Tieing Kiptail jigs

Good Morning I'm trying to tie on 1/64,1/32,1/24oz. heads with all having a #8 gold hook. I do this to try and have the best of both world's in catching gills and crappies. Its not that I'm not catching enough fish on them as they do a very good job on bite to hook up percentages. No complaints there at all. BUT I need to tie a very short collar just back of the head to hold the Kiptail. This allows me to slide up under the skirt a one inch Gulp Alive minnow for attraction and scent. Trying to get a good looking collar that every jig looks the same is my problem. I start out pinching down on the KT and make 3 easy rounds of thread and then tighten down to finish without moving my finger tips sometimes they come out great looking but the next one looks really bad as the collar is way to long????? Any help our thoughts on this tying problem would be appr..I've put down SH HARD AS NAILS thinking this would help but no go there either. Maybe I just need more practice. HA HA Sorry for being so long winded. Thanks ahead of time and every one have a great fall season!!! STEVE

Steve you said it,just need more practice,the more you do the easier it becomes and more uniform too.Just takes a little time and patenice.

Practice and bench time will help you work out the answer to your problem. You might try a smaller thread, like 140 denier instead of 210, to achieve the smaller collar. 70 just isn't tough enough to pull the KT down tight enough unless you have a very controlled hand. Sally before you start and finish holds them good, I use it thinned (50/50 acetone) in a needle tube applicator.

I make my ties on plastic tubing collars. If the tubing is too loose I lay a foundation wrap of thread then put super glue on the thread, with the glue still wet I spindle on a piece of tubing and glue it on in that manner. I get the small tubing from Pepperell Braiding Company (can Google it) at 3.50 per 100 ft. roll and it comes in a large variety of color including glow in the dark.
If you make the tube sleeve too long and it shows at the rear, soft plastic trailers and the like will adhere nicely to it. Just slide the plastic on over the tubing and it holds better than a lead barb. Once you get used to the tubing, it becomes easy.

After you cut the hair off the tail use a comb on the end of it to clean it - it does have some underfur and this will enlarge the tie in point and will make it spin on the hook no matter what you have on the shank.

Also they make a hook thats longer right? Would that help?

bassbull - another thing you can do is instead of making 3 wraps of thread and tightening take your first wrap of thread around the end of the kip pull it down to the shank and then make your second and third then tighten more. This is an old fly tying trick and works well.

tying kiptail can be tricky, I put the hair down on the hook and wrap over it about 8 times loose enough to move and adjust the hair and pull out any wild hairs, then I hold the hair in place and unwrap all the thread holding the hair, and at that point I push the hair towards the heads a little so it rides up on the jighead. then I wrap one or two times on the hair and tighten slowly while holding the hair from spinning, it is key to make your wraps right behind the jighead. remember this my first wraps when I first lay the hair on the hook are only temporary wraps until I get the hair looking right, and these temporary wraps can be slid down the hook some too, that wont hurt a thing. but when you unwrap the temp. wraps and go to wrap your permanent wraps, it needs to be right behind the jighead only.

after you have wrapped about 10-12 permanent wraps, take a single edge razor blade and press it against the hair right at the back of the jighead using the jighead as a backstop, the hair will pop right off, be carefull not to hit your thread, now unwrap about 2-3 wraps of thread exposing some hair right behind the jighead, and take some high quality super glue with a slender applicator and touch the glue to the hair behind the head, just enough to soak that little band of hair, now wrap the thread over top of the exposed band of hair and then whip finish.

keep in mind the glue helps lock the hair in preventing slippage and allows you to use less thread wraps also, so your thread neck won't have to be so long to hold the hair, I use a thin variety of super glue either zap a gap medium which is pretty thin and also locktite super glue with the 2" tapered pointed applicator. the glue needs to be pretty thin to soak the hair easily. If I think I may have gotten too much glue on there, I will take a paper towel and touch it to the spot and the extra will soak into the paper towel, if you don't do that, you will have trouble with your whip finish, it'll bind up before you can get it cinched up.

You may want to try to use less kip hair since you are tipping the jig with plastic as an attractant. I would think that adding plastic on the shank would push the hair up and over making it look like a wing? Got a pic of a jig put together with kip and plastic.

Personally I just like a head that has a little collar with no barb, but has a slight flair at the end of it! This is exactly what I got made for some guys in Louisiana for some kip tail jigs. With this kind of collar I can keep my thread in a short space and I don't don't use any glue or special put on and take off methods at all and only use some glue to put on the thread after its finished! I use a flexable glue that I make my self.

Skip

The old ball collar mold!! Used it way back with the smallmouth bucktail jigs. I didn't want to buy another one so if I want one like that I just cut the barb off and with a really small file go around the shank a few times and it does the same thing but not as much.

Just a hint if you are using Gulp. I had a large quantity of 9 inch worms. I found out that if you used just a 1/4 slice of Gulp worm it would work for over a hour. As long as there is some Gulp on your hook it will work I very rarely use a swimming minnow bait as I have found that the Gulp worm is just as effective. That is a amazing plastic bait. Just remember to take it off the hook when you are thur fishing as when it dries it is like cement on your jig. I have had to use wire cutters to get it off. Not a pleasant job.

I have found that four wraps of thread pull the kip up to give it a slight flair and Roll the hair around the hook then bind it down and coat with head cement.

Redman

I would just like to thank everyone for the ideas and thoughts on my tying problems. Have used the methods stated above and have much improved the jigs looks. Just a short note on flaring of the skirt for STUMP HUNTER. Yes this does occur a lot but the fish don't seem to mind. It does have that wing look to it after a few fish are caught for sure. Now off to tie some stuff and head to the river. Everyone have a good fall season. STEVE

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Originally Posted by bassbull

I would just like to thank everyone for the ideas and thoughts on my tying problems. Have used the methods stated above and have much improved the jigs looks. Just a short note on flaring of the skirt for STUMP HUNTER. Yes this does occur a lot but the fish don't seem to mind. It does have that wing look to it after a few fish are caught for sure. Now off to tie some stuff and head to the river. Everyone have a good fall season. STEVE

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Sounds like a good jig. Hope it works out well for you.