 20 crappies took the tube between 5:30 and 6:00 this evening as the snow came down and I got progressively colder... Every one of them was hooked in the roof of the mouth or the top lip. So first test showed that the reverse tang does seem to keel out the jig head and keep the hook upright. The reverse tang does not obstruct the hook gap on the size 6 hooks that are my standard size, either. I had very few missed hook sets.

BTW the crappies around here do not tear up the tubes for us. All 20 were taken on one tube; it did not tear at the tang either. Even after 20 crappies and one bluegill, it still looks like new. For us it is the bluegills that tear up the plastic tails, but crappies tend not to damage them much. I am increasingly impressed with black and chartreuse tubes, too. We just started fishing that color combination this fall and it has been very productive for us.

More tests are in order of course. (And more pouring - I am experimenting to find if I can peg out the weedless slot with some sort of nail or brad. So far the brad heads are producing a bit of a scar that I would like to eliminate, even when filed down, but better than nothing; I would definitely like to reduce the trimming needed. I am not doing this commercially though, these are all for private use. I am real new at this pouring business and am still getting way too many rejects at this point.

I think that if one is getting spin when fishing tubes or other hollow plastic tails, one should consider reverse tanged jig heads.

[skeetbum]

Thanks No1. If there's an area that you don't want to fill when pouring, try some RTV silicone from the auto parts and fill it in. The stuff is heat resistant and not permanent so it may help in what you need. Most of my pours get hand trimmed anyway so a little doesn't bother me, but excessive gets under my skin. Good job on the fish, sounds like you found em.

[no1son]

We have a dependable spot for this time of the year. Works real good for testing but definitely takes a bit of a special presentation... It is real polluted though; so we don't use it much. I certainly wouldn't think of eating anything I caught there, but the fish don't seem to mind and appear to be really healthy; so once in a while it's playtime.

Thank-you for the suggestion. I will have to try that. I had been thinking of making my own mold from that RTV, but broke down and got a DO-It one.