My Jig Tying Evolution...

...is a short trip! And ever evolving. Two and a half weeks ago I started reading up on jig tying. I had tied the last walleye snell my triple great grandchildren will use! Thats about eleventy billion if your keeping track. Anyways, I needed something to do with my spare minutes a day and figured it'd be an easy transition.

After reading crappie.com and watching youtube videos for a few evenings, I jumped in. Bought a vise, some maribou, bps jigs, flash and thread in various colours and so on and began twisting up my own slab slaying weapons of doom. I kept up on cdc and backread threads, admired everyones handy work, and attempted to emulate my versions.

Its been easy to go overboard. I'd never dipped my own jigs before, never built a fluid base, never caught a mess of crappie on jigs of my own creation, which I did last weekend.

Anyways, Its been fun to say the least.

To anyone wanting to get involved with a jig swap but hasent, I encourage you to do so. I'm mailing out the first of many to come swap ready and hopefully water worthy jigs and can't wait to see what the postman brings me in return!

I included a semi chronological evolution in my two weeks of tying. Starting with my first, ending with a few from yesterday. (does anyone elses' work bench look as crazy as mine?)

Cheers and Happy Jigging

Nice work and your progressing really nicely! Keep up the good work and this hobby/addiction can last a lifetime! It can also cost a small fortune if you don't watch out which I didn't and have more stuff than I could ever tie up.

Your jigs look great...and your bench looks like a paragon of organization compared to mine. Of course, mine is my everything-bench: workshop, ironwork, electrical work, general fishing stuff, jig-tying, etc. Right now is overrun with dock and anchor lines that I'm splicing eyes into. And it sure ain't granite topped.

I really like the jig with the yellow feather. Very creative.

Creating jigs is as much fun to me as catching fishes on'em. You've done well in just two weeks. I'd hate to see some of my handiwork after two weeks practice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The work is very good. Be sure and take a cooler when you test them. The Peacock herl used in the second always looks great on the bench, but I was disappointed at it's durability. Just food for thought. It works very well for wrapping bodies. Playing with different materials is part of what keeps me doing this. I find it hard to tie the same jig over and over sometimes, too many choices. Keep it up, you're doing great.

awsome keep it up !!!

good work!

you raised the bar for me!! pretty, impressive!

those r nice jigs. and a dream desk i have a little debbies card table for my desk

Very nice work... Send some of those this way!

good stuff ! I really like that crawdaddy orange one !

Good work Kraken, wish id have participated in this past swap but being a new father, tying jigs, injecting molds (Soft Plastics) and well....FISHING, I havent had the time nor money to get setup for lead/paint and let the whole 'marbled head' thing get me discouraged. I have a guy on CDC that does all my jigheads and he is a little backed up, already have two standing orders and didnt want to drop more on his plate for the time being especially under a time restraint.

Your jigs look excellent, one thing i might add and I hope you dont get offended... When I first started tying about 5 or 6 years ago I was using marabou... once wet the marabou turns to a thin line of color and doesnt stay 'plump' enough for me... So i started using bucktails, bucktails hair breaks to easy and doesnt hold up well to time/fish before looking ratty, Then I found CRAFTFUR! it is a synthetic hair and has the best quivering action in the water and looks like new after it drys, you should try some. Also I saw you are next in line after Nightprowler for the swap box, try some of the Artic fox, ive been pleased with the little piece i took so far.

Ps. dont forget to check out/take some of my handtieds / plastics in the box if they are still there lol :)

Thanks for the tips. I've also noticed marabou fails to preform underwater like you've mentioned. I've learned alot in the past few weeks, and am looking forward to experimenting in the future.

Nice lookin jigs!!

Marabou works great and I have caught lots of crappie for over 40 years using it. Does it get thin when you bring it out of the water? Yes it does, but it also opens back up under water and especially when sitting still as in fishing brush pile and crappie lots of time don't want the jig to move.

As of good hair that will not break like Deer, fox is excellent, but as mentioned craft fur works too, but I am just not so fond of it and even hackle tails get skinny when wet in the water, but they work and work well. There is also rabbit that is just awesome and depending on the cut of the skin it comes off sideways on crosscut hides or straight off the end as in a Zonker strip. I sell way more hackle tails than anything including buck tail jigs which I do tie and the southern buck tails are not as thick and brittle as the Northern which everyone sells and they look nice and big, but the smaller Southern ones are much better. Don't work about marabou or hackle tails and what happens in the water because they work great and no denying that. Notice when shopping and you see some synthetic hair and 95% of them will say something close to this...."it's a lot like marabou" and that is because nothing has the action of marabou. It is best if you take it off the stem to tie in in though.

Marabou and Hackle will preform in the crappie's mouth and that is all that counts.

Kraken,

Very good work, even better for so quick. You did very well to pick up the magnifying glass right off. Also pay attention to the lighting that skip uses. Also be aware that indoor lighting can be very different than outdoors; so get as natural a light source as you can so the colors look right while you are tying. I learned that fact back when I was matching colors in the paint supply industry. Some colors are quite different outside from what they show at the work bench, if your light source is not selected properly. We went so far as to differentiate between types of incandescent and flouresent when doing our matches. That was back in the days when the computer matches were really crude; so even one had to be finished by eye. Our most skilled contractors always finished their own matches on site for that very reason, especially when doing indoor jobs.

I no longer tie but there are even batch variations in the colors of plastic tails.

Something to remember when you are selecting colors, especially if you are mixing your own batches... That is almost certainly why specific tails supposedly in the same colors often work better than others that are supposed to be the same color, and that is a whole lot better than it used to be.

very nice sir, I love that red wht and blue on the blue head

here goes my bank account .... lol

again good job

As to the magnifying glass, I 've dabbled in so many hobbies that I've needed one for various things. Jig tying is a fun way to spend time tying/daydreamingaboutfishyetuncaught/beerdrinking/watchingtv/kidrefereeing creatively. Thanks for the encouragement.