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These are definitely going to catch me some fish.

I was having issues with the previous bladed jig design as the jig’s attitude when swimming was not good. The nose was pointed in a steep decline with the tail being high. No minnow swims like that so I figured some and decided that it was the resistance of the blade pulling back hard. This aligned the hook eye to the blade with not many options to defeat that. Posted here and CJ1PRODUCTIONS suggested using my Bat Jig, as it has the hook eye coming away at 60 degrees. More to the front. I must say this did make for a better alignment. Thanks CG 1

However I am relatively certain that a far greater issue is the lack of mass in the jig head itself. A heavier jig head more more readily overcome the blades resistance at lower speeds. It might not matter as I do catch fish on the 1/16th with a blade. So the acute angle must not be that great a put off to them.

The plastic is a Slabonator Booty Thumper 2” what been cut down in size. More like a 1 1/2” now. This makes the overall profile more compact. More like a real minnow. Sometimes the smallest improvement can radically change the results and I can remain completely clueless as to why. Not so this time.

The top left is a 1/4 oz Bat Jig Head, and underneath of that is the 1/16th oz Bat Jig head. Same hook for each. #2 Do-It Whacky hook. Interesting hook in that it gave me fits in the #6 size. I was losing fish like crazy. The hook is very sharp and has a fish keeping angled tip. So far I lost one fish boat side using them.

I started trimming the length of the plastic bait because I have issues aligning the hook properly. My other rigged baits can appear to swim well next to the boat, but let out 15 feet of line and watch them go, and they spin. Even the smallest of errors inserting the hook produces bad performance once enough line has been spooled out. Trimming off a 1/2” or so is a 1/2” or so I no longer have to align perfectly. The hook is much easier to manage as it passes through the bait. I did one and looked and thought - Hmmmmmmm.

I watched this lure swim in the 1/4 oz version with no blade and it looked great. The heavy head kept it plowing straight ahead and the tail flopped wildly side to side. It swam just like a minnow would swim. Not sure what the 1/16th oz will look like with line played out, but probably will do just fine.

I fish the heavier jigs in close and on different days the fish want different things. Some days the short lines/heavy jigs are hot, and some days the long lines/light jigs are hot. I always seem to catch fish on each no matter which day, but a preference exists. Using the different weight sizes allows me to fish more rods in the boat, which I am at 10 now.

I really like Victory jig hooks and would like to use them, but need to search around some. I want a shortened shank, but a tip that stands tall and away from the bait. Nice big gap. I suspect my Free Style jig heads would work very well if I could find a hook that works.

I also need to order some wire for the bladed designs and new blades in sizes that match my jig’s weight.

I have read that we should down size our lure as the water temperatures drop. Not sure why that is other than maybe the fish prefer smaller fish to digest as their metabolism levels drop. I know some fish prefer smaller baitfish as they can stack a large amount of smalls inside their gut more efficiently than a few large ones. Weird, but they do not chew so they must accommodate whatever is going down.

Of course it could be also that at this time of year the smaller minnows are more prevalent. A mystery. Maybe it is just all wild hysteria due to mass hallucinations, but I have read those comments enough to think there is something to the idea.


I also found something in and amongst my vast collection of surf fishing junk. Plastic clevices. Yes these can be threaded onto the leader and will allow for an in-line spinner configuration. Being plastic they are not supposed to damage the line but I suspect they must do some damage. Anyways I want to at least try them. Regular jig with blade just in front. I will probably need to fashion a Figure 8 knot in the leader to prevent the blade from coming back and whacking into the jig and fouling. This would be for Bat Jigs as the 90 degree eyes probably will look odd.