October

[Micanopy]

Well it is October, and the leaves are changing in some places. The cool breeze was felt all the way down here last night. I will be saving a fortune on my electric bill. The squirrels are busily grooming the oak trees. Soon my finches will be headed back. The rut is now on and the big bucks are cruising the forests looking for young ones to rough up. The month is going to simply shoot right on by and before we know it it will be November.

I have been experimenting with eyes on my jigs, now it is time to start experimenting with the rest of the jig- body and tail…… again. Funny that some of my best ideas can be found on the internet. Conceived by others already. Amazing how that works. Anyways I will keep trying out stuff and trying to discover new ideas.

I have a vise and some chenilles and flashaboo stuff. I have rubber legs and silicone skirtings. I need some more stuff to play with. I try to do business with the members who sponsor the website. I decided to give Woods and Water a shot at my money today. I placed a reasonable order for some very basic stuff. I got calf tail, some marabou, some chenille, and some hackle feathers. All but the chenille will be brand new to me.

I liked that he starts with white feather materials and dyes the stuff up himself. The colors looked bright enough to please me. Hot Pink- Bright Chartreuse Yellow- Grape Purple- makes for great highlight colors against a white base. So I started with that stuff.

I am wanting to make feathery tails that become streamlined when drawn through water. I like a stick tail look. I have watched various videos on how to trim feathers and such, so I will probably have no real issues. Just need to make more jig heads to play dolly with.

I saw their ready made jigs on the woods and water website and they look pretty cool. I was curious if anyone knows what kind of tubing they used for the tails. I would like to get my hands on some tubing to play around with and see what can be done. As a troller, I do not need mobility in the tail, but some waggle would be nice. Mostly I am going for profile. Anyways, let me know if you find some that I can order up.

I have decided that I need a longer tentacled swoosh ball thingie for cutting tails off of. Yes, that was a proper sentence thank you very much. I enjoy a paddle tail myself. Take a look at these two.





The top one is a Slabonator Booty Thumper in standard size, trimmed in length to fit the short shank hooks I prefer. Tickle Me Elmo blade setup on the Screw Lock feature. This is a 1/16th oz head.

The one below is so much smaller in appearance and profile. Also a 1/16th oz head, with collar trimmed off, and the exact same short shank hook. It also features a paddle tail feature, only one I fashioned up from the swoosh ball thingie. You can see why I am wanting a ball with longer tentacles.



Some of the ones I made up this morning over coffee.

Recently I gifted away some of my latest designs. I gave them to my boss so he could test them out for me. He is a great fisherman and will report back. Hopefully report back accurately. Anyways, I am wanting to make up some new lures and might as well try to make some hand ties. i once tested my hand tied bucktail jigs against my plastic bait jigs and it was an even match on the fish. So hand ties do catch fish and plastic baits catch fish.

When they are biting.

When they are not biting it is nice to have a variety to select from. I have variety. I use plastic baits, hand ties, various sized and shaped jig heads, jigs with blades, crankbaits, and just started using spoons and dodgers. It is fun to catch lots of fish, but I really enjoy catching the larger specimens.

I have considered trying to add my planer boards back into the mix. I rather enjoyed those when the winds were calm and everything swam right. I use the smallest sized boards and waves kind of mess with them. I wondered how they would do with dodgers and spoons. It would let me add six new rods to the spread, for a total of 16.

I am also thinking about using two lures on some of my lines. Easy enough I guess. Tie a heavier jig on the end, come up some, add a long loop and attach a lighter jig. Kind of a mess to travel to and from the lake though. Currently, I reel the jig all the way tight to the tip of the rod and store rod.

Anyways, it’s October.