With one of the harshest winters in a long time taking hold in our area  many are getting cabin fever and going stir crazy earlier than normal.  I have seen many questions lately about rod building and tackle craft.  It is no secret that if I can make it I fish it.  I love making my own bucktail jigs as well as other lures and rigs.  There is definitely a huge amount of pride that goes with catching fish with tackle that you have made and rigged yourself.  This will be the first in a multi-part series of articles on creating your own jigs and lures.  For now I am going to go over some of the basics of getting started and as I start molding and tying again I will take a lot of pictures and videos to help you get started or to give you some new ideas.  For the sake of this article I am going to assume most readers are new to rolling their own and start with the basics.

First you will need some basic safety equipment depending on what you will be working with.  I have safety goggles, dust masks, heavy cotton apron, heavy leather gloves, light leather gloves, flame proof mat and keep a fire extinguisher handy as well.  As always, when working with lead work outdoors if possible and position yourself upwind from your work, if it is not possible to work outdoors make sure you have adequate ventilation.

I get my jig making supplies from Sun Harbor Bay Club, most of it is special order but comes in within a few days usually.  Depending on how involved in lure making you want to get you will need some or all of the items below, I will go into detail on each later:

• Supply of lead
• Melting pot
• Ladle
• Molds
• Hooks
• Wire eyes
• Powder paint
• Stick on eyes
• Deer hair
• Synthetic hair
• Polar Flash
• Flashabou
• Danville fine mono thread
• Hard as Hull head Cement
• Tiemco ceramic bobbin
• Tiemco scissors
• Tiemco spinning hackle pliers
• Martelli long reach whip finisher
• Dyna King fly tying vise
• HMH Tube Tool
• Small bench vise
• Vise Grips

Of course you will need lead.  It can be in the form of tire weights from the junk yard (I tend not to use these, more detail later), old lead plumbing pipes, or you can buy it from many retailers and on e-bay in ingots of various sizes.  Make sure you lead is clean before putting it into the melting pot.  Tire weights tend not to be, have a horrible smell when melted and smoke a lot.  Tire weights are also considered hard lead which is not desirable for molding or casting jigs, you can get away with it for sinkers but they will be slightly lighter than their stamped weight.  Usee extra caution with old pipes, if there is any moisture inside it will create a rocket effect and shoot any debris inside the pipe out as it is heated during melting.

Next you will need some molds.  They can be as simple as bank sinkers or they can be ball jigs, bucktail jigs, weighted trebles and even butterfly jigs.   All of my molds are from Do-It Molds.  Below are the molds that I have:

• Snag Weight Mold 8/0
• Trolling Lure (Sea Witch head)
• Flutter Lure 7 & 9 oz (butterfly style jig)
• Spire Point Jig (All sizes, my personal favorite)
• Bank Sinker (various sizes)
• Trolling Drail (various sizes)

These molds pretty much cover most of our needs from the rivers and bays, to inshore and offshore fishing.  It can be a big investment if you were to buy them all at once, I have purchased a couple each year and was given a few of the sinker molds by guys no longer interested in rolling their own.  You could also buddy up with a few guys to split costs or look into joining a local fishing club.  Many clubs have annual sinker parties and the best part is the members all bring in some lead and the clubs usually have the molds so it only costs a few bucks for hooks and you are all set.

For any of the molds you will need a melting pot and ladle.  I would shy away from the bottom pour pots.  Unless you have very clean and pure lead they are problematic and clog.  Also if you are pouring anything over three to four ounces they usually don’t pour fast enough.  For smaller projects I use an old  ten pound pot on a hinge and for larger work I use a fifty pound pot on a propane burner.

Preparing your molds.  I have found that it is best to smoke the mold, or position the mold cavities just above a candle’s flame.  A thin coat of black carbon soot will form which will help the flow of molten lead into the cavities and also make it easier to remove the cast lead.  Once that is done you need to heat the mold prior to making a production run of whatever it is you are going to mold.  I simply sit the mold over the pot for a few minutes.  If I am making bucktail jigs or anything else that requires hooks, through wires or wire eyes I then mold a few without any hardware to ensure the mold is hot enough and I get a good even pour.  Then I add the hardware and begin my production run.  When making your pours make sure to have enough in the ladle to fill the cavity completely in one continuous even pour.  If you do not, the jig will come out wrinkled and could break apart at the seams.  You don’t want the molds to get too hot, there is no race-take your time and be safe, lead does not cool quickly, especially when on skin.

No matter if you are molding sinkers, snag weights, bucktail jigs or any other lure do not remove the sprue right away.  Give it a chance to cool a little and you get a much cleaner break.  When removing the sprue you want to grab it and rock it back and forth, with pliers if that makes it easier.  Rocking it until it breaks will give you a much cleaner edge than using a pair of cutting pliers or shears.

It may be tempting to dip jigs into the powder paint right after they have come out of the mold, I have tried this several times but have found that it is better to let the jigs fully cool first.  In most cases you will need to remove the sprue (the sprue can be saved and remelted), you will probably also want to use a coarse file to smooth out where the sprue broke off from.  This will ensure a smooth even coat of the powder paint.

For any jig or lure that needs to be painted I separate the sizes and styles by colors, that way I can dip all jigs for that color in one batch.  I use a standard propane torch to heat the jigs from a second or two to a minute depending on size.  The smaller jigs (up to three ounces) only need a few seconds, you don’t want them too hot or the paint will bubble.  Then you swish the jig side to side into the powder paint and remove immediately.  You only need a very thin coat of powder to cover the jig.  You may need to setup some sort of rack for allowing the jigs to dry.  I made a three tier rack out of oak that works very well.  The powder paint needs to be kept loose and fluffy, I will dip from one to three or four jigs depending on size and then put the cap back on the jar and shake it up to loosen up the powder before continuing.  You can then bake the jigs at 350 degrees for 15 minutes to harden the paint even more.  I usually skip this step since I tend to fish a lot of structure and either lose the jig before its paint is chipped or toothy critters remove the hair. 

Once you have all your jigs painted up and have allowed them to cool they can be dressed.  Dressing can be as simple as applying stick-on eyes or as elaborate as painting scales, gills and adding bucktail, synthetic hair and a touch of flash.  No matter how simple or elaborate I always add eyes to the jig if it has eye sockets.  I don’t just peel and stick, I apply a small amount of head cement to the eye socket first and then apply the eye.  This insures it stays put after being bounced off rocks, mussel beds or numerous strikes from fish.  It is also much easier to apply the eyes first on bucktail jigs, that way you don’t have any hair in your way.

Before I put a jig in the vise to be dressed, I sharpen the hook.  Once sharpened I coat the surface of the point and anywhere that was filled with a red Sharpie marker.  This serves two purposes.  One, to easily identify that the hook was already sharpened and two to protect the hook from rusting.  When you sharpen a tinned hook you are removing the duratin finish that protects the hook, the marker applies a thin coat of ink that will protect it while in your box.

There are many fly tying vises on the market, you can get an inexpensive, clamping vise for under $30 or you can get a professional rotary vise for upward of $400.  I have several for different styles of flies and jigs that I tie.  I have a basic vise, the Dyna King Kingfisher that I keep in my tying bag for traveling use.  For everyday use and when creating several dozen flies or jigs at a time I prefer a rotary vise and use the Dyna King Barracuda.  And for tying tube flies the HMH Tube Tool.

The mighty bucktail jig, it can be as simple as plain white, or contain many colors and a touch of flash.  Either way it can be used to catch just about every species that swims in our oceans.  I personally have caught striped bass, summer flounder, bluefish, weakfish, sea bass, mahi mahi, bonito, false albacore and various species of trash fish with the jigs I have made.  Less is more, or so I have been told by many accomplished fly tyers.  I have taken this adage from fly tying to my bucktail tying.  Basically I make only a handful of patters for everyday use in sizes from one ounce to six ounces.  All white, yellow, white and green chartreuse (my favorite and go to combo), chartreuse, white and red and magic bus (yellow, black and white).  Don’t get me wrong, I do also make black back and blue back with white bellies to simulate herring for striped bass as well as blue, green and white to mimic a bay anchovy for smaller jigs.  But with time becoming harder to come by I stick to my basic four-white, yellow, chartreuse and chartreuse and white, with the latter two my go to baits.

Before tying any fibers to the jig I first wrap all the way across the collar with thread, this gives the next wraps that will hold fibers something to bite into and prevent the thread from spinning on the painted collar.  Back to the less is more…when I tie my bucktails I tie the hair so that there is basically no overlapping but each hair right next to its neighbor.  This creates a thin fan of fibers all the way around the jig.  The spire point jigs have a flared collar and once you are done wrapping hair and build up the body with repeated wraps around the collar the hair flares out.  This gives the jig an amazing presentation in the water.  Once the hair is flared you can add a half dozen or so strands of polar flash or flashabou down each side, so as to mimic a lateral line like on a spearing.  Once all the fibers are in place wrap back and forth across the body twice and then finish with a whip finish.

Like the painting I will do a run of similar pattered jigs all at once, I find it easier than reaching all over for different colors and materials.  Once I have several dozen tied I then apply head cement to the wrappings, one to two coats is sufficient.  Again I am fishing around structure and with toothy critters, the jigs are usually lost before they fall apart.  Also be careful applying head cement to the thread wraps, especially if you used powder paint, most cements will make the finish run if you get it on the body of the jig.

Now that you are all stocked up with sinkers, snags and jigs we just need a break in the weather so you can go and test out your new creations.  As the winter and spring progresses I will take some pictures and video to show the entire process and show some more advanced dressings and paintings of jigs and lures.  It can be a very enjoyable and rewarding hobby, as long as you stay safe and are cautious handling molten and hot lead.  If you have any questions please feel free to e-mail me or post comments to this article.

Tags: bucktail, jig making, tackle

This entry was posted on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 2:53 PM and is filed under tackle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.