Reapers

Designed after the Mar-Lynn soft plastic bait from years ago, only these are made of ice chenille and leather.  Silver glitter is applied to the tail using Tulip Puffy Paint.  The tail's 'rays' are formed by cutting the  leather at 45-60 degree angles in hopes of segmenting the the tail for better flexibility and movement when wet.

Other versions will be created, provided that they fish fairly well.  I look forward to fishing them in the local river while trying my luck for smallmouth and spotted bass.

Pinkies!

Tied with kip tail, pinkies are a favored style of jig for my mid-winter to early spring fishing.  I've caught trout, bluegill, crappie, and both largemouth and smallmouth bass with them.

Each is tied on a 1/32-ounce darter-head jig possessing a #6-8 Aberdeen hook.  Used a 70 denier (or slightly smaller) polyester thread to keep the bulk down on the jig collars.

I like to tip these jigs with curly-tailed grubs of about 1 inch in length and fish them beneath a float.  It's a bit like still fishing, but during winter it allows you to take in your surroundings and enjoy nature's wonders.  Do dress appropriately to stay warm!

The image below shows a couple of commercially-tied pinkie jigs with grub trailers attached.

Filling A Jig Box...Gradually

Tied the three of these this weekend.  Two of the jigs are tied with a material called 'Fish Silk' which is sold by FlyMasters of Indianapolis.  The other jig is a tri-color combination of calf hair (kip tail).

All are tied on 1/16-oz darter-head jigs with #4 hooks.  The blue-heads with hot yellow fish silk may have good possibilities for crappie fishing.  All should be fished for smallmouth bass at some point this winter.

More With Kip Tails

Tied these hair-bodied jigs for float-n-fly fishing.  The hair is stiff and won't move around as much as craft fur does in water.  These might make for interesting minnow imitations to try when the water is extremely cold, or anytime for that matter.  I've fished small kip-tailed jigs before, but they've always been tipped with a tiny soft plastic trailer.

Materials:

• Kip (calf) tails - natural black and bleached white
• 1/16-oz. Arkie Darter-Head Jigs - unpainted
• Rosey's Powder Coating - silver sand metallic
• Tulip 'Slick' Fabric Paint - black, fluorescent pink, and glow
• Hedron Flashabou - pink glow
• UTC Ultra Thread (70 denier) - gray brown

Working With Kip Tails

I received a package of jigs for Christmas that inspired me to work with materials I hadn't used before.  They include ice chenille yarn, metallic needlepoint yarn, and kip tails (calf tails).  The jigs are made by Arkie Lures and are called Shineee Hineee jigs.  These combine modern chenille materials with kip and flashabou.  Kip has long been used for small flies and sunfish jigs by many tyers.  Its fibers are short and stiff.

Used Hedron Flashabou, which is a very limp material, for flash and movement in the water.  I'm looking forward to fishing these for bass (float-n-fly) this winter.

Float-N-Fly Jig Experiments

Created a bunch of Tulip Paint Eyes for jig heads recently and am working on fashioning a tool to remove adhered eyes from surfaces.  A razor blade buries into and damages surfaces whenever I use it.   The tool should remove the eyes without cutting into a surface or deforming the eye.

Here are some float-n-fly jigs that I created.  Their heads have Tulip Paint Eyes created for my tool tests.  They're about to become stocking stuffers for Christmas gift giving.

All are tied with craft fur available at most big box fabric and hobby stores on 1/16-oz. minnow heads. Each has a #4 hook.

So, It's Been A While Since I've Posted...

Thought I'd review a post I'd made back in 2013.  It covers a couple of useful tools for jig making.  I cannot overemphasize the usefulness of  the offset nail nipper.  It trims the flashing surrounding the line tie (eyelet) with great precision, even on tinier jigs weighing 1/32 and 1/64 of an ounce.

Useful Tools

The reverse action tweezers work well for removing tulip paint eyes from various surfaces.  Though, lately I've found a good pair of pointed-slant tweezers by Revlon that work as well or better.

I finished adding eyes and top-coating about ten jigs for float-n-flies.  Hope to tie them up very soon with photos of them to come.