October

[Micanopy]

Well it is October, and the leaves are changing in some places. The cool breeze was felt all the way down here last night. I will be saving a fortune on my electric bill. The squirrels are busily grooming the oak trees. Soon my finches will be headed back. The rut is now on and the big bucks are cruising the forests looking for young ones to rough up. The month is going to simply shoot right on by and before we know it it will be November.

I have been experimenting with eyes on my jigs, now it is time to start experimenting with the rest of the jig- body and tail…… again. Funny that some of my best ideas can be found on the internet. Conceived by others already. Amazing how that works. Anyways I will keep trying out stuff and trying to discover new ideas.

I have a vise and some chenilles and flashaboo stuff. I have rubber legs and silicone skirtings. I need some more stuff to play with. I try to do business with the members who sponsor the website. I decided to give Woods and Water a shot at my money today. I placed a reasonable order for some very basic stuff. I got calf tail, some marabou, some chenille, and some hackle feathers. All but the chenille will be brand new to me.

I liked that he starts with white feather materials and dyes the stuff up himself. The colors looked bright enough to please me. Hot Pink- Bright Chartreuse Yellow- Grape Purple- makes for great highlight colors against a white base. So I started with that stuff.

I am wanting to make feathery tails that become streamlined when drawn through water. I like a stick tail look. I have watched various videos on how to trim feathers and such, so I will probably have no real issues. Just need to make more jig heads to play dolly with.

I saw their ready made jigs on the woods and water website and they look pretty cool. I was curious if anyone knows what kind of tubing they used for the tails. I would like to get my hands on some tubing to play around with and see what can be done. As a troller, I do not need mobility in the tail, but some waggle would be nice. Mostly I am going for profile. Anyways, let me know if you find some that I can order up.

I have decided that I need a longer tentacled swoosh ball thingie for cutting tails off of. Yes, that was a proper sentence thank you very much. I enjoy a paddle tail myself. Take a look at these two.





The top one is a Slabonator Booty Thumper in standard size, trimmed in length to fit the short shank hooks I prefer. Tickle Me Elmo blade setup on the Screw Lock feature. This is a 1/16th oz head.

The one below is so much smaller in appearance and profile. Also a 1/16th oz head, with collar trimmed off, and the exact same short shank hook. It also features a paddle tail feature, only one I fashioned up from the swoosh ball thingie. You can see why I am wanting a ball with longer tentacles.



Some of the ones I made up this morning over coffee.

Recently I gifted away some of my latest designs. I gave them to my boss so he could test them out for me. He is a great fisherman and will report back. Hopefully report back accurately. Anyways, I am wanting to make up some new lures and might as well try to make some hand ties. i once tested my hand tied bucktail jigs against my plastic bait jigs and it was an even match on the fish. So hand ties do catch fish and plastic baits catch fish.

When they are biting.

When they are not biting it is nice to have a variety to select from. I have variety. I use plastic baits, hand ties, various sized and shaped jig heads, jigs with blades, crankbaits, and just started using spoons and dodgers. It is fun to catch lots of fish, but I really enjoy catching the larger specimens.

I have considered trying to add my planer boards back into the mix. I rather enjoyed those when the winds were calm and everything swam right. I use the smallest sized boards and waves kind of mess with them. I wondered how they would do with dodgers and spoons. It would let me add six new rods to the spread, for a total of 16.

I am also thinking about using two lures on some of my lines. Easy enough I guess. Tie a heavier jig on the end, come up some, add a long loop and attach a lighter jig. Kind of a mess to travel to and from the lake though. Currently, I reel the jig all the way tight to the tip of the rod and store rod.

Anyways, it’s October.

[sweathermon]

I have made a few orders from woods and water. I think you will be very happy with the quality of the product. One of the orders I made was during a major cold spell that had all the mailing services way behind, Patrick emailed me several times with updates on my order even though I had received a tracking number from him he was still keeping track of my order also. I'm very pleased with the products I've got from him and his customer service. He is at the top of my list for ordering from for sure.

Sent from my SM-S906U using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

[BuckeyeCrappie]

Nice jig work!

[DockShootinJack]

Those hybrid jigs are awesome. Best of both worlds. Surely will hold scent well

[BobC]

Nice jigs, Micanopy. Enjoyed seeing them.
Bob

[Micanopy]

Well my order from Woods and Water came in, and pretty quickly I might add. The quality seems to be very good, although I have no experience with anything other than the chenille. I grabbed up one of my 1/16th ounce jig heads and decided to tie up my very first ever classic marabou crappie jig.



The Marabou jig as you already know is classic because of the way the feathers behave underwater. Very enticing action. My feathers came strung to make it easier to single out a feather to use. Woods and Water starts with a plain white turkey feather and they dye them in house somewhere down in Tejas. I went with Radiation Yellow and the color is very bright. Under UV light the feathers glow extremely brightly.

I went with the white chenille as that color seems to do pretty well. The chenille they sent me is from Hareline, and I went with the Antron in medium size. You can see that I really do not use very much with the short shank hook, and like to leave lots of room for the hook to slip through the fish’s fleshy stuff before encountering any interference. Lots of bare hook under the feather. The eyes are pink and quite brilliant in direct light and make for a nice combination of colors. The head is unpainted and you might see a little of the lead.

I also got some Calf Tail in neon pink and chartreuse yellow. I plan to try my hand with that stuff, too. Make a thin hair tail jig. I also got some hackle feathers, and upon pulling them from the package realized that the remnants will be a part of my environment forever. LOL Very interesting feathers though. Quite slender and would produce a minimalist look.

I have been researching tail materials on line and there are all sorts of options. I kind of like the idea of using a 2mm rubber strand in neon yellow as it would offer a thin tail that would wiggle as it went. Sort of like the BG minnow thingie. Just a stump of a tail. Anyways there are tons of options for me to explore and discover.

Yesterday I cooked chicken and ribs for 825 people. I banged my knee hard and managed to pour boiling hot water all over my hand. Couldn’t let go of the pot either, so the bath was a good dose of the stuff. It hurt for a while but this morning it seems to be back to normal operation. The ribs were excellent. I cut ribs for a very long time. LOL

My boss looked at my boat engine. I had purchased spark plugs to replace the ones in the motor. Instead he diagnoses water in the fuel. Quite a bit of water. So he replaced the fuel/water seperator filter thingie, and a filter up in the motor. Then he used the bulb to squirt watery fuel out of the engine and into a Mason jar and I could see the water clearly. He buttoned everything back up and said to run it, then replace that fuel/water filter thingie pretty quickly.

Man it is soooooooo nice to have a buddy that knows how to do things. He got the parts at the new boat dealer in town. He said they have a great mechanic in there that is certified to work on Yamahas. I said that is good because mine only has about 30 hours on it and already it has had two issues. The issue before was a bad spark plug.

I have been using a large tarp to cover the boat but turns out that is a mistake. It allows water to condensate (Florida) and not dry up after a rain storm (Florida). The seats have mildew stains. So I plan to make a roof over thingie thing in my yard to park it underneath. This will keep it dry and out of the Sun. Everybody says it is a beautiful boat and I follow that up with it goes 50 mph.

Well this weekend should be nice weather and I plan to run the living hell out of that engine. Been far too long since I wet a line. Got all these new lures to test, and the fish are said to be biting, so I plan to get after them. Make us some fresh fish for dinner.

OH BTW Jack, I got my skewers in. They are 1” wide, 27” long, and will be ideal for kabobs. I read that Persian kabobs are ground. beef, and ground lamb, and finely minced onion, all kneaded together and squeezed onto the skewer. I can lay the skewers across my Charbroiler- grates removed- to slowly cook them with flamage. Served over rice I will see if I am impressed or not. If they turn out good I’ll tell you all about it.

[DockShootinJack]

I have seen that method done. I have not tried it myself

[Micanopy]

My first attempt at another classic design. Hackle feather tail.

I can see now that the tail is just as important as the head. I like this but think that this hackle thing really isn’t going to please me. I guess it is still worth toying with. Maybe the finesse of the material will do something for me.

[Micanopy]

I attempted Calf Tail. seemed easy enough. Hair was kind of short but workable.


Need to start wetting these jigs and looking for anomalies that might make a good jig even better. Of the three materials I purchased, definitely prefer the marabou. Just need to use a little less of the stuff.

[DockShootinJack]

Good looking tie