Old School Jig Modifications

[RayburnGuy]

After following the thread about Mark Packs new jig it got me to thinking about some of the jig mods we used to make. Here's a couple of jig "tweaks" some of us in this neck of the woods used to make to our jigs "back in the day" when fishing hydrilla beds.

 

One jig hack we did made the jig come through heavy hydrilla beds without getting clogged up with grass. The way we did it was to cut the fiber weed guards off even with the body. We then would take a pair of side cutters and cut off the eye of a worm hook below the little spurs that held the worm in place on the old straight shank hooks everybody fished back in those days. (they were the only worm hook style available back then) The eye of the worm hook was then opened and threaded through the eye of the jig and then the eye was closed so that the eye of the jig and the eye of the worm hook were linked together. (we didn't have the wire corkscrew keepers back then either) We mostly used craw worms for trailers back then and the tail of the craw worm would be threaded onto the shank of the worm hook and then the body would be Texas rigged on the jig hook. This made for an extremely weedless jig and we never noticed any reduction in the amount of hook ups we had fishing a jig this way.

 

Another way we used to make jigs weedless was to cut the fiber weed guard off as explained above and then thread a rubber band through the eye of the jig. The rubber band would then be threaded back through itself so it couldn't come off the eye of the jig. The other end of the rubber band would then be stretched over the barb of the jig hook with each "leg" of the rubber band running alongside both sides of the hook. With the many different styles of jigs and jig hooks they  have these days this may, or may not, work since it would depend on the angle of the hook and how it lined up with the eye of the jig. This method didn't work quite as well as the method described above, but it was better than fishing a jig with fiber weed guards in heavy hydrilla.

 

I know there have got to be a bunch of modifications we all made to our baits long ago that have sort of slipped out of site along the way. Anyone care to share?

 

Ben

[JBlaze]

Good post Ben.

one which I did a few years ago involved molding a twisted hook hanger eyelet where the weed guard should be then attaching a screw lock to this eyelet and screwing on a  plastic trailer of some type then inserting the hook point and skin hooking it. It worked great, very weedless and snag free . when a fish clamped down on it, it collapsed and and did not interfere with hook sets. It was much easier to use  and thread  after Owner came up with. a screw lock with a centering pin.

I suppose you could do this to a regular jig like you spoke of by drilling a small hole in the weed guard after you cut it off and gluing in a hook hanger then attaching a screwlock to it.

John

[RayburnGuy]

Good idea John. Seems like we were both thinking along the same lines when it came to making a jig better at coming through the grass.

 

Ben