Thread: best TAIL material for Bluegill?

I am curious as well

Marabou or rabbit

My border colley's fur did well first time I cast a jig using it. The length and soft texture was just right.
Marabou and bucktail (not body hair) are other materials that have great action.
A small strip of Accent glitter-hair adds a bit of sparkle.

I say hackle but I'm sort of partial to that material for everything.

Magnum Zonker strip rabbit fur . Durable and moves like it’s alive .
I buy the strips and cut the fur off the skin to use

Squirrel tail or squirrel/rabbit zonkers. Great action, durable. The hackle hair from Hareline looks promising but I have not actually used any yet.

I use lots of different hair and feather too. I like kip tail and squirrel tail in gray and red, which is really orange. The brown or black off of those tails work good too. I use #8, 1/43 heads on two pound line and get the cast I need. Most folks don’t venture below 4 lb line and 1/32, but to each his own. Painted or bare lead heads and red or olive thread collars with no chenille. Fox tail, rabbit, mink and many other furs work very well also. One thing I want to express is that the hair doesn’t have to have lots of volume to work well. In this case, less can be more. Shorter than I used to tie also. There’s a method of tying a one feather jig that you need to research. The whole feather is tied on part way up from the tip, then it’s wrapped for the body and a small Palmer sized collar. Google Turtles jigs and look at those, a good example. None of it is wrong. You have to experiment and see which ones work for where and how you fish. Have fun and keep us posted on what you find cuz you’ll be the teacher at that point.

PS I use earth tones and just a little flash, one or two strips. Gray too, looks like a minnow or fry/hatchling.

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