November

[BuckeyeCrappie]

Following….

[DockShootinJack]

The wings look great on those

[Micanopy]

This one is seen head on. Kind of crammed him on to get the shot. Looks mean.








These have nice profiles with their beer bellies.









I have to accompany her majesty to the Festival. Oh joy. Walk around and look at other people’s junk. Hmmmmm wonder why they felt that someone would want to actually buy that. Still I endeavor to persevere. Working on the boat later today when I get done doing the things I am told to do. More like ignoring a few items on the list. Maybe if I get rip roaring drunk and lay down on the hallway floor I can be excused from my duties.

At least I don’t have to start wallpapering until her Halloween decorations come down. Rest assured as soon as they do it will be time to get started. Not looking forward to doing that you know. I mean you could have guessed that I guess.

I bought my family turkey the other day at $40. That’s right $40. Big Old Butterball. Family coming over for Thanksgiving and I wanted them to keep the tradition going. Did I mention it was $40. Double what I expect to pay normally. Food prices are through the roof and set to get much worse. Gird your loins.

[BuckeyeCrappie]

Some awesome work! Love this one.

[darcie1]

Very nice work.

[DockShootinJack]

I like those barred feathers also. Awesome

[Micanopy]

These are from my purple and pank collection.





Pank and white.





Blue and white.





I think I have learned something about working with marabou. Instead of wetting down an entire feather and lashing it to the hook shank, instead peel off a few sections of a single feather and lash those down. The thinner tail shows fine but will produce more action. A few whispy feathers vs a bundle of crowded feathers. In the second picture you can see where I was thick, and where I went thin with this.





I am trying to establish some base colors that can be included regularly in any of my jigs and I think I found two of these. White and chartreuse yellow.

Pink and WHITE
Blue and WHITE
Purple and WHITE
Chartreuse and WHITE

White goes well with all four of these other colors and can be a major color for me. I can add white to just about any jig and enhance the appearance. Makes sense, as minnow bellies have a light tone to contrast against a dark. Two tone. White shows well in the stained waters of my local lakes and can be easily spotted as well.

The second color that goes well with other colors is chartreuse yellow. Bright bright as you can get yellow. It has a universal appeal similar to white.

Pink and YELLOW
Purple and YELLOW
Blue and YELLOW
Green and YELLOW

And of course WHITE and YELLOW


You get the idea. Have a solid base color and simply add other colors to enhance it from there. Start with a white jig and add a splash of another color to it. Of course this is not some sort of news to some of you but I have been on this site for two years and have seen very little, if anything, discussed about this concept.




Take a look at the heads I recently made. What theme do you see.



That is right….white. A white jig head, and I added a color from there. The white makes the other color pop right out at you. It compliments the color I want to show. I want you to see green, so I apply it to a white background and you see green.

I am going to be painting more heads soon and will use some yellow powder paint as well. Bright as I can get. LOL




I think Marabou is not going to be of much value to me as my technique is to troll at a constant speed. Marabou really shines when the jig is still. I am thinking I need some synthetic fibres and will be trying some. I also like the idea of artic fox tail in……wait for it……wait…..WHITE and YELLOW. LOL

Anyways, just a few thoughts to share regarding what colors I think the fish will respond to. Just trying to assemble a small collection of GO-TO jigs.

[MCG1]

The quality of hackle makes a huge difference when wrapping hackle. I have plenty of squirrel tails. PM your address and I will send you a few to play with.

[Micanopy]

These are from my Pink Period. I have confidence in pink/white/chartreuse combinations. Had a few issues with the design, but the bottom jig in the bottom picture came out nicely. White marabou on the bottom with the chartreuse on top of that ( fish’s view bottom). It certainly looks good to me. Those pink eyes pop nicely on that white powder paint.


Got some of this stuff. Here it is in a UV light.




I made a few jigs using it as my chartreuse enhancement. It’s OK I guess, but really is little more than Flashabou stuff. Fine hairs in a synthetic of some fashion. I thought synthetics would have a big advantage over natural hair but apparently that is just not so. I read that deer tail hair has a long taper that synthetics do not possess. It is also hollow so as you bring the thread tight, it flares as the sides get crushed. Interesting. I will need to get me some deer tails. Everyone wants the Big Northern Buck Tails, but I suspect many of these are doe tails. LOL. I am gonna look for regular cheap ones as even those inferior hairs will still be too long for my short shank jigs. Not sure about colors, but white definitely. If the dyed tails are not bright bright I will pass on those and look for alternatives in synthetic. I mean the color of the synthetic is very bright and some are UV enhanced, such as this one.

Here I made a few jigs using this synthetic hair.

Purple and white with chartreuse highlights. (bad picture for color)



Pink and white with chartreuse.



Green and white with chartreuse.




On the right I made an orange and white with chartreuse, but quickly got distracted.



Tried some fake fur I found in a bag that I bought long time ago and made the jig on the bottom left. Crinkled hairs. I was thinking I would try it as a replacement for marabou, but I don’t think it is gonna make the grade. You can see it is kind of sparse. Maybe it was intended for adding to something else, or perhaps as dubbing. I don’t remember what I ordered but it was dirt cheap on Amazon. Got like a dozen colors of the stuff.

Top jig is kind of interesting. Obviously I was thinking orange, but wanted to try something new. The tail is Peacock Herl. When you look at a peacock tail feather these herls run along the length of the stem.

Here is a peacock, male bird, in full display.




You can see the feathers have an Eye. Look down at the lowest part of his fan, and you will see two swords, each sticking out to the side, left and right. These swords are used for special flies. I am interested in getting some swords to fiddle with.

Here is the tail feather up close.



You can see the herls very easily. They are single feathers extending away from the main stem. They have an iridescence that is absolutely beautiful. A shimmering green like the color of an insect’s eye. These are used to wrap around the hook shank, hackle feather fashion, to create the body of a bug for small flies. I didn’t do that, but instead simply lashed them down to fashion up a tail ( picture above- top jig ). It looks much better in hand I assure you.



Finally, a few more natural types that I made up last time at the vise.




White marabout tails, with different enhancements. Top jig I added Crystal Flash and some of that yellow hair stuff. Left hand side jig I added my grizzly feathers. Man I love those things. Then on the right same same but switched up and added peacock herls. I suspect my herls will succumb to a tragically short life once fish begin gnawing at them. Buying fresh herls is key and I got lucky, As they age they get brittle and break easily. Even fresh they are fragile, but still fun.

The bottom left jig is gonna be hard to improve upon. It offers so much to see, and is a great color. You cannot see it in the picture, but I eased a piece of Magnum Flashabou behind each grizzly feather. As you hold the jig the flash is tempered just so and the effect is much like the flash a minnow offers when near the surface. It is there, but kind of intermittent. I plan to do more of that.


Looks like some squirrel tail is coming my way. I wonder what I will be doing with that. LOL

[DockShootinJack]

You can get very nice effects with deer hair. I enjoyed using it