smalljaw67

I have a friend that used the nothing but the original floater for years. Specifically late spring through summer and into early fall and only the Rainbow Trout pattern in the F9 and F11 sizes.

You don't have to worry about Z-Man with that stuff. What they don't like is people putting pictured of their own creations in which it looks as if someone is selling the bait.

Thank you for that info. That means the silver vein I have from Columbia Coatings is probably the same. I was wondering if their foundation was a plain silver vein or if they had something a little different.

Harold, you did a great job with those heads, it truly is a learning process. I was able to do the same thing with silver vein paint I had from Columbia coatings and then I'd go over it with a candy color. Now I do have a question for you, have you tried that on any smaller jig like in the 1/8oz to 1/4oz range? Also wondering if the foundation color works in a fluid bed? The silver vein paint I have doesn't come out in a fluid bed, it ends up being a very dark silver color, no veining at all. The smaller heads also don't do well, it really needs a 3/8oz head or larger for it to work well. I'm asking these questions as I'm wondering if the jig armor foundation paint is different from the silver vein I have from Columbia coatings.

I often said that if I had to have 1 type of jig and only one it would be the ball head. Jack of all trades and master of none it is just as much at home in grass as it is wood and rock. All you need to do is match the right hook and you are good to go. That is why they make ball head jigs with 90 degree and 60 degree hooks, regular and flat eye versions in light, medium, and heavy wire so there is a ball head for every situation.

I make my own version but it is a good jig. That is the jig that I believe someone new to jigs should start with.

Yep, 8570 is correct, thank you!!!

I'm a fan of rooster tails and I like the Mepps Aglia and the Panther Martin as well.

Get a floating Rat-L-Trap, ponds usually have muck bottoms which will bog down a square bill in short order. The other thing is to try lighter lipless cranks but a floating version will not only snag less but catch fish as well.

What kind of thread? I'm asking because certain threads have a slit in the spool which the tag end is placed. When you pull the tag end out you have to be sure to get the entire end, if a small filament is hung on the spool lip you'll end up in the same situation.

This^^^^^!!!! Lucky Craft has all these different baits but if you never used one start at the beginning. The original plain old Pointer minnow. The Pointer 78SP and the 100SP will catch fish and you will get a better understanding of what these baits are about. There are 2 things that make the Pointer stand out from all other jerkbaits, the first is the suspend really well over a wide range of water temps. The other is they have a little wobble when you pause it and that seems to trigger strikes. So start with that one first and then add others if you feel the need.

Unfortunately you are going to have to pay shipping to get a better blade. Cabela's and Bass Pro both sell the same stuff, the Bas Pro XPS blades are good but they only come in gold and nickel. LPO has nice painted blades but they aren't cheap, these are the blades I use when I was using painted blades. https://www.lurepartsonline.com/Premium-Painted-Colorado-Blades

You are right, that blade is bad. I hope the other blades you got aren't the same way.

I don't think you'll ever see a 1" ned head with the offset shank like the Lifted jigs or Flatland Customs. The reason is there isn't enough room to accommodate the offset to hold the worm on. I was messing around with one of my molds to see if I could make a small one. I took a size #1 and a size #2 Gamakatsu offset EWG hook and put it into the modified mold. I had to fabricate a small wire form to attach to the hook eye and then come out of the head for the line tie. Even with just the hook eye imbedded in the head did not leave enough room to hold the standard Ned rig worm on securely. I think what you might see is what the OP already got that he thinks might have been mislabeled. A #1 hook with extended length for the offset to hold the worm in place. It will give you the smaller profile of the size #1 hook but it will still be long like a 1/0 because there just isn't enough room. Now if someone wanted to make a smaller hook version that would work it can be done but differently. You'd make the head with a free swinging hook so now you have the smaller size #1 and #2 hooks that will have the full length of the offset free to hold the worm but it now has a small joint that can cause issues in grass.

The problem is that a size 1 is going to have extra length for that style of hook. The reason is that there has to be enough room on the offset to be able to hold the plastic. I know I already heard a lot of guys wanting a 2/0 and then using a larger plastic because even the 1/0 has issues with the worm sliding down while coming through cover. I honestly believe if you are fishing cover that you don't need a ned rig, a slider head with a small worm will work fine. I was told something that made sense, and it was that if the fish are located in cover they aren't as difficult to coax into striking compared to a fish cruising open water. That was the original application for the Midwest finesse technique, finicky fish not relating to cover. I am still keeping an eye out for something that may interest you but I think the slider head with a small worm will work better than a ned rig for fishing cover.

River Rock Custom Baits Jointed Jerkbait in 4" or 5". They are soft and move really well, it is without a doubt my favorite soft jerkbait. I use the plain old Zoom fluke 4" for a trailer on an underspin. https://river-rock-custom-baits.myshopify.com/products/5-jointed-jerkbait

I'm not familiar with ever seeing a size 2.5 Colorado blade so it is probably a 2 or a 3. You make your own baits already so I'm going to assume the blade is on the clevis correctly which is the cupped or underside facing up toward the blade on the swivel. I'm also going to guess in that with a 3/8oz size bait you are running at least .032" - .035" diameter wire so you are using a size #2 or #3 clevis. If you are using a size 2 Colorado blade the problem is the blade is too small to spin the clevis, it happens with size 3 willow blades and a size 3 clevis, the blade doesn't catch enough water unless you retrieve it at warp speed. Another issue could be clevis and wire, if you are using a size 2 clevis on .035" wire even a larger size 3 blade won't spin freely because the hole diameter for the clevis is .035". At slow speeds it will bind and stick which will make it sort of just flail around. It is hard to diagnose without a little more info and if you are buying the heads already made instead of molding them it is very important to know the wire diameter so you can get the right components, .030" to .032" diameter wire gets a size 2 clevis and .035" up to .041" diameter wire gets a size 3 clevis.

Based on the size of the hook and the look of that I'd say it is 2 feathers. Now, the first thing is to have the right marabou, wooly bugger marabou won't look right, blood quill marabou is what you want. Now before you tie your feather, pull the very tip off of it to keep it from having the "paintbrush" look. You can also strip the fibers off the stem and then stack them and tie the marabou on that way. I'll do one on my YouTube channel in the next day or so.

I'm a huge fan of River Rock Custom Baits tubes as well as Right Bite and Dry Creek. The River Rock baits are softer than any other hand dipped tube that I ever fished so those are my absolute favorite. I've been fishing tubes a long time, I thought Cabin Creek made the best tubes but when they changed plastic the tubes got harder and were less effective. Gitzit made a good tube as well but they too changed plastic which made the tubes a littler harder so they didn't draw as many strikes as they once did. So here is the thing, I fish in heavily pressured waters where every angler is throwing tubes so I'm really partial to softer tubes that have more life in the water and the fish hold on a little longer. They also need to be hand dipped and if you don't think that has any affect I can assure you it does. If you watch tubes being worked in clear water you can actually see the difference, injected tubes have uniform wall thickness and so they move in the same way every time you pop the rod. Hand dipped tubes are free formed so the wall thickness has little variations so when you pop the rod it will move one way and then the next time it will move another way. So for me I'm partial to hand dipped tubes

The Shad Rap is just a killer and that Bad Shad is just a no go for me too. I use those shad style baits in late winter/early spring as they are awesome in cold water. I have 4 different ones, the Rapala X-Rap Shad, Rapala Shad Rap, Berkley Bad Shad, and the Bagley Balsa Shad. The Bad Shad hasn't produced any fish, the X-Rap Shad works when jerkbaits are working and I use it like that because it suspends. The Shad Rap and the Balsa Shad both produce well and just get bit, I'm trying to figure out which one is better but it is tough.

The Snootie jig is one I really like, I use it for grass. For what you want, the Poison Tail, that is the most versatile jig there is. The Snootie uses a heavy wire 60 degree hook, the Poison Tail uses a lighter 30 degree hook, not a light wire but lighter than the Snootie. The Poison Tail has a wider rocker style bottom so you can use it as a regular casting jig and drag it along the bottom. You can also swim it as the line tie being out front allows it to swim level and track straight with the pull of the line. It will do what the Snootie jig can do and then some, the only problem for some is it uses a 30 degree hook that isn't super heavy. The Snootie uses a 60 degree hook but because the line tie is right at the nose it will swim level and track with the line pull as well, the major issue is if you want the jig to drag on bottom, the head doesn't allow for that. It is great for actively fishing, what I mean by that is you pitch it to cover, let it fall and hit bottom and then hop it or jig it along the bottom, it is a killer jig when you need a reaction bite. It has a unique fall which makes it great to get reaction strikes, it fall straight down but the jig is angled so it falls on front part of the belly and not on the line tie, it really makes the skirt shimmy as it falls. I modified my Snootie mold to take a wire keeper because it uses a ball style collar so without a keeper the trailer had nothing to hold it secure but it is a really good jig but the poison Tail is more versatile.

I don't think a size #1 in that type of head exist. If you are going through a brush pile a slider worm will work, no need for a Ned rig when fish are set up in cover.

I like using a fiber guard for brush, wood, and weeds and I use different sizes depending on cover and jig size. Wire weed guards have their place as well, they are better for wood and rock.

I tie a 1/8oz football jig with a #1 and sometimes a 1/0 hook with different materials. I tie in some Arctic Fox tail first due to the length, and then build up a body using Arctic Fox body hair which is shorter in length and softer. It has pretty fluid movement without having to move the jig much and works great in cold water.

That is a Z-Man for sure but I don't know which one but it is an older version. The head and skirt on that was made by a place called GLC fishing, go to the website and you will see heads that look like that. They also had the skirt material with the Mylar fused to it which is unique to them, they are a bulk manufacturer that does work for a lot of lure companies.