I have been thinking about getting into making my own bass jigs, or at a minimum replacing skirts with hand tied living rubber/silicon combinations.  Where is the best place you have found to buy living rubber and any preferences on the different types?  Also tips or tricks you have developed with your experiences would be appreciated.  I have a vice, bobbin and some thread ordered and on its way to get started. 

Tim,

  It is easier and quicker to tie with copper wire. PM me your e-mail and I will send you a jig tying tutorial.

Buy living rubber straight from the source. It's a guy in southern Oregon right by where I grew up and lived forever. 

 

Keep the skirt on the inside short with living rubber so it's stiffer and it pushes the rest of it out to give a huge profile. 

 

I actually just tied this PB&J tonight and the craw colored one is in water. You can dead stick them and get a ton of action.

 

 

Great feedback, thanks!

On 1/9/2018 at 10:11 AM, cadman said:

Tim,

  It is easier and quicker to tie with copper wire. PM me your e-mail and I will send you a jig tying tutorial.

I got Cadman's tutorial three years ago and went straight to Home Depot and got some wire.  There's still a couple jigs around from that first tying experiment....wire tie is the only way for me.  I did experiment with small zip ties for a while; cheap...and a little faster/easier, but they don't last like copper wire.

I have heard people adding thread before the skirting and then wire tie.  What is the benefit to doing that and is it unnecessary?

I'm not into this yet, but from perusing my new Janns Netcraft catalog, if the don't have the skirt material you're looking for , I'd be very surprised.  it appears that they have multiple pages of material.  They are a good source for much stuff that is hard to find, and are fast, reliable.  I've ordered from them for many more years than I can remember, seems like I ordered from them when in high school which was a long time ago.

3 hours ago, tim_kovar said:

I have heard people adding thread before the skirting and then wire tie.  What is the benefit to doing that and is it unnecessary?

I wrap with thread some times.  I do it mainly when I am splitting skirt material and want it to be in a very specific place on the jig.  Thread gives me more control when placing small amounts.  After I am finished I can top of with wire or not.  Other than that I just wire wrap and move on to another jig.

I started making and re-skirting jigs this past summer when I realized how much $$$ I've wasted by throwing away perfectly good jigs because the skirts were trashed.  Anyhow, what I do is use the regular rubber skirt bands for convenience and ease of use.  Then I tie the skirt down with a piece of 15lb mono pre-tied with a uni-knot.  I just separate the skirt, lay it all out as evenly as possible then slip the loop over it and cinch it down at the collar.  It's very easy and works incredibly well.  You can catch fish after fish and that skirt won't budge.

 

I haven't the inclination to pour and paint my own jigs so I buy BOSS jigs and some basic skirt patterns.  The jigs are phenomenal quality and I really like the molded in bait keeper and skirt collar for added flare.

On 1/9/2018 at 9:11 AM, cadman said:

Tim,

  It is easier and quicker to tie with copper wire. PM me your e-mail and I will send you a jig tying tutorial.

Is copper better than the green floral wire?  

On 1/10/2018 at 1:41 PM, tim_kovar said:

I have heard people adding thread before the skirting and then wire tie.  What is the benefit to doing that and is it unnecessary?

I have never heard of this. If you want to use only thread that is fine if you want to use only copper wire that works as well. Copper wire is faster, for silicone skirts. Now if you are going to tie hair jigs or add feathers, than  thread is the only thing I would use.

1 hour ago, tim_kovar said:

Is copper better than the green floral wire?  

Floral wire comes in green color which most copper wire doesn't. You can use either floral wire or copper wire. I prefer copper wire, however in the scope of things, if you fish a lot of jigs, you will lose more than anything else, so in the end it really doesn't matter. Buy what works for you and what is readily available.

What are the best bands to use? If your not looking to tie them?

On ‎1‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 12:20 PM, tim_kovar said:

Is copper better than the green floral wire?  

Yes as the floral wire will rust but it still works. Go to AC Moore or Micheal's and get some 22 guage wire. I use the pliers in the link below to tie mine.

 

https://www.harborfreight.com/6-inch-safety-wire-twisting-pliers-45340.html

 

Allen

Just bought some 6# braid at sportsman's show to use instead of kevlar on my jigs....It's working well I might add and with a few half hitch's they do not come untied.  Also found some skirting material that I'm loving and this will go to battle here really shortly.  I just put the thread on and old spool and then on the bobbin and life is good.