Bucktail Jigs?

[Fish_Whisperer]

Anyone had any experience or luck using them to catch bass in the largemouth variety?

[0119]

Shhh..... Nobody needs to know.   The homegrown variety are the best and they're a lot of fun to tie.

[Dwight Hottle]

WRB might chime in on this one.

[Fish_Whisperer]

Shhh..... Nobody needs to know.   The homegrown variety are the best and they're a lot of fun to tie.

Thats something I've wanted to do, and this spurs another question... Would you get  more satisfaction from simply making the lure yourself, or from catching fish from your self made lure?

[WRB]

Bucktail jigs....

In the bass fishing world we can them hair jigs and site sponsors offer a line of hair jigs.

Making your own lures or tinkering with lures is a big part of bass fishing because bass will strike a wide variety of lures. Jigs are a simple lure to make or you ban buy plain unpainted jigs and tie them with various skirts materials from silicone, living rubber, deer hair or bucktails, rabbit fur, feathers, artifical hair, etc.

Like any jig a hair jig is only as good as it's hook! Don't waste your time and efforts with cheap jigs that have low quality hooks.

Largemouth bass prefer a jig with full skirts, most hair jigs are tied tight or skinny profile, you want the skirt (hair) to puff out and breath in the water.

Tom

PS, the bass in my avatar was caught on a hair jig.

[quanjig]

I've caught green bass as well as striped bass on bucktails. Thinking about modifying some of the Spro's to be a little more "lifelike!"

[0119]

Thats something I've wanted to do, and this spurs another question... Would you get  more satisfaction from simply making the lure yourself, or from catching fish from your self made lure?

Both. There are forums and sites devoted to jig tying and its just as easy to become a passionate tyer as it is a fly tyer.  Catching fish on your own stuff is the best, especially when you get one on a one off you are experimenting with.  Like an articulated jig or clouser fly tied on a 3/0 EWG worm hook.

[tholmes]

Shhh..... Nobody needs to know.   The homegrown variety are the best and they're a lot of fun to tie.

 

 I've been tying bucktails  and catching largemouth bass (along with smallmouth, stripers, and many other species) for years. Bucktail jigs are, IMHO, the most overlooked lure out there.

 

Tom

[BradH]

Yes.  It's a great cold water bait.  It's also what I'll tie onto a spinning rod anytime a novice steps onto the boat.  In the summer I'll add a soft plastic bait to bulk it up.

[smalljaw67]

I've been tying hair jigs for quite some time and for me they have been the single best thing for cold water smallmouth but last year it got pretty hot and I found myself swamped with anglers wanting hair jigs so I decided to try them in the warm months to see what happened. What I found is that they do work, and work well, specifically when the fish aren't active, for some reason they won't really take a skirted jig or a finesse worm but throw a hair jig around and it will get bit most of the time so now I always have a box of hair jigs with me.

[J Francho]

Bucktail jigs were about the only artificial bait, besides spoons and crankbaits, I recall working when I was a kid.  They really don't have to be that fancy, if you tie your own.  One tip - never trim the ends of real bucktail.  It ruins the action.

[senko_77]

Bucktail jigs are KILLER on every kind of bass.  I have caught smallies, largemouth, spots, shoal, red-eye, and striped bass on them.  It gives the fish a different look than the 100000 times a day that a traditional rubber skirted jig falls in their face.  Now I'm not saying the silicone skirts don't still work, but I'm having really good results with using different types of hair on numerous bait styles (jigs, senkos, hollow bodied frogs, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits).  I've really incorporated it into pretty much all the baits I throw and there is no doubt I am getting more strikes.  I've had my clients throw them on my guide trips in North Carolina and the fish have slammed them.  I really think that it gives the bait a much more natural appearance, and again...you gotta be different that everyone else with the kind of fishing pressure our lakes are seeing all year.

 

I'm also having a lot of success mixing bucktail or marabou with square and/or round rubber skirt material.  I'll add like 10-15 strands and crank them down hard to get them to flare out.  check out the lure making section soon because I'm getting ready to start posting the different thing I've come with during the last 8 months I've been tinkering with this project.  I'm hoping to launch it into a side business soon....just gotta get all the green fish fisherman to understand that a beefed up hair jig ain't just for catching subzero temp. brownies in the Tennessee river system.

[Catt]

The bucktail/hair jig with its simplistic design is capable of catching every species of fish on planet earth!

From tiny 64th oz to monster 5 oz I've them catch everything from panfish to Billfish!

[papajoe222]

As WRB mentioned, largemouth like a jig with a full, flared skirt and one of the things that I do to achieve this is add either a single or double curly tailed grub to the back of the jig.  When you push it up under the skirt, it will flare it out.  A drop of super glue will hold it there fairly well as most hair jigs don't have a 'keeper' to hold a trailer in place.  It's also a great way to add a contrasting color your jig as an attractant.

[0119]

Maybe sometimes but I use a bucktail jig for just the opposite.  For pressured fish and when water temps are crazy hot and oppressive which is 10 months out of the year here.  A slim baitfish profile, crawdads aren't really a forage here.  Sometimes I mix EP hair or Steve Farrar blend into the bucktail but always keep the tie sparse.

[Crestliner2008]

Curious....how is it possible to tie a bucktail jig with a weed guard? I've tied some of my own bucktails for smallies - open hook variety, no weed guard. Can't imagine trying to tie one on a head with a weed guard though. I've got some heavier, bulkier bucktail jigs, that I use on smallies (without the weed guard), but for largemouths, you'd be hard pressed to fish the weeds with them.

[WRB]

You tie the jig without the weed guard, then glue the guard in the hole after your are done. Most jig molds have a Dow pin to put in place of the fiber weedguards that creates the hole in the jig head.

Another option is adding a piece of finesse worm on a HitchHiker spring and clip that onto the jig line tie eye and cover the hook like a T-rigged worm. I cut the finesse style small diameter worms about 11/2" to 2" long, split the tail so the hook point goes into the V cut up to the hook barb. This makes a good weed gaurd, adds a little color/scent and works very good with your trailers.

Tom

[Jonas Staggs]

I just purchased a b52 hair jig 1/2 oz. I have never fished a hair jig before. I am confused about whether these jigs should be fished with a trailer or not? I thought hair jigs are supposed to be fished as is? I have also done some searching on youtube and in regards to making the hair really puff out, they recommend placing a small piece of worm all the way up the shank to help make the hair puff out. This again would leave me to believe the jig is supposed to be fished as is rather than with a trailer? However I see a few people in this thread mentioned using trailers on them. So how should it be fished, with or without a trailer?if you should use a trailer, what kind do you recommend? a boot tail, creature bait, ribbon tail, etc.??

 

[OnthePotomac]

Very, very popular on the Potomac when the stripers run up river.

[Jonas Staggs]

17 hours ago, OnthePotomac said:

Very, very popular on the Potomac when the stripers run up river.

 

you using trailers on them or as is?

[OnthePotomac]

Maybe a big fluke at times, or a really big grub.

[WRB]

On March 1, 2020 at 10:06 PM, Jonas Staggs said:

I just purchased a b52 hair jig 1/2 oz. I have never fished a hair jig before. I am confused about whether these jigs should be fished with a trailer or not? I thought hair jigs are supposed to be fished as is? I have also done some searching on youtube and in regards to making the hair really puff out, they recommend placing a small piece of worm all the way up the shank to help make the hair puff out. This again would leave me to believe the jig is supposed to be fished as is rather than with a trailer? However I see a few people in this thread mentioned using trailers on them. So how should it be fished, with or without a trailer?if you should use a trailer, what kind do you recommend? a boot tail, creature bait, ribbon tail, etc.??

 

That is a classic striper jig designed to be cast and retreived in the water column without a trailer. Most striper jigs have salt water heavy dull hooks that need to be sharpened.

If you use a trailer nose hook it, more then likely no soft plastic barb to hold it onto the hook shank. Striper anglers often use a sqiude or pork rind strip or a nose hooked baitfish.

Tom

[J Francho]

Fourscore and seven years (minus 80) ago, hair jigs were the bomb.  Still are.  I'd fish that B-52 where ever I thought there were fish without a trailer.

[roadwarrior]

No trailer.

 

[Jonas Staggs]

thank you all for the information.