Anyone use jigs with weed guards for crappie?

[Spoonminnow]

I made a few weedless jigs with thin wire on different jig sizes and then rigged soft plastics. I have had luck catching white and yellow perch and crappie on them though not as many as with no weed guard. Spring tension is a challenge but I think if the fish is decent size, it shouldn't be as crucial as for smaller fish.

Today even some small w. perch attacked the jig and got hooked, though far more without the wire guard.

[justinp61]

It's all I use.

[Shmang]

I make my own for stump fishing with heavy monofilament --but don't use them for open water. I fish them on a double rig and can usually crawl them thru most anything.

[CrappiePappy]

That's basically all I've used for the last 30+ years.

Started out using Oldham's Weedless Crappie Jigs, and used them quite successfully for many decades. I actually started using them tipped with a minnow, for quite a few years of Smallmouth fishing before using them for Crappie.
Back around 2001, I think it was, I had Grousefly copy a weedless jig that I had found locally & wasn't being produced any longer. It's the one with the Y guard on it. And I also had him make me some of the regular fiber brush style weedless jigheads. I've used them since, and so have many other members that have seen me post about them.

They look like this :



I've used 4lb test mono with them, and am now using 6lb test copoly, and don't have any trouble getting a good hookset ... nor have I lost any hooked fish. And I don't remember, or can't rightly say that I've missed hooking a fish due to the weedguard. Even if I have, there's been so few instances that it doesn't register as a problem to me.

... cp

[Shady]

Weed guards are all I use when jig fishing brush. I think You'll catch more fish because you don't hang up as often disturbing the brush and retying. You'll also put that jig in some places that you never would without a guard.give them a try I think you'll like them. On the other hand I don't cast them under a cork. I miss more fish because of the delayed hook set.

[chucktx]

I use them in the brush but not in open water........

[Spoonminnow]

Thanks for the tips! The design below uses light wire on my ball head jigs and I believe that though some smaller fish may be lost, the larger ones will have no problem depressing the spring guard for an easy hook set.



(the straight wires are cut short)

[CrappiePappy]

Thanks for the tips! The design below uses light wire on my ball head jigs and I believe that though some smaller fish may be lost, the larger ones will have no problem depressing the spring guard for an easy hook set.

Similar design to the Oldham's I used to use, as far as the wire "loop" style of guard. I think the Oldham's had a much thinner wire. This is how they looked :



And I say how they "looked" ... because they're no longer being made. Terry Oldham decided to drop the Crappie jigs & concentrate solely on his Bass baits/jigs.

The things I didn't like about that style of weedless jig were :

checking/resetting the wire loop often
straightening the wire loop after catching &/or removing jig from fish's mouth
thin wire was fragile & would break or bend out of shape easily
the 1/16oz head only came with a #4 hook (bronze)

With the Y guard & brush style weedguards ... those things are not a problem. And having them custom made, I can choose the color of the weedguard, and hook ... as well as hook size. I'm currently using both 1/32oz & 1/16oz heads with #2 Aberdeen hooks (gold). I did start with them being made with #4 hooks, but was using hollow tubes back then. Now that I'm using solid body plastics, and bigger bodied baits, the larger hook allows a good gap between the body of the plastic bait & the hook point.

... cp

[P-row]

Crappiepappy.....can you tell me how or where I can get some of those jigs in your first post. These look great.....Thanks!

[Spoonminnow]

You're right about the wire in the picture - it is one step thicker than I use for crappie jigs. The larger the jig hook size (longer shank), the larger the diameter wire for the same stiffness required to not depress and stay that way after a fish gets hooked. AFW wire is rated by pound test and I'm using 25# - the smallest diameter they make. It usually works okay for larger fish, even pan fish:




Of Course, the thinner the soft plastic body, the easier the hook set with a wire guard.