no-action tail grubs for all panfish species - you'd be surprised how well they work!

No tail grubs have been producing very well as of Dec. 2015. I discovered that by removing the tail of grubs lures, rigging them on a light 1/32 or 1/16 oz round head jig and retrieving them slowly, they caught all pan fish species.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j3...b.jpg~original

Note that the tails were removed from the original curl tail and Slider grubs. The lure still quivers on the retrieve using
4 lb test line, making the body the action part.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j3...u.jpg~original

Hand poured mold or non-mold:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j3...r.jpg~original

Again, all of the above modified or hand poured lures are based on the huge success of the original bullet design:

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j3...j.jpg~original

Cool idea, I'll have to give that a try this spring.

Thanks. Keep in mind that the softer the grub plastic, the more it quivers. Too hard a plastic or too thick the grub's body may work but not as well. Big Bite Bait grub bodies were the ones used in the picture, the rest hand poured. I've also dipped Sassy Shad bodies in clear plastic after cutting off the tails. Should be interesting.

I will post the results of testing the above starting in late March along with photos of the different species caught. The lakes I'll be fishing have trophy size pan fish and I'm very confident will slam the no-tail-action grubs. (Hope I don't lose too many to chain pickerel.)

:popcorn Huh. That's interesting

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j3...3.jpg~original


If you own the minnow shapes with those little fins, a,b or c should do as well equally and probably as well as these dipped Sassy Shads minus tails:
http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j3...l.jpg~original

The fact that pan fish will take these is not surprising.As a child we would toss the seed head from a plant that grew in the edge of our pond into the water,everything from gills to small bass would strike the floating head.the small seed head resembled the infamous wooly bugger chartreuse in color.im only guessing that cutting the curly tails off opens the opportunity for perhaps smaller mouthed or smaller fish to take the lure.
One favorite tecnique of mine is to cast grubs ( real or imitation) into fish waters,keeping the line in one hand and slowly lifting the rod tip with the other,allowing the grub to drift and bounce toward me.I guessing this action must closely imitate how a grub would be carried along with current.I personally like to use honey worms for this tecnique,they are soft ,but withstand several bites,allowing me to catch multiple fish with one worm.

Good points about action attractions. We sometimes think that a lure's imitation of some prey animal is what gets a fish to bite not considering simply the basic reaction of a fish to an angler's "keeping the line in one hand and slowly lifting the rod tip with the other,allowing the grub to drift and bounce toward me. I guessing this action must closely imitate how a grub would be carried along with current". When it comes to fish biting a lure, action speaks louder than words along with the speed. When lure profile, size and color complement lure action and speed, the odds of provoking a fish to strike go up IMO. Good thing there are hundreds of combinations of these factors that fish respond to. Crafting and testing lures confirms this every time I fish.

I experimented with this a few years ago. I took a 4" slider worm and cut it up into three or four pieces. Caught plenty of fish.

No action or very little action is often all you need.

Curl tail lures have a speed range limitation which plays a big part in the overall action of the grub at slower or faster speeds. I'm sure anyone who has used action tail grubs - especially double curly tails (shown above), know that that tail design has the slowest effective speed on a horizontal or vertical retrieve. Rig the lure on a Beetle Spin (overhead spin), and the lure's fastest effective speed is even less.

I've caught fish on the above but don't see any advantage using them considering the fact that no tail action-lures have the greater speed range within the same retrieve. And since I like to fish in different depths on the same outing - near the surface and down to 20' using a light jig tied to light line - I find I can cover more water faster and still be confident the lure hasn't lost its fish appeal. That's not to say I'll be melting down and reusing all plastics with action tails because at times both work equally well.

One other thing that allows an action-tail to be worked faster is body shape and size: the thicker the grub body and the larger the jig head the lure is rigged on, the larger the speed range.