Has anyone experimented with making UL jigheads out of fly hooks?
I never got around to acquiring any of the Daiwa Gekkabijin jigheads, and now it appears they're out of production. I'm sure there are a lot of other great JDM jigs out there, but like a great deal of JDM gear, it can be quite costly and troublesome to obtain them. With jigheads this is more problematic than with things like line, rods, and reels, as losing jigheads on a regular basis is just the name of the game. For years before JDM UL gear gained any signification traction, I tried custom jigheads from here and there. Experienced good, bad and in between, but nothing particularly impressive. I use a cheapie hook sharpener on all the jigheads I currently have which gives them a much better point, but it's hard to sharpen tiny hooks and I feel like I have to sharpen them after a couple fish. Store-bought jigheads in my experience are mediocre at best and need to be sharpened before they are of even remotely acceptable sharpness.
I am very vaguely familiar with hooks used in fly tying, and I know that many of them are SHARP. Unbelievably sharp. I don't know the first thing about pouring jigheads or the types of fly hooks available, but I've seen many flies tied with small tungsten beads. Is this at all a viable option for the kind of fishing most of us are doing with jigheads in the .5gram to 2.5grams range? If using the tungsten beads intended for these hooks isn't an option, how about a custom mold for them with the appropriate weight poured on them?
It's taken me years to get rid of even my most commonly used jighead sizes, but I'm getting there, and I'd love a replacement that I'm happy with out of the box. I know there are some very talented and knowledgeable people here, and hoping that those wiser than me may be able to figure out a way to create what a lot of us are looking for.
