July

[Micanopy]

Took my wife to the beach yesterday. It wasn’t so bad. I still feel funny and it was a long drive both there and back, but I was glad we went. I hoped that the salt air might help her some with that covid cough of hers. Of course she got sunburned…..again. Two hours in the Sun, with lotion applied, and she comes out like a steamed lobster. The water was warm and I didn’t see any critters going past us. Two guys were setting up to surf fish and I watched as they hammer whooped their PVC sand spikes in. Part of me wanted to saunter over and offer some advice, but instead I just sat and watched the spectacle.

Just so you know, in case you ever go to set a PVC sand spike yourself. Beating them in only serves to break them. PVC can withstand lots of force while being bent over, but sudden strikes cause it to chip. One way is to set it atop wet sand and then suck hard. It will magically dive right down deep into the wet sand. I used to use one of those augers you can slip into a cordless drill and dig myself a beutiful hole and drop the PVC pipe down into that. The best is an aluminum spike that you mount to the PVC pipe with bolts. It wiggles down and holds very well. I have had a few game tarpon pulling rods and my spikes did not flop over.

Oh and he couldn’t cast and his buddy was looking in the wrong spots for sand fleas. I mean I could have talked to those guys for hours about surf fishing. LOL

We stopped at the Golden Lion in Flagler Beach. It is right on A1A near the traffic light and the pier. They have good drinks at fantastic prices. I always get their fish and chips basket. Three large cod fillets and fries with some slaw. It is difficult to eat all of the fish and of course there will always be left over fries. They have live music nearly every time we go there. Dining is open air, two levels, but with the sea breeze being in the shade is very nice. We are STILL recovering from covid so it seemed a good choice. Neither of us is infectious any more but we are still trying to be kind to pthers.

At home I showered and laid down nekid on the bed with the fan on and got out the tablet to read Crappie dot com. After which I checked my email and bam…..there it was. My new mold had been delivered early. I rushed out to the mailbox and brought it in.

It is super duper shiny and dazzles my eyes under the light. Kind of hard to see details it is so shiny. Custum mold from Collins in Virginia. He does not accept returns you know. I suppose people ordered one, ran some jigs, then returned it with glee in their evil hearts. Mine is the Arow, which is a minnow headed affair. Looks like a triangle set on it’s edge. The leading edge is skinnier than the backside, so almost like a wedge shape. The eye of the hook stands proud and far away which makes it easy to do powder paint operations. It pours very cleanly and I only had to quick pass them over the file where the sprue detached.

Not easy to fill this mold. I heated my lead slightly hotter than normal ( 750 degrees ). I also was placing the ladle’s spout inside the sprue cavity to get a completed pour. By completed it has a lead hook thingie on the shank to secure plastic baits. A quickie pour and sometimes this was not fully formed. Which is OK by me because I really prefer to glue my baits on and that thing just mangles unnecessarily in this case. No glue and you slip the bait up over, and then it is useful. Personal thing.

The mold has seven 16th ounce cavities. I guess the idea is to pour multiples but I was having issues as it was trying to pour four. Seems my hook wire diameter is slightly larger than the mold was designed to accept. Small detail not in the seller’s description, but printed clearly on the mold itself. Still with some fiddling I was able to get my Eagle Claw 571 hook in size 1/0 to fit well enough to close completely. I might modify some of the cavities one day, just not anytime soon. LOL.

I wanted a 1/16th ounce jig mold that would pour clean jigs that would not require a lot of cleanup prior to painting, and this is it. Very nice mold. I also thought it would be nice to try a thin head, as I troll my baits. This in reality should swim better than a fat headed thingie. Might even dive slightly deeper as well with less friction in the water column. Being flat sided adding eyes is straight forward, even if still a slight hassle. I can use large eyes or small. I suspect this jig head with be deadly on some crappie when rigged with the plastic bait of the day.

I powder painted, then baked, then applied some eyes using just glue, and added a plastic bait and got these.



You can see the shape of the head is wedge shape, thinner along the leading edge. This should produce a nice swimming action for the trailing bait. Hard to know these things with certainty, so guessing serves me just fine. I like the way the entire bait looks. Everything seems to fit size wise. Most plastic baits are about 2” long and the short shanked hook works well with that length. It leaves most of the bait free to wobble and swim.

So I think this mold will produce winners. My buddies can’t seem to get along with the screw loc jigs I have been making. They will enjoy these. I plan to pour up enough to satisfy them from here on out.

Seriously considering painting eyes at this point. I have tried several methods for attaching 3D eyes and none of them work very well for me. I mean regarding ease of assembly. Just glue gets glue everywhere. Overcoating with resins works except I loose the UV and glow properties and the eyes no longer shimmer. I tried 2d eyes and they are OK but equal to the 3D in efforts required. I suspect painted eyes would be quicker, even if less attractive. No eyes would be fine with these for me though, so I only have to work up the gifted jig heads.

I can cut away the collar altogether and reduce the weight by a small factor. Jig heads, painted, with the EC 571 hook, weight 0.07 ounces. Remove the collar and they weight 0.05 ounces. In effect, the jig head without collar weighs 1/20th of an ounce. With collar they weigh 7/100 th of an ounce. Also can be 1 1/2 grams and 2 grams respectfully. This is not the 1/16th ounce stated weight. With a heavier hook, a recommended hook, they might end up being spot on. My little naval operations do not require any certain exact weight anyways. LOL. I call it close enough as I am not likely to switch away from that hook. I really like the performance of the swimming bait, and the sure hold nature it exhibits with the delicate mouthes of these fish.

I suspect that I will want another CNC hewn jig head mold in the future. I am just not seeing others that I really want. Jacobs makes a flat sided ball headed thing with a swivel if you want it mold. Again, it will be way too many cavities, all the same size. The jig heads emerge mostly clean and ready to use, totally unlike a Do-It sand mold, which leaves slop and doesn’t produce a symmetrical head. At least not for me. It is nice to get a mold that can produce beautiful heads. Again, the only clean up is a quick one time pass over a file to smooth the rough area where the sprue was removed. Which reminds me, these heads must be cut free, bending to break loose can also loosen the hook.This is a gate issue. He had to make it over sized to get the cavity to fill completely……for most people.

I can add a small willow leaf blade and swivel to these very easily by simply sliding it up and onto the hook, and then easing on the plastic bait, then gluing bait in place. This serves to capture the swivel in place and I have an underspin. These might do fairly well as far as attitude when trolled with a sleek small blade. They might swim in that old cocked fashion as well.

I’ll make more later.