Jigs Question

[MaineBassFishin]

Seems like it would be fun and a good way to save a little money in the long run I know it's pretty pricey for start up costs but how much is the average cost per jig?

[.Paxamus.]

I figured it out once, when I was fairly bored, and came up with somewhere around 35-50 cents per jig. I have a range because I had some molds that had eyes and some that took expensive hooks. It is fun and you can pick up some used molds for fairly cheap.

[llPa1nll]

I recently started making jigs. I think it depends on what you are calling a jig. Is it a ball head jig with no paint and a premium hook, then yes 35-40cents is about right. If you are referring to a weed guard and a silicone skirt type skirt, I think its closer to +75 cents. Just saying what I have found, granted you can buy hooks in bulk but buying 1000 hooks for me and some friends isnt really practical for me.

[smalljaw67]

If you want to make plain ball head jigs then all you need is a melting pot, a mold, some hooks and paint if you so desire and you can make a lot of jigs cheap. If you are talking the skirted bass jigs, well it will take a few years to start saving money because you have to recoup the material cost and good jig hooks along with skirt material or premade skirts will really put your cost up, unless you plan to buy hooks by the 1000 but it still hurts at the beginning. The other side is you may end up liking it and then that leads to more molds, expanding to spinnerbaits, buzzbaits so now you are not only buying molds for them but wire too, either prebent wire forms or coils of wire to bend yourself with a wire forming tool. I started over 15 years ago and now I have dozens of molds, 42 different colors of powder paint, 87 different colors of skirt material, a couple of melting pots, a few hundred pounds of lead and it keeps growing. To say I haven't saved any money would be putting it very mildly but I love doing it and it makes the winter go by so fast as I'm busy bending wire and making skirts and pouring spinnerbait and jig heads that I don't were the time went. Good luck.

[cadman]

If you want to make plain ball head jigs then all you need is a melting pot, a mold, some hooks and paint if you so desire and you can make a lot of jigs cheap. If you are talking the skirted bass jigs, well it will take a few years to start saving money because you have to recoup the material cost and good jig hooks along with skirt material or premade skirts will really put your cost up, unless you plan to buy hooks by the 1000 but it still hurts at the beginning. The other side is you may end up liking it and then that leads to more molds, expanding to spinnerbaits, buzzbaits so now you are not only buying molds for them but wire too, either prebent wire forms or coils of wire to bend yourself with a wire forming tool. I started over 15 years ago and now I have dozens of molds, 42 different colors of powder paint, 87 different colors of skirt material, a couple of melting pots, a few hundred pounds of lead and it keeps growing. To say I haven't saved any money would be putting it very mildly but I love doing it and it makes the winter go by so fast as I'm busy bending wire and making skirts and pouring spinnerbait and jig heads that I don't were the time went. Good luck.

x2 what smalljaw67 said + Honestly there is no cost savings unless you have a friend that let's you use all of his stuff, and even then when you are starting to learn, you will spend a lot of your time with trial and error to get things. You have to look at this as a hobby and a passion for making your own jigs and catching fish on them. Your savings will come several years down the road as you make more and more of the same jigs. However that doesn't happen because you'll want to expand and then buy more molds and your savings at that point will go right out the window.

[Jig Man]

You guys are telling it right. I sold off a bunch of molds and still have about 20 and I don't even sell jigs.

A couple of years ago I decided to make tubes with injectors. My first tube cost me a little over $300. Now they are less than $1 but still twice as much as I can pay at the store.