Mac10

I've been using watermelon/red zoom speedworm bodies minus the tails as a slow fall and deadsticking presentation bait for a loong time. I rig weightless, texposed on a 2/0 worm hook. They fall nice and s l o w l y .........

If you crimp on number 7 clamshot split shots from Bass Pro on jig hooks, they come out around a 20th ounce or so.....I pinch them on and powder paint them....locks them on nicely.

In support of King Bait Co., My buddy just got the Humminbird Pirahna 220 wide angle for under 100, nice looking and really like the 60 degree cone angle. Great for locating cover, structure......otherwise possibly missed with the smaller cones.

Humminbird 535 is a wide angle black and white....60 degree cone....nice for picking up structure and cover otherwise missed with a narrow cone.

If I take the body of a zoom speedworm, minus the tail (looks like a senko knock off)....and dip it in melted plastic, will it , coat the wormbody evenly or will it tend to run down and make the ends fatter..... What I am trying to do is make the whole worm body fatter without changing its specific shape. Thanks for the help and Good Fishing, Mac

I have a Humminbird 535. It's a black and white model with a cone within a cone making it a 60 degree wide angle as opposed to a normal 18 to 20 degree cone angle. Excellent for picking up structure and cover which other narrower cones may miss.

Zoom Baits makes a Speedworm in two models, the regular speedworm and the ultra vibe speedworm. If you have the regular paddle tail speedworm in watermelon/red, clip off the tail at the narrow spot. If you have the ultra vibe model, cut the body a quarter inch up from the hooktail. For whatever the reason, watermelon red works the best of all the colors offered in the speedworm line. Texpose the "Zoomie" body with a 2/0 worm hook and fish it weightless in the following manner. Use a skipping sidearm cast at all times, even when casting to relatively open waters such as those approaching weed edges, rocks, etc. etc. In short, cast toward likely cover/structure. Let fall to bottom. If a fish doesn't grab it on the fall, wait 30 seconds, watching line at all times, if still nothing, lift the bait s l o w l y about two feet off bottom to feel for fish...if you still feel nothing on, tremor the bait once. This tremor is made by gripping the rod handle tighter in a quick manner without tryin to move the rod tip intentionally. This sudden tightening on the handle causes the line and lure to pulse and the bait suddenly darts a bit in an unpredictable direction. After tremoring the bait, let it re-fall and pause again, but this time for 15 seconds on bottom...lift once again, but this time if you don't feel anything on, reel in at a moderate rate. All in all, it will take about one minute per cast if done correctly. Zoomies cast like a bullet and skip very well. Also great for fishng under docks, laydowns, and rocks. In the weeds, they do well also. In thick weeds, cast to open pockets, let fall, they will momentarily hang on weeds.....after they stop falling, pause a few seconds, then give the lure a slow pull, just enough to dislodge it from it's resting place and then on a free line let it fall again. Do this enough times and the zoomie will often work its way clear to the bottom. If the end tears up from fighting fish, rig it in the other end....if that end also wears out, rig it in the middle for wacky fishing. I don't think I could convince you how effective this bait and method is for catching both largemouth and smallmouth bass.......but it works very well. I use 6 lb test line on a MH graphite rod for fishing zoomies. I also cut off the motor and drift into the area I want to fish. I also turn off the fish finder before entering the area. Good Fishing, Mac __________________ leadfreejigheads.com

I dip up to three colors with the same heating using an alcohol burner.....I count the heat time on each side, dip in the first color (usually black for example) then touch the bottom half in the jar of white and then tip up the jig and touch the nose in red. If the red doesn't stick, I wave the nose over the flame just a couple of times and dip in red again. I then cure.

In East Tennessee Green pumpkin, watermelon/red, black are probably the best. In flukes it's pearl and bubblegum.... Grubs for crappie....pearl chartreuse, white pearl. Jig trailers...amber with green glitter, blue, black and green pumpkin.

I use the 280 Ultra Thread for jig tying....holds very well.

You can get a variety of greens by mixing black with chartreuse.....if you get a color close to watermelon, you may want to use that. I'm mixing an off olive and it works well.

Ricam, Just be careful what soft plastic you use, some will still react with the finish on the crank, and some will still eat the plastic itself....you'll just have to find a soft plastic that doesn't. Sounds like a great plan......good luck, Mac

Good flies, Jake....also you apparently have a flair for the use of materials. There are two books out by Jay "Fishy" Fullum you may enjoy looking through at the bookstore. I happen to have them both, they are called FISHY'S FLIES, and FISHY'S FAVORITES. It's a real variety of approaches and also a variety of materials....for example, he makes a helgrammite body using electrician's tape, a pencil sharpener to form a balsa popper body, and a coffee stir stick to make a Damselfly. Some of the flies use standard materials, others are very creative. They are soft bound books, 8 1/2 by 11 inches and about 1/4 inch thick having about 65 pages each. Hope you come across them sometime, interesting reads. Thanks for posting, Mac

PDF Tutorial Attached. Making Swim Jigs.pdf Making Swim Jigs.pdf Making Swim Jigs.pdf Making Swim Jigs.pdf Making Swim Jigs.pdf Making Swim Jigs.pdf Making Swim Jigs.pdf Making Swim Jigs.pdf Making Swim Jigs.pdf

I use a thread collar to tie it off as being the standard way of doing it.....tying the back on first, running the thread by wrapping it forward and catching the chenille when it comes forward and then making a thread collar over it for about 1/8 to 3/16 inch.... Chenille wraps are great for holding scent if you use scent at all. Instead of using the same color, you may want to use red thread.....adding a little red to the overall tie is a good idea in my book....my opinion. Sometimes just a contrasting color sets it off nicely as well, for example a black collar on a light colored chenille gives the best of both worlds concerning catching a fish's eye at the onset. Hope this helps, Mac

For action and ease of tying, rabbit hair is probably the best. It comes in straight cut strips called zonker strips, and the crosscut strips, simply called crosscuts. The straight are cut with the "grain" of the hair so the hair lies in the same direction as the strip itself. Why they call the straight cut zonkers, by the name of zonker, beats me. The strips with the hair shooting off to one side are the crosscuts. The most common pattern for hare hair jigs, rabbit hair jigs, is made by starting with the straight cut zonker, penetrating it with the hook and then tying the front end by wrapping near the jighead......then wind to the back a little for making the hair collar, attach a strip of crosscut, winding the thread forward again and then wrapping the crosscut forward three wraps and catching, wrapping with thread, and tying off after making a thread collar. Google a search on tying hair jigs. Rabbit hair is pliable, moves easily. Some folks tie hair jigs with fox to get a poofy effect, kinda shrinks in size when you twitch it and then expands again when you stop.....marabou feather does the same thing. For smallmouth and largemouth jigs, I use rabbit exclusively and also use it for crappie jigs. Hope this helps....Mac

The clamp lights use a regular 60 watt bulb and sometimes are available at wally world or the nearest hardware....they are the ones with the larger clamps and the metal shade. I drilled my shades with 4 holes near the base of the bulb to run cooler.

I've not used the jigs I describe here in saltwater. I make another one for that, that is small and tied on a sixteenth ounce ballhead jig...no tipping required on that one.....made from gift bag shredding using the mylar type of shredding, a mirror finish mylar. I may write on making that one later on. Busy right now with other things. Good fishing, Mac

Hawnjigs, yes it does. I included making the jig with the clamshot and hook as a way to get an easy minnow shaped head, but the round ball jigs with the lead collars in the 1/0 size are also perfect for tying. I suspect, because of the inherent flash, these jigs would also work in saltwater....aloha, Mac

I'm using number 5 Clam Shot from Bass Pro crimped onto an Eagle Claw 1/0 size jig hook. It's about a sixteenth ounce jig after powder painting the head. Be sure to use the pliers when crimping coming from over the top of the jig pointing in a downward direction....will seal the seam better than crimping from underneath. After that, I slip on a small piece of semi-flexable tubing....comes in a variety of colors, but I prefer using the cloudy whte glow in the dark. It's pony bead lacing from the kid's craft section at Hobby Lobby....sold in a fifteen foot coil made by a company in MA. I slip the small 3/16 inch tubing over the point and barb by pushing and twisting at the same time and slide it just around the bend before applying a scant amount of gel super glue on the hookshaft just up from the lead head....I then spin the tubing as I move it forward to spread the glue inside the tubing piece. When in place, this short piece of tubing creates a tying collar. I use Ultra Thread, the spool with the 280 number on the end. I make several wraps on the collar and then add 6 strands of silicone. I buy the silicone strips and trim each end to free the strands, I then cut the strands in half and use these as my jig skirts. I don't line the 6 strands up perfectly even, but leave them staggered a little and make them just a hair past the hook bend......after wrapping to secure the strands, I bend the front strands back and trim them even with the longest of the tail strands. I then dress the jig with holographig flashabou....most often with either silver or gold. I use three strands at a time putting some on each side of the jig, and some on top. Flashabou is long enough that three strands will provide ample glitter by tying and clipping, tying and clipping....I do all my tying on top of the jig and sides....enough strands will hang down in the water in use anyhow. Color.....I like to use a variety of colors, but tend to do the following, I use pearl, white glitter, tied on first, then on top, a metallic gray with silver flake, and on top I use a darker or different color for contrast....that make two strands of he white pear, two silver glitter and two darker such as black or black/purple. Some depends on the color head....if the head is white belly, chartreuse upper, I'll probably use the pearl first, then metallic silver, then chartreuse/pepper. It's just a personal preference thing.... Using the jigs....we use 6 lb test and usually tip the jig with either a small white grub or a live minnow. Just last week, Dave caught a couple nice smallies casting a rocky bank using a minnow on a jig that was chartreuse headed, white belly, silver metallic sides and an amber/pepper top with gold holographic flashabou. I've tied quite a few of these since he had such good luck on them. Finishing the tie....sorry I forgot this until just now. Some folks put several half hitches on the jig and dab with a little head cement or nail polish to finish, but I've found that gel super glue is the way to go....neat, fast and easy, no fumes. I used to tie using the half hitch, but found out something I think is neat by watching a lady tying float and fly jigs at the Knoxville fishing show. On her vise, tied to the bottom of the shaft she had a piece of fishing line, probably 14 lb test line and on the free end of the line she had tied a loop. She'd put the loop between her curled index finger and had drawn her thumbnail along the loop several times to curl the loop. When she was ready to finish her thread collar, she'd lay the loop across the collar and wrap from the front end of the jig to the back end of the collar and then wrap going forward to the lead head....she'd clip the line leaving about three to four inches of thread. She'd hold the thread wraps to the jig with one finger placed behind the jig and insert the thread through the fishing line loop and pull it tight....now, with the other hand she'd pull the fishing line loop though the thread wraps and out the other side. She then clipped the thread tag end off and applied a little glue to the threads.....she had a little craftstick she ran across the gel to flatten and spread it out a bit and she was done. I'm told this is how rod makers finish their wraps when building rods....it really leaves a neat way to finish. Using the jigs......with the jig tipped with a white grub, we've caught largemouth, smallmouth and rainbow trout. With the jig tipped with a live minnow, we've caught smallmouth and catfish. With the jig trolled slowly without tipping, crappie. A tip. If your water is roiled, heavily stained or muddy, wacky righ the grub or minnow. Stab the grub from side to side though the body or hook the minnow near the dorsal fin.....going through the water sideways will make more commotion. The appearance of the grub......by using just six strands of silicone, the jig will look deceptively unfinished and too scantily tied. Trust me, It works well being made just this way...leaving plenty of room for the silicone action to do its thing. I know it looks funny, but we've enjoyed a goodly amount of success fishing them just as is. Hope you enjoy making and using the swim jigs. Good Fishing, Mac

To test the waters....start with local shows. Pics of fish caught on your lures will go a long way....especially those with your lures still attached to the fish. It's always a good thing, having pics....also slows down the traffic on their way by. Put your products up front and the pics just a little behind. Secondly, include pics of other species caught if any. Also, having a few mounted fish seems to be a homey touch. If your lures benefit from a special presentation, such as slow fall deadstiking, be sure to include techniques.....tips are a good draw as well and often are the highlights of the show for some. A three by five card under a pic telling the technique/presentation also helps. Also, selling several types of lures helps, even though one of your creations may be the bread and butter lure.

Spray a little WD 40 into your boxes that contain hooks, including those on cranks, spinnerbaits, etc. Aside from coating, it acts as a desacant, and removes the moisture in the air inside the box when closed. The WD 40 is used by some as a fishing scent anyhow, and won't affect your lures or finishes as well as using something that is negative to the fish. Some have objected to WD 40 on environmental grounds, but in a box, you need so little.... This post was made at the exact same time as LedHead's.....It looks repetitive, but what I'm saying is spray the box as well. If one compartment or one section contains a lot of hooks, I spray the entire section.

If you have friends who hunt deer, you will find that the tail hair (bucktail) from a younger deer is much more soft and supple....will move a little easier than most of the large bucktails you buy. Rabbit hair is excellent and a few of the locals prefer bear....one fellow on this board tied a bunch of gaudy neon two and three toned jigs for walleye and caught a lot of smallmouth using those jigs as well. They were all craft hair jigs. It just depends on conditions and presentation.

A color wheel only works if you begin with pure red, pure blue, pure yellow. Equal parts blue and yellow equal green, that is to say pure green. Red and yellow yield orange, pure orange. On and on, just like the above wheel shows. One neat thing about the wheel, you can darken a color by using just a touch of the opposite color on the wheel.....to darken pure yellow, use a very little of the purple....rather than darkening with black. Using the opposite color to darken will yield a darker yellow, but will still have the healthy yellow glow. Mix with black and it pushes the yellow toward gray and you lose the yellow glow. If you mix too much of the opposite color with the one you want to darken, it will turn to mud. What makes the whole thing really interesting is the combinations change the possibilities.....if for example, you darken a green with a red orange, etc. Green pumpkin is, a combination of black, chartreuse and brown. Certain pigments also contain extras, for example my powder paint in black also contains a little blue, so when I mix black with chartreuse I get a lighter green pumpkin. Brown contains red which will darken the green in the light green pumpkin and tone it down to a standard green pumpkin. If you keep track of what you use in mixing by writing it down, you can get there again when needed.

I think that's what I bought the other day....mine was red and the first two sections of the strip stuck together and were gummy, they wound it on a cardboard for packaging and apparently it hadn't cured. The next section was sticky, but was OK if you only used one strand per jig...didn't seem to stick to the other brand strands.