smalljaw

I've used the 570BP as well as the Mustad 32746. The only difference with the light wire hooks is you get a little bleed between the hook and the keeper but it actually helps the keeper from getting loose. I also have used the Gamakatsu 604 but only in the 1/0 size and that fits as well.

I can make wire forms with round loops but not what you need. I was thinking you wanted a straight wire shaft with a round loop on each end like the type you can get pre-bent to make in-line spinners with. For the project you are doing I'd have to use a round nose pliers and it isn't going to happen with .051" and even with .040" it would be slow going. I'm sorry but that type of wire form I couldn't help you with.

Every year a different set of colors will become popular so it is hard to predict. I remember a couple of years back when alimony came out, the first year it was tough to get.

It would depend on the size of the loop and what diameter wire.

You are talking silicone, right? I'm asking because I'm wondering if you used those before, because they aren't fine cut like having more strands per tab, they are fine cut as if they took a single tab and made it thin width wise, but the same strand dimensions. I use them in accent colors to tie on small finesse jigs and they are a pain to use as they want to stick together a lot. The main reason I use them is that in the water they move different than the regular silicone in that they suspend better as the regular silicone falls the fine cut sits up and on a small jig it really helps. This is all for not if you have experience with it but I had to put it out there because I saw other people get the fine cut silicone expecting it to be like the fine cut rubber and it isn't cut that way.

Get the mix additive also called "balancing clear". You mix it with the paint to get better adhesion, then clear coat with a 2 part epoxy, I know you like the clear nail polish but water based paint, even with a primer, is going to need something a little stronger than the clear nail polish.

I use a modified Ultra Minnow for my underspins. I like using a size 3.5 willow for 1/4oz up to 1/2oz, the little larger blade creates a lot of flash at slow speeds. When I first made them I used the size 3 willow and on the ultra minnow head I had to reel a bit too fast for my liking, the 3.5 grads a little more water and has a little more flash and lets you go a little slower. On the other end the size 4 was too bit and caused tracking issues on anything under 1/2oz.

I was catching a few fish with them when using them for suspended bass in the summer. I didn't really think about using them too much until Casey Ashly won the classic on one in cold water so I decided to see how early spring and late fall would produce. Well I'm sold on them now, reel just fast enough to have the blade tick the bottom, I've been doing well, especially after a front blows through and the fish move out and get tight to cover, for some reason they'll hit the under spin over a plain swimbait. I'm using the Ultra Minnow mold modified for a larger hook and the swivel. BTW, I saw some guys complaining about the Casey's classic made by Blakemore, they are saying that the blade hits the body when reeled, I'd like to go on record and say that is a built in fail safe!! I was using the Swarming Hornet before making them just to see if it would be something worth making myself, I found if you reel too fast with a wide body fluke style bait that the blade would hit the body, I figured it was a design flaw but it wasn't, after talking to a few anglers I know that use them, they told me the idea is to reel slow enough that the blade spins right below the body, if the blade rides high and touches the body you are going too fast. Well after I adjusted the retrieve I found I started catching fish, and I've been consistently been able to catch fish on it since I slowed down to allow the blade to a little lower, a good swivel helps you do this.

It always happens this time of year, remember, we aren't the only ones who use the stuff. Every year around the middle of February you'll see stock go down and by May it is when you start seeing supplies return. Large lure manufacturers buy factory direct so the most popular colors and new colors get hit hard first, give it a couple of weeks and it should get better.

Welcome to the board!!!! I don't know how much experience you have but there isn't a mold that will take the hook stock, you will have to modify the mold to make it work. You can use a Mustad 32886, or the Eagle Claw 3886 if you want to use a round bend hook but the 32850 is too heavy, the wire diameter is much larger than what the mold will take. It isn't hard to modify the mold to take that hook, but the difference in wire diameter is such that if you wanted to use the regular hooks the mold will accept again it will probably cause a lot of flashing.

Cadman had them made I believe. You're talking about the reducer pins that go in a regular 1/8" weed guard slot but leave the smaller hole for the FG-9 or FG-12 weed guard, right? You need to know that all weedless molds are different so the turned down side of the pin will be long so you'll need to lay it in the mold and put a hook down to see how much you need to trim off. So if you have a few different molds you want to use those pins in make sure to get about a dozen or so because one pin trimmed down for one mold might be too small for another mold.

Read this forum and then read Chris Helm's book of materials. The guy is one of the best deer hair tiers and his book explains the myth you pointed out as fact. http://www.flytyingforum.com/index.php?showtopic=56707

I just wanted to give a shout out to Barlow's Tackle for excellent service!!!! I placed an order Thursday evening and Friday I get a call telling me the one item I ordered was out of stock so they offered me an alternative item. I really appreciated that as a lot of places just send the order with an updated price as the item is out of stock. This is the kind of customer service that makes me a return customer, and I also wanted to give some love as we all are quick to voice our displeasure when things don't go well with a vendor. So thank you Barlow's Tackle, I truly appreciate the extra effort!!

As Cadman already mentioned, you can do that. I do it on colors like Table Rock Shad which is a while belly, chartreuse body and a purple back. If I don't cure the chartreuse first, the purple over top of the chartreuse will turn brown when cured together so I do one then cure it again. I also do the same thing for the illusion paint, paint the vein base then cure for 10 minutes at 350 and let air cool and then go over with the candy color, it does the same thing, it keeps the top layer from blending with the bottom layer but it does bond together, it just doesn't allow the colors to bleed.

I've bent .041" with my Hagen's with no problem, I'm assuming you got the large wire conversion that allows bending wire up to .051"? What I noticed is the heavier the wire the more effort you have to use to push the handle forward while twisting, it is easy to keep pressure while twisting smaller wire but once I go over .035" then I have to push harder.

I know, I'm basing it off of every other Matzuo hook I ever purchased. Bought 1000 black chrome sickle hooks and had 223 bad ones, and when I say bad I mean unusable. Then I got 100 of the bronze sickle and had 14 bad ones, then the last was the 785 wacky hook, 31 bad ones out of a 100 pack. So of course I'd assume that the trend would continue to their other lines as well. I will say this though, I've gone through 1400 wacky jig hooks in a size 2 and never got a bad one and the last 500 I got the worst was 31 and the best was 9, so it seems to happen in spurts, you may have been lucky or they are doing more quality checks on that line of hooks.

That is expensive for a Matzuo which will have at least 7 to 15 bad ones per 100. At that price I'd add a little extra and get the Owner 5304 in a 2/0 from Barlow's.

The belly hair is hollow, on bucktail it is the base of the hair that is hollow and if you are tying smaller jigs that part is cut away of tied down under thread. I started tying around 99 or 2000, I too thought bucktail was hollow which is what made it good but then I met Bob Clouser at fishing show. He gave me the information about the hair, he invented the Clouser deep minnow for smallmouth on the Susquehanna river, the same one I fish.

I'm far from an expert with plastics but I can help here. First thing is the clear plastic dip to seal the eyes, while it isn't necessary you'll find your eyes will fall off rather quickly so I think you don't add eyes unless you use dip the bait in clear to seal them. As for glue, it depends on whether you are going to seal the eyes and what brand of eyes you are using. Cheap eyes from ebay or other places will require glue to hold them in place otherwise they will come off when dipping in the clear plastic. WTP eyes which are a little more expensive have a good adhesive back and will hold well enough that you won't need glue, unless you want to use them without dipping the bait in clear plastic. If you really don't want to seal the eyes then a glue like Pro's soft bait glue will hold any eye on for a bit but even then they might not stay on too long.

I use flat waxed nylon for a couple of reasons. The first is that it lays flat and doesn't build up as fast, this lets me use 210 denier on small hair jigs without it building up and looking nasty. The next reason is the waxed nylon actually grips the material better, with silicone or rubber it isn't a big deal but it does help to keep bucktail from sliding on the jig collar or hook shank, ask anyone who has tied a hair jig and found that one side had more hair than the other. The last reason really isn't a problem if you are familiar with tying, but when tying silicone and/or living rubber the flat waxed nylon can be wrapped tighter before it cuts through the material than regular nylon or braid. If you have tied for any amount of time you know that if you pull too tight on silicone and rubber you can cut right through it, especially fine cut material, but flat waxed nylon allows you to pull tighter without it happening, and that isn't to say you can't cut the material with flat waxed nylon because you most certainly can, but it takes a little more effort to do so.

Yes, I've tried using full skirts of flashabou in various colors. After doing that I had a better realization about the importance of a skirt, I did manage to catch some fish when I used an all flash skirt on a spinnerbait but I never got a single strike when using the same skirts on a jig. So, when I was using it on the jig I made sure to use more muted colors, I was using sea foam and purple and had a jig with silicone skirt material in watermelon and purple. I got not a single bite with the flash but the silicone was able to get a few and I repeated this over 3 fishing days, the same thing, I hit a nice piece of cover and pitch the flash jig in and nothing, switch to the silicone and I'd get bit. The funny thing is that when fishing dingy water, adding a few strands of either flashabou or Krystal flash to a jig can really make a difference, and it is a killer on hair jigs but a full skirt doesn't seem to work except for a moving bait, so I'm guessing that it did work on a spinnerbait it would probably be good on a swim jig as well.

Braid is fine as long as it isn't hair you are tying. The reason is the braid has a coating on that is slick and doesn't grip the hair that well. The stuff you want is sold by Barlows Tackle, it is called big fly thread and is 400 denier, it is made for large fresh and saltwater fish.

I have to ask, is there a reason you don't want the screw lock? Before I started making my own shaky heads, I tried everything from the Fin-Tech Title shot to the Buckeye Spot remover and the one I like the best was the Cumberland Pro Lures shaky head, basically the same as the Do-it round head, flat eye hook shaky head. The biggest reason is the screw lock, it takes an extra second to rig but the only way the worms come off is if they rip, I've been able to catch 11 fish on a single GYCB Senko fished on a shaky head with a screw lock. I do know that those that use Z-Man Elaztech plastic have a tough time and I can understand that, but I just personally prefer the screw lock but hey, we all fish differently, good luck with your search.

The Rugby head is a squashed down football head, there shouldn't be much difference in performance using a round head. If you use the round head you can get the shaky head mold without the screw lock, and then instead of using the 32789 Mustad you can use the Mustad 38109, it is a 45 degree flat eye hook in the EWG style you want and you rig it just like any other shaky head. The difference in the rugby head is the shaky head jig will have a lead collar to hold the bait on instead of the offset shank like the rugby head. To me that is your best bet unless you get your Rugby heads and make your own mold.

why not use a propane torch?? I'm old school, I like the torch because I can see the heat, I know how close to the flame I need to be and for how long and I don't nee electricity and a bottle of propane lasts a long time.