Make your 1/16 oz jig head weedless
I read some time ago about how to make the jigs weedless. All you do is take a 1/32 inch drill bit in a dremel tool with the long flexible dremel extension attached. Drill a 1/32" size hole into the top of the lead head jig so that you can insert the fishing line into the hole. You feel like a dentist doing this job! LOL Take the dremel vise or any other vice and put the lead head jig in the vice and clamp it snug. Then drill a small hole in the top of the jig head behind where you tie your fishing line to the jig head. Then cut off about a 1" long piece of 40 #test Trilene fishing line and insert the short piece of fishing line into the hole that you drilled. Then take a drop of super glue and glue the end of the line inside the hole in the lead head jig. The fishing line should stick out of back and top of the lead head jig and out in front of the hook. Cut the line so that it just goes past the bars of the hook. Now if you bump up against a tree limb in the brush pile it will keep the hook point from catching on the tree limbs so often. Once in a while you may get snagged but I was able to pull the hooks free using 6# test Trilene Iron Silk fishing line on my poles with these weedless jig head. I got the 1/16oz jig heads at walmart last month.
Today I took these newly made weedless jigs out for a trial. I caught 9 crappie in under two hours and only lost one jig the entire 2 hours that I was fishing.
I tied the jig onto the line with a palmar knot and then left a long tag line and then added a 1/4oz Bass Pro Shop Finess lead drop shop weight to the end of the tag line. The bass pro shop finess drop shot weights have a thin wire loop attached to the top of the weight which lets you pass the fishing line though the loop and then snug the line up into the loop where the wires come together. That makes it easy to attach a new weight to the line without even using a knot. I used my 7.5ft Richard Williams Graphite Crappie rod today and it worked great. I added the daiwa open faced ultra light spinning reel to complete the fishing outfit. The daiwa reel has a tefflon drag system that is smooth and allows me to catch some nice big fish on this untra light outfit.
Add a Bass Pro Shop Squirmin Squirt tube jig body to the jigs (White Lightning #18) and then put a chartruse crappie nibble on the hook. Now fish at 10ft and troll ever so slowly to keep the bait moving. I use the #1 setting intermitentely on my Min-Kota Trolling Motor when there is little or no wind. This keep the jig moving slowly which is the key to enticing the crappie to bite when they are suspended over deep water.
I caught the crappie all around structure along a drop off where it went from 8ft down to 25ft. There is some old trees or old mining equipement in the spot where I caught all the crappie. The lake I fish is Otter Pit which is just East of Evansville, IN. This is a new State Fish and Wildlife Recreational Area. There will soon be a camp ground on Boonville New Harmony Road which runs though the Blue Grass Fish and Wildlife Area. This F&W area is just East of Interstate 164 bypass on the East side of Evanville, IN. It's North of Morgan Ave. There are several large pits that were left after the stripped mined the coal in this area. Amax coal company reclaimed the land and sold some of it to the state of Indiana DNR. There are several concrete boat ramps. Trolling motors only. But you can put a ranger bass boat in the lake or one of those small one man bass boats. I have even seen canoes in the pits.
One other gentleman launched at the same time that I did and he reported catching two nice largemouth bass which he returned. I returned all 9 White Crappie to the water at the boat ramp on Otter Pit. These fish are about 2 years old and were only 8.5" long. Too small to keep but fun to catch. In two more years when the are 4 years old they may reach 10 to 12" and then would be good to keep and eat. These pits are hydrologically connected to blue grass creek and to Pigeon Creek which runs into the Ohio River. But they are only connected during periods of extreme flooding. There are some ruff fish from the river in these pits I am told. It's too bad because if the area were not connected to the river during periods of floods the state could manage the pits better. There pits receive a lot of fishing pressure but it's nice as they are only 10 minutes from my house. I can hook the boat up and be fishing in just under 30 minutes.
Moose, Hope you're wearing a respirator
...while you're throwing those lead filings into the air.
I take it you end up with something along the lines of Crappiepappy's old favorite? - Roberta
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OK my attemp to post a scanned picture of the jig
Well this is a long shot. I took one of the jigs and stuck it on my scanner and did a scan. It turned out pretty nice. Now if I can just figure out how to get the picture off my hard drive an onto this forum