JUNGLE JIM 1

Amazing how those little jig heads will stick and hold bigger fish.

The crappie must be hungry to take a bigger bait like that. I noticed you use a chartreuse body jig quite a bit. Looks like Trilobal antron chenille, my favorite color as well and have tied thousands of jigs with it. Got tired of buying a couple packs at a time and purchased a 300 yard spool of the stuff twice. Finished one and started the second, still have about 250 yards of it left. When you need more I have some you can have free.

I was out a Denny Dennis a couple of weeks ago and had a chance to talk to a couple members about hair jigs. Mitch asked if I add rattles to some of my baits and I told him not very often since Glass rattles break if you hit a rock or bridge piling on the cast. While looking for something else I found some rattles that won't break and tied them in at the hook bend to keep them out of the way. Mostly used possum zonkers and crosscut rabbit for these. Like these so it looks like I will be ordering more rattles soon.

We finally got some warmer temps so I decided to give the crappie itch a scratch. Despite the windy conditions the last two days I managed to find some slabs that were fat and hungry for my float n fly's. Most were in the 12-14 inch range but caught some smaller crappie and gills as well.

Great article and instructions are easy to follow. I've been making them since the early 90's using either the craft hair version that you showed with the phat fly or using mallard or gadwall flank feathers and it's my favorite bait. I make them in sizes from 1/64-1/8 and they are deadly on everything. My biggest largemouth, crappie and bluegill were caught using them, but slab crappie can't resist them. I've caught 10's of thousands of fish since I started using them and fish them all 12 months of the year fishing rivers, lakes and ponds around Saint Louis where I live. Most of the places I fish are shallow, seldom over 8 foot deep so I just use a weighted fixed float with the f&f. If I could only use one bait this would be it.

Always like trying different things. Would like to see a picture of one of yours if possible, Doug.

A couple with Awesome possum zonker strips for the tail with silicone rubber strands. These have 6/0 VMC jig hooks. Length from head to tail are 5" +. Come on spring time.

When the weather isn't cooperating and I can't fish I tie to keep from going crazy. I made these yesterday. I hope these colors get their attention. These are 3/8 and 1/2 oz.

I have the Patriarch and would put it at the bottom of my list. It sits on a shelf. Plenty of other really nice reels in the $200 and less range out there. Find one that balances well with your new custom rod.

Big improvement on the jigs in a short time. Tying jigs when the weather conditions are too bad to be fishing keeps me from going crazy. I lay down a thread base first and after the first couple of loose wraps to position the material I crank down on the thread to lock it in place. Here is a few from yesterday. Stand up jigs are possum, badger hackle with a bit of flash and the underspins are possum tails, flash with a bunny body.

I don't tie many flies but have tied many, many jigs in the 25 years since I started. I tie jigs with and without collars, just depends on what I'm tying at the moment. I pour all my own jigs and prefer them painted even though paint will start to chip eventually which is why I no longer cure jigs. I like mixing my own powder paints and add UV blast powder to most colors and it really brightens up the color on them. I think you can cure jigs all day and they would still chip. Most of my bass jigs have collars and if they have a ball and barbed collar I will cut the barbed section off and flatten the ball portion. Most of my trout, pan fish jigs are tied without collars.

DO-IT recently came out with a collarless pillhead jig called a freestyle jig. I got one because it has the in between sizes I like. 1/16, 3/32, 1/8, 5/32 and 3/16. The tear drop jigs have a lot of thump to them as well. Here are a few freestyle heads I tied using bear, possum and a bit of flash. 3/32 with a 2/0 hook. I like bear more than bucktail, softer with more action. If interested I can make a custom order for anyone. Checked ebay this morning and I'm the only one tying bear jigs.

The thread collar keeps the bead from moving too much. I like some bead movement, if tied too close to the prop then the prop won't spin properly or not at all. I was using a smaller 1/16 oz. version yesterday at a very clear lake stocked with trout and on the drop the blade spins like crazy,bait has a slow drop speed.. Caught a dozen rainbows in an hour testing the bait. Was able to see a couple trout follow the bait and take it off the bottom when it stopped spinning.

Just started tying these in 2019 and really like them. Hair is softer than bucktail with more action but not the action and movement of rabbit zonkers. Using some Possum hair in orange and chartreuse for contrast. Nice little baits this time of year and have been tying them in 1/16-1/4 oz. Shad color baits are possum, really like the dark guard hairs.

I fished the Lower Meramec yesterday where water is discharged into the river and if I was a predatory fish in the river it's where I would want to be. I'm not even exaggerating when I say there were tens of thousands of threadfin shad around there. If I were using a jerkbait I probably could have filled up a couple treble hooks with them on every cast. I was getting doubles just casting a jig but didn't stay long because the odds of something finding my jig with all that food there would almost be impossible. Great day to be out though.

My main goal is to get my wife interested in fishing and the outdoors now that she is retired. We've been married 41 years and I can think of no better fishing buddy. Going to buy her a license next year so she won't have any excuse not to. Double digit hybrid striper and 3lb. crappie are my main goals for 2020.

I fished Unger yesterday with a friend and did okay using small 1/64-1/32 jigs fished under a small weighted float. Only caught one 12" crappie, lot's of small crappie, bass and gills. Southwest wind is key at this lake and it was blowing in that direction yesterday. Tried two spots on the river, 0 bites.

I haven't been out since the snow but warmer weather with some open water had me out to give crappie a try close to home the last couple of days. I used 1/64-1/32 gadwall feather jigs dyed pink and managed 7 crappie both days along with a few bass and hybrid bluegill fishing a couple hours each day. Had to barely move the jigs to get bit. I had the whole lake to myself both days and plan on going again today.

I live in saint louis and there are several lakes that have good crappie fishing within 20 minutes of my home. I don't catch them every time I go but they are out there, including some big crappie over 2 lbs. but those are rare. Got one last year from a city lake that suffered two fish kills and wiped out all the game fish this year so have to look elsewhere now.

The biggest crappie I ever caught, 17.5" came from Busch out of a catfish lake there. Average size in those lakes are 9+ so I would definitely try those if you are looking for some eater size crappie.

These baits are my tied version of the Northland Whistler jigs. Just ordered a few hundred more propellers in a size in between the props shown above . The fly version is called a Pistol Pete.They are sold at some of our trout parks so the jig version should work there as well.

It's one of those spots that when conditions are right it can be fantastic. Told one friend and he took his wife Sunday and they both caught their biggest crappie ever. He went there again on windy Wednesday and didn't get a bite. Interesting part was they were fishing a propeller style bait I tie and had given him some to try and they were all over that bait fished under a float with a slow and steady retrieve. I had never fished them under a float before but tried some on Monday and it worked. 1/24-1/16 dart heads with rabbit hair and middle picture is opposum hair. So they are good for something.

Really nice fish, I love multi species days like that.

Been fishing for stocker trout the last couple weeks and even though I've been catching them on a regular basis I wanted to try for something different Sunday so I decided to give crappie a shot at one of my favorite crappie lakes. I started at one of my favorite spots where I normally can catch some but after a half hour of nothing decided to move to a spot in the sun because it was chilly early. Southwest wind was blowing into this spot concentrating the shad there and it seemed to me that every fish in the lake was concentrated in that spot. I had my best day in years catching crappie, bluegill and even a couple nice bass. Probably caught over 20 crappie over 12-14" along with a bunch of smaller fish as well. If I missed a bite I'd keep it working and they would hit it again. Really wished I had brought a stringer because freezer didn't have any fish so went back early Monday with one. Flat calm day and for the first two hours caught 1 keeper and a bunch of dinks. The wind started blowing around 10:15 and that's when the big crappie started biting. I had ten 11-13 inchers on the stringer by 11am and released several in the 14+ inch range. Ten isn't a limit but that's all I want to clean. Ten fish stringer weighed 11.5 lbs. Between the two days I caught over 100 crappie, 40+ bluegill and 3 bass using 1/32-1/24 oz duck feather jigs fished 1.5 foot deep under a weighted float for casting distance. Pictures are from Sunday, once the bite started Monday I didn't even think of pictures until after it was time to go.

Thanks for posting this explanation of what happened and plans for fixing the lake. I've been fishing this lake since the 60's as a youngster and I live a mile from there so up until this happened I fished it regularly, mostly for the big redear that were in the lake. I caught two redear in 2018 that were 13 inches and thought at the time that it might actually produce a state record redear. Hopefully once they follow through and fix the issues with the lake it will come back soon.