How to make a tube versatile.

A tube bait for many folks is just that, a tube with legs. They thread the tube over the jig or insert a jig head inside the tube and fish away. However if you think outside the box a tube can be a really versatile bait. The standard 2.5 Arkie tube looks like this


Well my friend crappie pro showed me a while back his favorite way to fish a tube bait to get more action like a split tail is like this
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What you do is just pull or cut out the middle tails on the tube and you have an instant split tail bait. Make sure you thread the tube with the hook in between the splits. You can slide a nibble right up into the split of the tube and it keeps a while longer.

Now one of my favorite ways to fish a tube is to take the legs off either side and make a stinger out of the tube.
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When u thread the tube on the jig hook place the point coming out the legs instead of between them.

Also if you need some color when fishing minnows just thread the tube up over the hook. This is what what we did before teasers came around.


There is some advantage to the split tail and stinger tails in that with elimination or thinning of the legs, you will get more movement from the remaining legs. These thinned tubes will also fall at a faster rate. Now the original tube with out modification has its benefit also in that it is bulkier and will fall slower but there is also less leg movement. There is a time and place for many different baits.

You can use this method on small tubes all the way to the big tubes. Tubes have the ability to be really versatile bait from split tails, stinger tails, or when needed a bulkier bait without any modification.

Hope this helps you put more fish in the boat!!

Nimrod Added:
Here they feed on big bait (usually Shad) so I push heads inside to make them even bulkier. Tubes have a different action than solids. The big tubes rigged right seem to glide and flutter down like a wounded bait fish.

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