October

[CRAPPIE60]

Did you pour the short shank jigs or buy them ?

[Micanopy]

Did you pour the short shank jigs or buy them ?

I pour them. The hook is an Eagle Claw 571. It is similar to their 570, but with the shortened shank. It was designed to fit the Do-It Live Bait Jig Mold, but can fit other molds, and there are still other molds that can be modified slightly to allow it. The hook is strong and has a nice barb that really hangs onto the fish. Being shorter it also allows more movement on my plastic baits. It also makes it far easier to guide the plastic bait onto the hook because it doesn’t need to penetrate as deeply.

When I was using sickle hooks, I could land the fish, let him flop on the floor a few seconds and the jig would pop out. Using these, the fish can flop all day long and the jig remains attached. I also noticed better hookups as I land almost every single bite. If they bite I got them. The hook tip rides quite high and even has a slight angle to it.

It also allows me to make smaller sized lures. Nice and compact. Not sure if you can find anyone that sells jigs that uses them. If you make jigs I give them my recommendation. I would rate them at about medium on the sharpness scale. Absolutely no need to touch them up though. Made of bronze according to the sellers. I read where a jig maker was using these to land twenty pound fish and said they were more than strong enough. Which means the hook will not straighten if it gets snagged. That is very rare for me so……

[Micanopy]

Well the weather is looking good for some weekend fishing. Probably not very many recreational boaters to contend with. Winds will be 5-10 mph. Lots of bright sunshine. Taking the wife Saturday and friend on Sunday. Gonna run that engine to try to clean out the water and get it back to what it should always have been.

Didn’t really fish all that much over the hot Summer. Always seemed to be something else for me to do. Swimming in the springs, river cruises, parties, etc. Now is the time of year that I enjoy fishing because it is so pleasant. October, November, December, January, February, March and April are the times to be alive here in Florida. Seven months of gorgeous weather is enough lure to keep me interested in sticking around. I don’t see how folks manage up North where you get two months of Summer and ten months of Winter. Living in Northern Virginia I learned to hate Februgly.

Anyways needed some new lures. Like I need a new hole in my head. Still I forge on.





I always liked my plastic baits because the colors, profiles and actions are just too good to ignore. Last year I posted up my results from a test of bucktails against plastics and the results were a tie. Those bucktails sure were ugly, too. I used yarn.

Fast forward to today where I have some supplies from Woods and Water. I have played around with the various tail materials they sold me and have decided that I like marabou best. One feather made a bunch of jigs for me, too.



and even these, too.



Very easy to work with although poofs of feather are now everywhere. LOL. I always see marabou jigs loaded with an entire feather. I prefer less material so stripped off small sections to use. The jigs look fishy to me.

So no I do not like calf tail, or yarn, or even hackle feathers. I am a marabou convert. So many options are available to me now that I have gotten ahold of some quality materials. I guess everyone already knew all that but I didn’t. My pattern is bright as I can get yellow for the tail, then different colors for the body and up front, large eyes.

Some of these jigs are 1/24th, some 1/16th, some 1/8th. Soon I will be making some 1/10th ounce sized jigs with very large very bright eyes. They will look so good with marabou tails. I troll long line/short line fashion and the variety in sizes is very useful to me. Not sure what depths everyone runs at and really don’t much care. I know that if a heavier jig is doing well, let out more line on the lighter jigs and go. Lighter jigs, less line. I also fish some jigs right next to tyhe boat with good success. Some days the fish want the jigs that are in close and I catch most of my keepers there. Other days they want that drop back well away from the boat. As with all things crappie, being able to discover and adapt is the key to filling the live well.

I watched a short video featuring Wally Marshall. Maybe a minute in length. He answered a question- what color jigs do you prefer ? He said he likes white with chartreuse, blue and white, and lemon lime combinations. Said with just those three he could catch every crappie in Texas. I was kind of surprised that pink was not in his mix of favorites. It sure is in mine. I guess what he was really saying is that if you are doing what you should be doing that a large collection of colors isn’t required.

I have been on a tackle reduction program for quite some time. Mixed results really. I keep thinking of new combinations of things to try. Anyways, I want to try to get down to just two dozen jig designs. Enough to have some variety but not so many that they overwhelm me and distract.

So of course…….I also plan to try something new and use very bright yellow solid rubber strands that are 2mm in diameter for tails. I can add resin balls on the end to make them waggle more. Thinking a bit of marabou surrounding a rubber strand that wiggles might be pretty cool. These would offer that stinger tail concept to my hand ties.

I might try different colored marabou and see if I like that. Probably so. Maybe later I will revisit hair jigs but for now I am hot after these. Thanks Woods and Water. You dye up some fine stuff.

[Micanopy]

Did you pour the short shank jigs or buy them ?

Take a look at my jigs. Do you see that hook tip standing proud ?

Some in the above post are a different type of short shank hook. They are the Do-It Whacky Hooks in size #2. These feature a 30 degree eye and fit my Bat Jig mold, which calls for size #6 Whacky hooks. Again the tip is very aggressive, and the shank shorter than normal. The Eagle Claw hooks are size 1/0, yet are smaller than size #2, by quite a bit. Manufacturers are allowed to state sizes according to how they wish to measure. There are no industry standards. Add in the various shapes and the possibilities are too much to try to standardize sizing.

[Micanopy]

Yes……Yes…….the Force is strong in this one.


Used mere scraps of marabou to stack up a good mess. I think that jig has all the right components to get it done. Looks fishy. Bold. in the 1/8th size I’ll make it a close to the boat lure. They are the easiest to get a depth reading on anyways.

If I am a crappie……I am gonna try to bite that thing.

[DockShootinJack]

If I was a crappie I would have long since ended up fried
Great looking tie

[DockShootinJack]

If I was a crappie I would have long since ended up fried
Great looking tie

[Micanopy]

Needed some underspins to go with my marabou jigs. These weigh 1/8th oz and will be fished in close. The blade is a Nickel finished Indiana blade size 00. For lighter weight jig heads I use the willow blades as they provide less resistance. Slabonator’s Hot Rod in 2 1/2” length, with a quarter inch trimmed off.



Gifted away my collection of 3/8th oz under spins, so will need to pour up some more of those.

As I troll along and go to land a fish, they come in towards the boat’s back corners. There is a small sized area there that I like to keep free of lines. Obviously that is best. Anyways the rods down the sides need to be projecting outwards and away, only thing is the last one is but a mere six feet long. To get around having that line in the way, I like to use a heavier jig to get the line to drop down and avoid the area where I land fish. It is still there, just below. This jig can be set to a certain depth far easier than the way back lines. My lakes are shallow affairs, mostly 6 feet deep or so. This allows me to gauge the depth and fish these deeper than the others.

If there are any crappies out there named Jack…….well I’ll have them with these. I can use my live-wells again now the water has cooled some. If there are only a couple of Jack fish, well they will get a reprieve. If however I scrounge up a mess, well they all get the hot grease.



Maybe Lemon Lime…..

[DockShootinJack]

That is certainly the advantage of cooler water. You can release if you don't get enough for a decent mess

[Micanopy]

Took my buddy fishing. September last year his wife died of Covid. We trolled about and talked about, for three hours or there about. We caught a few fish, he told me about some girl he just met, and the weather was fabulous.

I tested out the new jigs and they swam pretty well. The marabou collapses and makes a body. I will need to play with that some more. I want to design the things so that when the collapse and get trolled they look right. Got some ideas. Been watching fly tying videos and learning about feathers.

The orginal marbou feathers came from the Marabou Stork. A beautiful bird.






These devils are large and eat carrion, baby alligators, termites, you name it. Ugly. Well on their rumps are these feathers that are very whispy. Fly tyers started using them. Now days they get the feathers from the rumps of another beautiful bird.











Only not this turkey, rather this turkey. The domesticated version.







The feathers are white and they use high temperature steams to kill any parasitic stuff such as lice ( hopefully ). Then they dry them and they use a sewing machine to sew the quill ends of the feathers into clumps that keep them together. Otherwise they might get out of hand in your tying area and make a huge mess. These white feathers can then be dyed and frequently are. The colors vary according to the dyes and the man doing the dyeing, or course the devil is always in the details. Woods and Water dyes their own marabou feathers using their own custom colors. I couldn’t help myself and did order some more from them in different colors for my jig designs. Sucks, but I just had to do it. The marabou I originally got from them was very nice, and I just had to go back for more.

Marabou feathers are rated according to their physical characteristics.

1) Blood Quill- these are usually shorter but have a stem that is thin and can be used to wrap around the hook shank. These are very popular.

2) Wolly Bugger- These are a little longer and have a thicker stem. More difficult to wrap around the hook shank, but have a thicker plume.

3) Select - These have the thickest stem and produce the longest and fluffiest plumes.

The feather can be stripped and the stripped away pieces can then can then be stacked to produce jigs with just the right amount of tail feathering. Most marabou jigs are simply one whole plume wrapped onboard and have large triangular tails. The iconic look is really not that useful. Much better action can be had if the feather is stripped and only some of the plume is used. This allows for movement. It is the way i prefer to use them as well. I can get five or six jigs from the feather that otherwise would make just one.

Some folks buy Boas from Amazon and get this huge mess of feathers for only a little bit of money. These are inferior for tying purposes. The dyes used probably are not colorfast in water. Better off paying for good quality feathers designed for the purpose. Again, Woods and water knows what feathers to start with and what dyes work best.

The marabou feather can be tied on to allow for a chenille to be applied ahead of it, but some are tied on bucktail jig style, right up to the eye. I feel that the material is very easy to work with. Just grasp some of the plume and pull it away from the stem. Tie onto the hook and look. Need more….just pull some more and add to the jig. I try to start with the least amount I think is needed and add what looks good from there.

No need to cut with scissors at any time. Just pull a single feather loose from the sewn clump area. I place the feather on the hook shank, guess at the length, do a light wrap, pull my hands away for a good look, and then adjust the length from there. Then start wrapping, then trim the stem end, then finish wrapping over top.

The material is so much softer than hair, but a marabou jig will last for a pile of fish. Crappie don’t shred with teeth you know. Not like a bluefish you know. So you can gain an advantage over hair in the movement department without necessarily sacrificing durability.

Marabou is said to come alive in the water. Some say it breathes. A hair jig usually moves along the entire length of the jig, as if it were a stick. Marabou moves independently from the jig head, and kind of follows in a snake like fashion. There are some animal hairs that get close to this effect, such as Arctic Fox and Rabbit, but really they are no match. A marabou feather is tough to beat for action.

Many tiers will add a strip of flash alongside each side of the jig to work with the marabou. I plan to experiment with hiding things inside the marabou. Let the movement of the feather allow for a peak see every so often. Not sure how that will turn out, but think it worthy of a try. Monkey see- Monkey Burn Finger. That is my mantra.

I feel that marabou will work very nicely with my bladed designs.

Anyways there is still alot about marabou for me to learn and possibly discover. It has been used for so many years that everything has probably already been figured out and done. Fishermen are clever little fellows. Fly Tyers even more so. Still it is fun to explore what the marabou feather can do for my jigs. I know they will not replace my plastic baits, but variety is the spice of life. Not sure if you have ever tied a jig, but I encourage you to do so. It really is not hard to do at all. Just avoid trying to get by with cheap supplies. Get good quality components. That was the mistake I made, buying craft fur and using yarn and such. It is not a cheap hobby and you will need room to store materials, but gifting jigs gets you lots of friends.