cadman

Clayton, Do not melt your lead in the pot you are going to use to pour your jigs, because you will get a lot of crud on top. Melt your old lead in another pot, skim off the crud and garbage, then flux your lead and pour it into small ingots, so you can put clean lead into your pouring pot. Also remember to be very, very careful if this is your first time with lead. It is extremely hot and there are no second chances if you get burned. Do not have any kids or pets around and make sure you don't get interrupted. Don't smoke or drink any liquid when you pour. Water and lead do not mix. Again think on the side of extreme safety. There is so much to cover here that I cannot even begin to tell you. Is it worth it for 40 lbs of lead ? In my personal opinion, No. By the time you buy everything and clean the lead of all the impurities, it is cheaper to buy your jigs or whatever you want. If you are going to go into selling them, well that is another story. I get lead for $1 per lb I strongly recommend you go to the wire bait section on tackleunderground.com and read up as much as you can on pouring jigs. It also has a thread on there regarding fluxing and safety. I am mentioning this not to promote their site, but to make sure you don't get severely burned. Once you get burned, it will take months to heal, and then the scar. I'm not trying to scare you but this is serious stuff. Make sure you wear, safety glasses, face shield, long pants, long sleeve shirt preferably quilted, socks, shoes and gloves. Moderators Note: Site mentioned is not my site and I did not mention it here for promotional use. Site mentioned is so OP knows all the ins and out of pouring lead and all safety factors needed .

Before I bought my Ranger I was seriously considering a Tracker Tundra. I had such a bad experience at the Bass Pro in Gurnee, IL, that I would never buy a boat from that store. Now mind you, this has no reflection on Bass Pro boats, the two salesmen I had at Gurnee were horrible The reason I mentioned this is that I was going to buy a Tundra up in WI, but got a better deal on the Ranger. So a lot of it has to do as well with the dealership. Find someone that is willing to work with you, explaining all the ins and outs and the options and you will be a happy camper.

I had a Tracker 1988 Magna 17 for 17 years. Loved the boat, took it on the river, to Canada, everywhere. Never had any issues with it. I will second everything that J Franco said about the pros and cons of aluminum boats. I now have a glass Ranger boat, and more maintenance for the gel coat on the boat and trailer

Try permanent black magic marker. It will at least dull the clear. You can put several coats on after it dries. Let me know how that works for you.

Ain't that the truth, and it gets bigger and bigger.

KJ and Senko, nice looking jigs

Without seeing a picture of what you actually did, and what you are trying to achieve, it is difficult to give you a good answer to fix your problem. I would start with JB weld, let it cure and re-drill slowly. However it might need to be filled with weld and re-done. These are just guesses more info is needed. If you are looking for a guy to fix your mold, PM me your e-mail and I will give you his info.

I am a die hard Owner #5304 hook user. I also have tried the Trokar hooks. Yes they are a little pricey, but they are sharp and I have had no issuse with them.

I also use the small Norman speed clips for cranks. I will tell you that I will not use them on spinnerbaits, as I lost 3 spinnerbaits in one day. What happens is the wire of the spinnerbait rides on the speed clip and the spinnerbait slips out. As I was casting I felt the line go so far and my spinnerbait kept on going. It happened to me several times that day with different spinnerbaits and I won't use them for that anymore. Never had a problem with crankbaits though.

Jay, I have not used it, but a guy by the name of smalljaw on this site has. He is very knowledgeable, and will give you his honest opinion on it. If I recall correctly in speaking with him he liked the skirts. I will call him and let him know about your thread question.

I have that color skirt and so does fishingskirts.com. It is called Living Image #420/170 Caldwell Special. Unfortunately I have always complained to them that their pictures really don't match their actual skirt colors, and the girl there does agree. Anyway, I just looked at their website, the picture and the verbage doesn't look like the skirt colors they sent me three weeks ago. I can send you a pic when I get home tonight. PM me your e-mail address. You can then show this pic to fishingskirts .com. It looks like it is in stock.

Yes very nice looking jig.

Mine is "Purple People Eater"

Thanks, for the info and I'll wait for your report. I was told as well to crawl it on the bottom, however I just haven't had a lot of success with it. I too have not really given it a lot of time to make an honest judgement about it. So I will have to do that this weekend.] Jigfishn10, that jig must work really well for you, looks like a lot of use on that one with a lot of battle scars. Even worn out jigs produce. BTW nice looking jig.

Keith, After looking at your hair jig, I really like the looks of it. Also you use one of my favorite hooks Owner 5304's. Can I ask you how well you do with hair jigs? I have tried them all year long, and I do not do welll with them at all. I must be missing something. I am a jig fisherman, so I do know how to use jigs. Thanks for any input.

I use Mend-It on all of my plastics (other than the elaztec plastic), from replacing claws to gluing Senko type baits split in half. I like it and it does work. Before I bought Mend-It, I used a small battery operated soldering iron, and that worked as well for me for years. Mend it takes a little getting used to, to work with, and you have to wait a bit for the glue to fuse the plastic pieces together. In another words, once you put the glue on, hold the two pieces together that need to be glued, and then I would wait a couple of hours before I would throw the bait, or preferably the next day. Before you use your bait, lightly pull on it to make sure that you don't have any spots on your bait that you didn't glue. If you missed a spot, just apply a little more Mend-It to the spot and your bait will be just as good as it was before.

You can easily make one out of a wire coat hanger or a metal piece of steel rod. Cut rod 6-8" long, bend hook for skirt end with long nose pliers. Then put a 90 degree bend other end so you can use it as a pull handle. That's it.

I would never make a statement saying there is no substitute for Rage Tail, because that is not true. These are all tools of the trade we need to assist us in catching fish. How you use them is up to you. There are many guys on this site that hand pour or use plastic injection systems that make craws. I've used them and they work just as well if not better than Rage Tail. So what makes Rage Tail so special, just because they are a sponsor and we have to promote them to our last dying breath. C'mon guys there is no one perfect plastic and many other brands catch a lot of fish as well. I would like to see what the response here would be if Netbait became a sponsor as well. What would would everyone say then? Would we have Rage Tail, Paca Chunk wars?????Just my persoanl opinion, if you want to delete this post go ahead. PS: With that kind of thinking since I own a Ranger than it's OK to make a general statement and say that there is no substitute for a Ranger boat? Senkosam, I like that you think outside the box and are trying new things and exposing everyone to new ideas. Job well done and I commend you on your ingenuity on posting other plastic baits as well in other threads on this site.

I don't know if the launch on Wilson road was open at the time and don't know if it is currently open. My friend has a house on there, and when we were out there, the water wasn't as high as the "Chain" was. Many docks were visible, we went slowly anyway. There was no water on any of the property as far as we saw on that day. BTW, they are planning to put in another ramp on the lake which will belong to the DNR. That is the word on the street so far.

I fished Long Lake two weeks ago with a buddy of mine. We fished for 6 hours on a cold and windy day. He got a 3.2 on a crankbait, which I personally think was a fluke. The rest of the day I fished with a jig, and got 4 fish, (2) 16", a 18" and my personal best which was a 5.1, which I was really shocked in the cold water . The water temp was 45 degrees. With that said I'm fishing Delavan this weekend, and will definitely be using a jig 90% of the time. I believe the fish will be hitting, however I don't expect neck snapping strikes. Just like Long Lake, I felt the fish, but they didn't have a lot of fight in them yet, but they are hungry. I either dragged my jig slowly on the bottom with pauses waiting for a pick-up or slowly swam my jigs. This is my take on the WI opener this weekend. Hope to see some of you guys out there. I'm from Northern IL.

I just picked up the garlic scent, regular and craw formula. Never fished it before, and am going to try it this weekend. I'll also report back on my findings. I unscrewed the cap on the garlic and could smell that, however I don't smell any difference between the regular and the craw formula. The real question is how do you know which one is which in the boat unless you mark the tubes. It would be nice to have the scent marked on the tubes from the manufacturer.

I used to tie with thread as well. If you are going to tie hair jigs then thread is the only way to go as it holds hair much better than anything else. If you want to tie silicone skirts on bass jigs, than wire is faster. I use .024 copper wire. You can find different colors at Michaels or Jo-Anne Fabrics. I use three wraps and tighten with small long nose pliers. Then trim with small side cutters.

Here are a few of mine, to start off my season. I started off with thread, and now I use wire for the silicone skirts. Much faster.

When you say hand tied. Are you referring to thread only or wire tied skirts as well.

You can use black indelible marker which is the easiest, and can be reapplied many times, however it won't last long. You can also dip your hooks in flat black powder paint up to the bend. Don't cover the hook point. Bake your hook, and it will last almost forever. Just like powder painted jigs. If you put a trailer on it , you will never see the shiny nickle color ever. I have done this in the past and it works really well. Do not torch your hooks. #1 you will lose the original temper of the steel, and #2you will not get the plating black, but more of a blue brown.