Soft plastics VS hand tied jigs

I have been fishing almost exclusivly for crappies for the last 10 years. I have fished for the last 20 years or more. When i was younger i would use alot of maribu jigs. Must not have been alot of soft plastics back then.

But for the last 10 years it's been soft plastics on jigs tipped with a minnow or just plain hook and minnow. Mostly just fishing them under a slip bobber with little or no movement. Seems to work pretty good around here.

I have had the urge to start pouring my own jigheads and possibly soft plastics someday. But then i see all these great looking hand tied jigs and wonder how they would work compared to the soft plastics i always use? Are there certain advantages or situations that you would pick one over the other?

First, the crappie.com warning, whatever you choose to do it will consume you and your pocket book. It really doesn't have to but it can get expensive quickly especially if just getting started.

I wish I could supply experience for crappie but I can't so here is my experience with other fish. I prefer flies and jigs over plastics for almost every species I fish for. Matter of fact I have never caught more fish on plastics than flies in any instance for anything I fish for from steelhead and salmon to salt water and trout. About the only plastic anything I use that is truly effective is eggs from power eggs to jelly eggs. I have used jelly eggs in tying jigs and flies with some success for steelhead.

Now would I pour either one for crappie fishing? If I really had the choice and the means to do so I think I would have to pour jig heads to tie jigs AND pour plastics. I have seen a lot of comparisons of the two and depending on the situations I would want to have both.

You fish a lot for them and tying enough jigs to keep up with your usage would cut deeply into your fishing time or at least it would for me. I tie in the off season and spend a lot of time tying, probably a good 100-200 hours and that is just for steelhead and salmon flies and jigs.

It is a toss up IMHO. Tying takes a lot more time but you have 1000's of patterns and variations you won't get from pouring your own platics. Plastics have the durability and ease of use and will be much faster to pour enough to have all you need for a year.

Cost wise, about the same unless prices have changed a lot since I last calculated costs to pour platics and pour and tie jigs.

If the bite is on ;I don't think it matters. In the early spring you want less movement, I use hand tyed. Later when it warms up and the pace picks up I go to a twister tail. Really your choice.

soft plastics for warmer water. In the cold water nothing beat a good hair jig.

I have not been a a guy that fishes a lot of hair, but this spring I tried some that sure worked well. However most of what I use is my hand tied jigs with a feather tail. Spring I mostly use marabou with some hackle tails, but after that I use more hackle tails. I have a ton of soft plastic (most all the best ones), but just don't use them much even though I use to be a big soft plastic guy for bass.

One this to consider, a regular (meaning not fancy or material that gives up fast) feather jig that I tie can catch one heck of a lot of fish without needing to change. Lots of time I will go several days and never change the jig I am using and no telling how many fish I catch on them.

I do have more than one customer that has stated they have caught more than 300 fish on one single jig. I know at least one guy on this site and maybe more have said this and another board there are a few that say the same thing. I fish a lake that was made from flooding National Forrest so lots of wood and I usually can't keep one long enough to wear them out before the wood takes it.

I can't tell you on any particular day that my feather jig will out fish your soft plastic because you never know what they will take best on any given occasion, but normally I think the feather gives more action and catches more fish and for sure out last a soft plastic bait.

Skip

I fish Rocky Tops almost exclusively with one major exception (dock shooting). A couple of weeks ago I was getting very tentative hits on the Rocky Tops but no takers. Since the shad have/are spawning it occured to me that the fish might be wanting a smaller profile so I switched to a chenille / feather hand tie and started catching fish. In other words I downsized to "match the hatch".

I started tying this spring and have caught more crappie so far than I have in any year in the past 20. Still tote three boxes of plastics every trip but havent used them yet this year since I started tying.

Both work just fine so the decision, imo, boils down to which style you think you will enjoy making the most.

Mine comes from the satisfaction that I made the entire bait from top to bottom. I can claim only part when I add a plastic body to the jig cause I didn't make it. I'd love to pour plastics but I got way to many hobbies now LOL.

Fatman

you will always know where your heart is when it comes to trying jigs.