smalljaw

The name "Senko" is trademarked. Do-it has their essential series mold that is an exact copy of the Senko, all the stick worms are close but they have small differences. Anyway, you can make a stick worm and sell them but they can't be called a Senko but I'll also help with something else. If you never made your own soft plastics or anything like that, well you're in for a treat, it is a fun hobby but there is a learning curve and there is material costs involved. The only way to make any money selling soft plastics or jigs is to sell a lot of volume and to get that kind of volume you will either need a lot of molds of the same bait you plan on making and a lot of plastic. Then you have to file forms with the IRS and also pay federal excise taxes. I mention this because a lot of guys don't research going into this and they believe they can make a bait and sell it at a much cheaper cost, and the reason most can do it cheaper is they forget about the 10% excise tax but if you get caught you could be in for a nightmare I wouldn't wish on anyone.

I don't have a lot of water where punching is used very much but I do flip some heavy brush from time to time. The closest I come to punching is pitching to holes in heavy grass and for me the Snootie in a 5/8oz is the ultimate grass jig. I use the brush jig around brush, lay downs and stump flats and it works well for that but if you want something for heavy grass the 5/8oz Snootie is your jig. That is the biggest size they make it in and it penetrates better than a bullet head jig, I also use it when I'm fishing a little deeper and I need the jig to go through limbs to get to the bottom, I think it will get through cover better than the brush head but it depends on how heavy the cover is because 5/8oz might not get through if you have to punch.

I don't really have a preference, the wire keepers work well and so do lead barbs. I think a lot of it depends on the type of plastic and where you are using it. and the type of lead barb. I have some molds with a ball collar, for those I like adding a wire keeper but you can really deny how well a wire keeper holds but a good barb works as well. If I had to choose 1 I'd probably go with the wire keeper but like I said, if the jig has a good lead barb it will hold just as good.

Matte black is a great color to use in clear water or in shallow water when there is sun.

You can take the FG-30 weed guards and pull the bristles and make your own FG-12 weed guards. Now, the trick is to find a 5/64" diameter pin and if you go to speedy metals you can buy steel rod in that diameter fairly cheap and make your own base hole pins. If you want to cast the jigs with the weed guard in, well good luck making your own, the reason I say that is because you won't get a perfect fit. If you use a pin to make the hole then getting a small bundle of fibers to glue in is no problem, but because it won't be a perfect fit in the mold what you'll end up with is lead coming out in and around the fibers or the fibers falling out before you even pour the lead in the mold. So if you have 5/64" pins or drill bits to use as pins then make your own weed guard out of the FG-30s you have, if you are casting the weed guard into the head then do yourself a favor and spend a little extra and buy the FG-12, it will pay off in the end as it will save you a ton of time and aggravation.

I use a Griffin Odyssey Spider Vise, it is under $100 and has a lifetime warranty. It is a full rotary vise which makes tying easy but it does use a thumbscrew to tighten the jaws. The thing about the jaws is that you can buy cam locking jaws for it which will run you $50 but, if you spend an extra $30 you can get the same vise only it has the cam locking jaws on it. Cam locking jaws use a lever to tighten the jaws, I find the thumb screw to be fine and you can always get the cam lock jaws if you don't like the thumb screw. One of the main reasons I purchased it is because it can hold anything from a size #28 hook up to a 4/0 but I've tied preacher jigs with 5/0 hooks and flipping jigs with heavy wire 6/0 hooks and it held. I was going to get an expensive vise but most required that you buy extra jaws for saltwater sized flies and just the jaws were almost $100 not to mention the $300+ for the vise and they didn't sell any models with the saltwater jaws already on. You can also get the Wolff Indiana Apex which holds hooks to 6/0 and is just a bit over $100 or the Wolff Indiana Atlas which is a little nicer at $155 but holds up to 7/0. I've been using my Griffin for awhile now and I can vouch for how good it is but if I was tying large flipping style jigs more than smaller hair jigs then I'd probably go with the Atlas just because I'd worry about wearing the jaws out on the Griffin.

I really couldn't find any benefits to attaching the swivel that way but I did experience some problems. The problems aren't deal breakers, there are only two issues that I have, the first is going through brush. When the blade hits a limb, heavier grass or some other debris with the swivel attached by a split ring it will deflect and keep spinning, it will have some hesitation but it is very brief. The same thing happens with the swivel attached directly to the wire, but the blade stops spinning for a longer period of time as it takes a little more time to right itself, it isn't critical but I don't like that. The other issue I have is when killing the bait to let it free fall, with the swivel on a split ring the blade will wobble and flail around while spinning in a slow wide arc depending on the weight of the head. With the swivel directly on the wire the amount of movement is decreased and you don't get the same "helicopter" affect. Now that last one doesn't apply to a hidden weight type spinnerbait. those don't fall right to produce that type of action so those are horizontal presentation only so if using that type of bait the swivel attached directly to the wire doesn't have any bearing on the performance. Remember, these are just issues I have when I messed with attaching the swivel directly to the wire thinking I can save a little extra by only having to by 1000 split rings instead of 2000. The one thing I like about the light rings Worth makes for their swivels is putting them on. I buy my swivels direct from Worth, 1000 swivels with no rings attached and then I buy 2000 split rings and I put them on the swivel myself. With the rings being light it makes it a breeze to attach them to the swivel and since there isn't much force pulling on the rings it makes sense to use a light ring but I don't think they aid or deter from any performance.

I'm about 100 miles north of Philadelphia in south central PA. I fish a lot of hair jigs in the Susquehanna River for smallmouth but mostly in colder weather. I do like using marabou for water temps in the 60s and there is a state park lake that is fed by cold water springs that stays in the low 70s all summer with gin clear water and hair jigs seem to work there all year. I tie bright patterns like your "fugly", mostly pinks and purples with some lime green chartreuse mixed in too, a local guy likes them for fishing steelhead but that is the extent of my bright patterns. The Lil Nasty hooks have been really good, they are light wire but are super sharp and penetrate easily, light line with medium light rods for smaller jigs, I was a Gami user for a bit but now I'm using a lot of Owner hooks, specifically the 5313 and the 5304 in small sizes. The 5304 in a size #1 I use for finesse football head jigs, they are 1/8oz and we use them on post frontal days during Spring and they also work well dragging along rock flats during the post spawn period when they don't chase.

If you check out my you tube channel (same as my screen name) I have some tutorials on different patterns I tie. There are hair jigs as well as finesse type jigs with silicone, living rubber, and various natural materials.

Well we all know how addicting this hobby is!!! For me, cold water is hair and then a silicone and living rubber but we all have preferences based on experience and tend to go with what works. Good luck with your quest for the colors you need, and remember, the best part about this hobby is making the lure your own. The colors in that camo pattern you like are interesting and there is one color I'd do something different with to create a more mottled appearance, I'd ditch the regular pumpkin brown color for natures edge pumpkin brown, same shade but it have small black print in random order on it, I think it would really make that color much more effective but that is just my preference. Good luck on your new addiction and don't be a stranger, post a pic of that jig in the gallery when you get the colors sorted out, I'm interested in seeing how it comes out.

The tabs on the bitsy bugs isn't fine cut, I have fine cut tabs in black and watermelon magic craw and I have yet to see any production model that use fine cut silicone. The reason why the tabs feel thinner is probably the pattern itself, if you have a lot of different color silicone strands you'll notice that the thickness varies from different manufacturers as well as colors, barbed wire tabs are heavier while translucent colors seem to be thinner than opaque colors. I may be wrong because I haven't actually had the pleasure of seeing that pattern bitsy bug in person but I'm guessing that the color you are looking for is like a color I get called clear silver neon, I have to be careful working with it as I have picked up 2 tabs stuck together and only after cutting did I realize it was two tabs instead of one. I also don't know if you ever worked with the fine cut silicone but for me personally, I hate it...LOL. It sticks together, the strands stick to themselves and it just is a pain but I still use it on certain finesse jigs because in the water they move differently than regular cut material and so when I mix it in with regular cut silicone it gives it a different look. The regular material separates and falls while the fine cut is still moving around, I like that and I think it has helped when the fishing is tough but I absolutely hate working with it.

The eyes you get from Barlow's, LPO, Janns and most other places are WTP unless they say "imported" or something else. You can usually tell by the price, around $3 to $4 per 40 and it is similar no matter where you get them but buying from one of the suppliers I mentioned allows you to buy more and get quantity discounts.

You do realize fine cut silicone doesn't mean more strands per tab but a thinner tab altogether, right? The only reason I mention this is because I've purchased fine cut tabs off of other guys who bought it thinking it would be cut like living rubber and have more strands per tab only to find out it means the tab is still 22 strands but the overall thickness of the silicone is thinner, almost like taking a regular tab of silicone and slicing it in half widthwise to get 2 tabs. Fine cut and basically all living rubber comes in flat colors and the reptile rubber has a black print but you won't find any with glitter or translucent colors since it can't be made like that.

I may be wrong but I believe the drop shot swivel is a size #7.

Go to www.fishingskirts.com and look up number 407, it is clear with green and copper flake. In fact you can find every color you need there.

Anything with eyes I coat with Devcon 2-Ton Epoxy. It will dry clear and seal the eyes on and they will not come off. The other thing is the eyes themselves, I don't know which kind you use but I can tell you that WTP eyes, while more expensive, have great adhesive on them and I've actually made spinnerbaits and put those eyes on without an epoxy topcoat to see how long they would stay on and they didn't come off, in fact they stayed on through weeds and some sparse brush but only came off when I got the head wedged in some rip rap, and that only happened as I tried to force a cast into some serious wind gusts and I ended up with a major backlash, so my bait sunk into the rocks while I picked out the tangle. I use eyes from BOSS, as well as the cheap imported eyes, and even the 6th Sense Crush models and none come close to the adhesive used on WTP, they are the benchmark of 3D eyes. Now if you don't want to use a topcoat you can simply take some Loctite super glue brush on, just touch the brush to the spot where you want the eyes to stick and put them on, after the eyes are on with the tiny amount of the glue you'll want to just go over them with Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails clear nail polish, this will seal the eyes pretty good without you having to use an epoxy topcoat.

Wadsword, just so you know, the term "mushroom jig" is trade marked by Gopher tackle, you could end up on the wrong side of legal fees and licensing if you stay with that name. I know Zoom got a person I know for $26,000 for using the term "trick worm" and it didn't happen right away, they left him use it for like 6 years and then filed suite. I just wanted you to be aware of that, Gopher Tackle isn't Zoom but they can claim you hurt sales if they wanted to and you would have to end up getting a lawyer. My suggestion is you call it something other than a mushroom jig.

You'll be able to do a 2/0 and probably a 1/0 but the problem is that the jig has a ring and barb so it is long. VMC has a hook out that should fit, the 7247 that has a long shank, you'll have the smaller hook but with a little longer shank.

You can make that with the Tube & Tails jig mold but it only has 1/8oz and 1/4oz cavities. All you need to do is modify it for an FG-12 weed guard (5/64") and it is close even with the raised eye bump. If you wanted to go further you can file or sand the top to give it a more pointed profile and you'd have the same jig and the mold is a heavy hook model so you can use a Gamakatsu 604 or an Owner 5313 if you wanted a more stout hook or you could still use a light wire hook as well.

I actually sent an email to Eagle Claw about the sizing on those hooks and never got a reply. My issue is the 1 nd 1/0 are almost identical as is the 2/0 and 3/0 but I do like them, stronger than the Matzuo and no issues with 15% to 30% being bad.

Yep, the lead is the problem, not the pot. I will say this, the hard lead will serve you well with the mold you are using, especially on the smaller sizes. I use a 60/40 mix of soft to hard for just about everything but for football jigs and spinnerbaits I use a 70/30 mix of hard to soft but I use a different pot for those because switching out 20lbs of lead for a dozen spinnerbaits or football jigs just isn't worth it.

If you like the structure head you may as well buy that. The reason being is that even is someone was making something like it or exactly like it you would end up paying more because we don't have the buying power Strike King has for hooks and skirt material.

750 for me too, and like Smallmouthaholic, I have a different pot for hard lead.

You will need 3/16" hollow metal beads.

The blades you want to paint are steel blades. The reason is they are lighter so the weight from the paint won't effect the spin as bad. That said, you can paint brass blades but if they are plated you will need to take a Dremel sanding bit and sand the plating off or if they are lacquer coated you will need to soak in mineral spirits or acetone to get the lacquer off then lightly sand and they will be ready for paint.