Mbirdsley

Ill have to check that out

I know the river is going to eat a lot of them. It helps the cabin feve though.

These are the first fishing lures that I built. Only reason i started doing it was becasue a number #2 or #4 mepps is $5-$6 dollars a piece and the river eats a lot of them. Im learnig all the time. LOL.

Yes i tie my own dressings on the treble hooks. the colored ones are maribou and the brownsih are sqiurrel tail. Best luck has been with squrriel tail. I have some tails from some squirrels I shot from fall that are drying and are the best i have found. Silver blades and bodies work better on sunny days and brass better on cloudy around here. the Fire tigers work during the summer in cloudy water for small mouth and Northern pike. No fluid bed yet I had been just warming up in the toaster oven and dunking them. Than, putting them back into toaster oven to cure. I mean they fish but, dont look the best.

These are my newest creations seeing how we were just hit by a snow storm. Would like to thank every body for the tips and ideas. Also, over the weekend I was able to stop by a very large sporting goods retailer that has plenty of tying material about 60 miles from my house ( got to work that one in as i was on a trip with my girl friend to Traverse City). Its nice tro be able to touch and feel what you are buying instead of hoping and praying its what you want off of the web and pay shipping to boot. Mainly I pick up a whole piece of Black bucktail, white bucktail, peices of flo green bucktail, brown bucktail, some thread, and some new flashabou which are Krystal flash Silver and Pearl UV Enhancer flash. First pic is some that i have tied. most of the smaller ones I used the Krystal flash Silver for flash effect. the other jigs That have been tied in the last two weeks I have been useing glow in the dark flashabou. But, this stuff is a up grade. The 2nd pic is of 1/2 oz. I didnt pour that one. I had a bunch of left over jigs from a couple of years ago that I bought. So, i decided just to repaint them. This thing turned out massive and is probally the best one i have done to date. Its is Flo green bucktail on top, White bucktail on the bottom along with Pearl UV Enhancer flash on a repainted green jig head. Good for those high current days in the spring. The third one needs some more refining but, i think i will call it Golden shiner or baby carp. I have high hopes for that one.in the fish catching department.

Along with making my own jigs. I also make my own inline spinners. These are with out a doubt my most consistant fish catchers all year round ( i dont really fish the rivers in the winter as it gets really cold here and they freeze up. Also, we cant use artificial lures from march 15th and april 15 to allow walleye and pike to spawn) in the three rivers that are near me that I fish, the Shiawassee River, south fork of the Bad river, and the Maple. I have caught numerous small mouth, large mouth, Northern Pike, Channel Cats, and walleye. Most of the componats are from mudhole, but im switching to somewhere else. Takes far to long to get what was ever ordered and shipping is costly. The painted fire tiger blades and the all white blades came from lure parts online. The black blades and bodies I have been dipping in powder paint but, I have only had limited success with this technique. So I bought all black blades from lure parts online but havn't built any of those. I dont have a wire jig so all of the bends and loops are done by hand as shown in the 1st picture. The dont look the preattiest but they get the job done. In the near future Im going to invest in a wire jig to clean up the bends and loops. hope you enjpy

I have been useing the Lee hot pot II for the last 2 years and it suits my needs. I just pour from the hot pot into the mold and it works great for what i am doing. I make 2 diifernt types of round head jig, egg sinkers, and pramid sinkers.

Those are nice and somthing else to try. Are your tails made out of bucktails? I have lots of chenel, because, i bought a steel head jig mold. But, i never got around to going steel head fishing in the rivers.

I am waiting for the river to open back up as it is preatty much locked up with ice right now. There are some places where it isnt all locked up but its about 15 degrees right now. I will have a bout a two week opertunity to try them before the end of walleye/Northern Pike season (eventhough, i wanna target bass) on march 15 which, will shut down all artificial bait fishing untill april 15 on all of the southern michigan rivers ( basically only thing that you can use is worms for sucker fishing)

Here are some of the jigs that I have tied after recieving the suggestion that I recieved from the thread. I tied a red and white bucktail jig, 1st picture: I dont know what it will mimic with the red and white but, it looks cool. Tied it farther down on the coller. I also used some flashibou on the sides to give it some flash. second picture is of the white jigs that I tied. The big white one on the left, I actually used flashibou on the entire bottom side of the jig eventhough, there isnt much of a differnce between the white buck tail and the flashibou. The last two pictures are showing the difference between tying the hair farther down on the collar rather than closer to the ball. As a personal perfernce i think i like the puffy look that tying the hair father down. But, the fish will ultimatly decide