Thread: Pretty Bleak

I am getting ready for the snow melt down and panfish run.

I never thought of doing that, but it really looks like I could come real close running 32nd or 48th oz tanged heads inside 1" Southern Pro tubes. Hooks would be 8s and 10s ... I have all that stuff but never thought about putting it together that way. (Not that I intend to tie that tiny of a thread!)

Keep warm, sounds like you get some 20 below temps tonight.

Originally Posted by Bob/MN

I am getting ready for the snow melt down and panfish run.

Real soon we start looking for the first open water as the temps start to moderate, once we get past this particular cold snap. Then it starts around here too as the pannies come up to sun in the warmest waters and gourge on the first insect hatches.

Hopefully we have enough snow around here that spring thaw will bring up our lakes a bit or this spring is going to be a whole different ball game than we have had before. Last spring we had very high water and excellent fishing, this spring may be very low. It is sometimes hard to figure here in the Metro since so much of our interior lake levels depend on what melt goes down the storm sewers.

Right now I am digging out the lights to start my garden plants, setting the sweet potatoes to get the slips going, sorting my onion sets and potatoes, that sort of thing and very soon starting the peppers and tomatoes. New this spring for me will be pruning my peach trees. This will be their second winter in the ground and I am hoping for more than the single fruit I got last summer. There were quite a few more set but we got a couple of early hail storms that pretty much stripped the new fruits. You would be more than a little far north for that, and we were too, until the last couple of decades.

Originally Posted by no1son

I never thought of doing that, but it really looks like I could come real close running 32nd or 48th oz tanged heads inside 1" Southern Pro tubes. Hooks would be 8s and 10s ... I have all that stuff but never thought about putting it together that way. (Not that I intend to tie that tiny of a thread!)

I see no reason why the inside head would not work for a vertical presentation.
I also have used a 1/48 once inside head with a #10 or #12 hook with the one inch southern pro tubes. The down side is the panfish destroy the tube in short order and we were constantly adding new tubes. This is why I made the lead body, rubber tailed jigs. You can catch fish all day and the jig will show little ware or tare. The feathered tail is less durable but still stands up better than the tube. Also the feathered tail jig seems to work better bare bones during the hard water season.
Don't get me wrong the tube is a great lure for catching fish, it just isn't as durable.
<BTW> It is a good idea to use the small jigs barb-less, especially when using a bobber, as many fish swallow the jig .

No question whatsoever that sunnies are murder on tube tails! I find oddly enough that as long as there is still one, the tube continues to work well; so I normally only replace the tube if all the legs have been torn off. At times it even pays dividends to remove all but a couple to start out with.

We hit a lot of sunnies in our crappie fishing, and they are definitely plastic destroyers, not just on tubes, but also often even worse on twisters of all sizes. That is my biggest gripe with the GULP Alive 1.5" jigging grub. It definitely catches fish, but generally you only get a single one per bait.

I seldom feel the need to use a bobber, but you definitely have a point about the small sized hooks going down real easy. But IMO for sunnies you have to go small in hook size a lot of times or all you get is nibbles short of the hook, resulting in a dramatic increase in destroyed plastic tails.

Originally Posted by no1son

No question whatsoever that sunnies are murder on tube tails! I find oddly enough that as long as there is still one, the tube continues to work well; so I normally only replace the tube if all the legs have been torn off. At times it even pays dividends to remove all but a couple to start out with.

We hit a lot of sunnies in our crappie fishing, and they are definitely plastic destroyers, not just on tubes, but also often even worse on twisters of all sizes. That is my biggest gripe with the GULP Alive 1.5" jigging grub. It definitely catches fish, but generally you only get a single one per bait.

I seldom feel the need to use a bobber, but you definitely have a point about the small sized hooks going down real easy. But IMO for sunnies you have to go small in hook size a lot of times or all you get is nibbles short of the hook, resulting in a dramatic increase in destroyed plastic tails.

A trick to get more miles from a tube is to add rubber or silicone legs to your inside jig head. Add a dab of super glue to the jig head and insert it into the tube. This helps to keep the tube in place and eliminates splits. As the plastic legs disappears the rubber or silicone legs will still be in place. Actually I have found that painted heads with the rubber legs works just as well as a tube in most cases.
The picture is a 1 1/2 inch tube,1/32 once head,#8 hook. The legs can be trimmed to fit a 1 inch tube.

Looks real good...

Originally Posted by Crappie 1

Looks real good...

It does look good doesn't it?

The added rubber legs do also. I don't normally fish my tubes with the head inside though, seldom retying unless I lose the jig. That would be an adjustment.

I can also see how jig inside can get deeper hooksets, which I try to avoid, since I plan to release everything, the whole thing being a fish target rather than having a distinct segment directing attention to the business end (the hook) .

To work the rubber legs would require retying to change tubes, which I do now without retying, using ball headed, tanged jigs with the hook inserted through the nose rather than doggy style, generally changing out until something clicks. Then I work a productive pattern over how ever many trips it continues to work, sometimes using the same tube for multiple trips (my trips are generally no more than a couple or three hours at a time, though).

If I can find the crappies on a decent bite, the tubes will last pretty well. They do not ruin a tube a fraction as quickly as sunnies do. If I am on crappies, a single tube may last me three or four trips spanning more than a week at times, since I leave my tackle rigged between trips.

I am going to have to think about this some, but I guess with the current cold snap I have some time to do just that. Always looking for another presentation that works. This one looks real promising.

I don't have that kind of jig head; so another excuse to get more tackle! Gotta love it!