Weed Guards Too Stiff?

[papajoe222]

Without mentioning the brand, I recently had the worst day jig fishing in terms of having fish come unbuttoned.  I throw white jigs all year and tied on a 3/4oz. one that day that I'd never used, straight out of the package. Normally, I'll trim the weed guard on an angle. I must have lost four  fish before I realized that it wasn't the hook's sharpness at fault. Between the guard's poor angle and numbes of the fibers , I just couldn't get a good hook-set.

Prior to loosing those fish I had found myself impressed with the jig's performance coming through brush and laydowns. Rather than trim the guard, I spread it out. That solved the problem, but got me to wondering if this particular company did any field testing prior to releasing these jigs.

I know that I'm at fault as much as they are, after all many companies use inferior hooks, split rings, etc. and I rarely use them straight out of the package. 

So this post has two purposes. The first is a reminder to check your jig's weed guard PRIOR TO USE and the second is to elicity sympathy for this forgetfull old codger.  Feel free to respond to either.

[Hubtech]

I just started fishing jigs, but i did read an article on here about trimming the guard.  i seem to get weeds caught between the line and the eye though. still havent caught anythign on a jig

[Catch and Grease]

I know plenty of people who use skirted jigs with no weed guard, if you not fishing in cover your gonna hang up in a lot its not 100% nesscerary.

[Siebert Outdoors]

One huge lesson I learned awhile back helping a guy is its not always the jig. It can be the complete setup not working with the jig. 

 

I was helping a customer with making a swim jig just for him to his specs.  We ran into a lot of issues.  I would fish the jig on a 7'1" Heavy rod and 15lb fluorocarbon and catch fish with no issues.  So he said send me a couple to test.  He would miss fish consistently on it.  So after a phone call we found out that he was fishing a rod about 7'6" x heavy with braid.  So I had a similar set up and tested it.  I had the same result as he did.   After a few changes to the jig we figured out how to match the jig to how he was fishing.

 

Some jigs do have to be altered to a specific style of fishing.  Most jigs will just interchanged but there are certain times that a jig must be modified to fill a specific task and there is only one way to find this out.  The user has to test it out and modify as need be if its needed at all.   This is the main reason I leave weedgaurds full length on all of my jigs.  On some of my jigs I could probably shorten them but I do not want the end user to not be able to tweak the jig to how he/she needs it.

[smalljaw67]

If I'm throwing big jigs in heavy cover I want a stiff weed guard but I make my own and I trim at an angle so the hook gets through quicker but even like that I feel it is a compromise on losing jigs or losing fish. One thing I've done is mess with different combinations and found that on a normal 1/2oz jig I would use a 5/0 heavy wire hook with a heavy weed guard but if I go with a 4/0 hook I can often get away with a medium weed guard and I end up with a better hook up percentage while still able to navigate heavy cover.

[Big-O]

Jigs with stout ot thicker bristle weed guards are much more versatile than otherwise. Just like the skirt, trailers etc which can be changed... so can the strength and length of a weed guard. This is standard practice for all old jig fishermen because the jig can be adjusted on the water to suit that particular need. Scissors will trim the length and/or the number of guard strands as needed for your particular situation. And if you don't need a guard at all just clip it off completely   

[WRB]

The ideal weed guard is no weed guard, they don't improve hook setting. The weed guard protects the jig hook point from getting snagged or fouled with weeds.

Traditional weed guards today are a bunch of nylon fibers in various stiffness from heavy to light depending on the jig maker. Customizing a fiber weed guard by trimming it to perform the way you prefer is a common practice, you can cut off fibers, can't add them, so jig makers make them longer.

If you don't need a weed guard, cut it off when fishing areas that the jig doesn't snag things, your strike to hook ratio will improve with the exposed hook point.

Tom

[Raul]

Quoting Mike: "I do not want the end user to not be able to tweak the jig to how he/she needs it."

 

The manufacturer can not go around making products for specific conditions and needs, it´s your bussiness to do so, the manufacturer can only offer you "generic" products. Things like jig guards and skirts can be customized right on the spot, the manufacturer can offer you hook size, hook type, head shape, head weight and X ammount of skirt strands, material, length and color and certain combinations of hooks size and style vs weight.

 

The only ways you can obtain "custom" is either making your own or contacting a custom builder like Mike.

[Coherence]

Only problem I've ever really had with jigs is when I was first fishing, I started using Dirty Jigs (which have a really thick stout hook in them) with braid, no problem with hook penetration etc. I swapped to a lighter wire hook when I tried a new brand and the braid was just ripping it out of the fishes mouth. Lesson learned, I paid attention to what line with what type of hook. 

 

Regarding weedguards, usually I just spread them a couple times and bend them a bit, maybe trim the end and most of them give me no problem. Although like the OP mentioned, I have forgotten to do so on occasion, took me a minute to figure out what was going on...eventually the light bulb came on though