Hair Jig Questions

[travis23]

I just recently purchased some hair jigs from Andy Vallombroso. These are new to me, so i wanted to see them in the water. I bought the kit that he offers so that i got a littlle bit of everything, and I put every jig in the tub. They all float straight up and down (with pork and plastic chunk). They almost topple over. Is this normal with hair jigs?

[WRB]

Float straight and down, do you mean stand upright jig head down, trailer up? Ball shape jig heads will roll over, however your line drag should prevent that with controlled slack. You want the jig to stand upwards at rest.

Tom

PS, looked at Andy's jigs site and he uses a minnow or chub style jig head. This jig design is used for vertical presentations common to float & fly or vertical jigging, not bottom contact. If you want a hair jig for traditional bottom contact or cover, call Andy and offer to send him some plain jigs to tie or ask if he offers them. Football head or Arkie head jigs are both good for bottom contact.

[papajoe222]

Just like other types of bass fishing jigs (flipping, swimming, stand-up, shakey head), hair jigs perform best when used in specific situations and presented in a certain way. They shine when a moving, bottom presentation is called for on a hard bottom. This is why most are built on exposed hook/ball heads, the hair flares open as the jig hits bottom and collapses as it is raised and moved forward. A dragging retrieve can also be used, but this usually incorporates adding live bait or a small, slim action plastic trailer.

[WRB]

Get a mental picture of this; the jig swimming down through the water column after making a cast on controlled slack line. The pork trailer is swimming, the hair skirt is moving, then the jig hits bottom (if it hits bottom) and stops abruptly. The hair flares out, the pork trailer slowly raise upward and a bass is watching the living critter.

Then the jig jumps up swims about a foot away and slowly falls back towards the bottom, it looks alive and the bass strikes it.

Hair jigs are very effective as bottom jigs, you need a head design that doesn't get snagged and you may need a hook point guard depending on the cover.

My jigs have exposed hooks, no fiber weed guards and when needed I use a hitchhiker spring to clip on a 2" section of finesse worm to protect the hook point.

Tom

[travis23]

Yes I mean 90 degrees. I understand you want some float, but this looks weird to me. In my kit, there were 3 football heads, and the rest were ball heads. I'll be fishing a hard bottom lake on Saturday, so snags shouldn't be a huge deal. And thanks to you Tom I use your methods for snags. I guess I didn't realize that only a couple of these jigs were best suited for dragging. I thought the ball heads could be dragged as well.

[deep]

You probably want a standup head (football/ arkie) casting style jig for dragging. I look at bucktail as another material for jig skirts, just like silicone or rubber.

Pork should float. If it doesn't and you can't make it float, it isn't worth anything.

Do you mean the hooks are so light that the trailer can make it float straight up with just the head on the bottom?

[F14A-B]

I use ball heads w/ bucktail in rocky areas just fine, also w/ nylon weedguards, they aren't a death sentence by no means, no deeper than 24' and mostly less, now if I fish the Devonian Beds at Falls of the Ohio, you can expect to loose 20 a day.. But on freshwater impoundments, I don't loose them anymore than any other style jig head..fishing from a boat is different than shore fishing.

[smalljaw67]

I tie a lot of hair jigs, I use a few different head styles and weights but most are for bottom fishing like football heads and ball heads. The types of jigs he ties are what we use for smallmouth, the thing with hair is you have to know what kind of water and what depth. You can use them in stained water, 2' visibility is about minimum, I like using them in clear water. The ball heads can be fished by dragging but a short lift and drop is better, if I'm in water 6' to 10' deep I'll use a 1/8oz jig unless there is is fast current or wind, but some days I'll use a 1/16oz jig if I know the fish are in a spot and are just not biting, the slow fall of that size jig will often get hit on the fall. I use marabou, bear, deer, bucktail, arctic fox, and rabbit for most of my jigs but I also do a lot of craft fur jigs, those are really good as the synthetic hair moves really well in the water. If you have any specific questions about those jigs I'd be glad to help, as I said, I've been making them for a long time and I use them during the cold water period when it gets too cold for jerkbaits.

[Team9nine]

I've thrown several different versions of Andy's hair jigs and they all seemed to catch fish just fine. I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you're not getting the drop rate you want with a particular jig, you might thin the hair out a bit. Seems less is more with a lot of hair jigs.

 

-T9

[OkobojiEagle]

I tie jigs with bucktail, marabou and bunny strips, bucktail is the stiffest and breathes the least in the water.  It will stand up more than the other dressings mentioned because it doesn't release the trapped air as easily.  I tie on a modified Gopher Tackle prowler head (stand up design) and Brewer's spider head.   These two heads have proven to be more weed free than other heads I've tied on over the years.  The patterns I tie don't use plastic or pork but have the "trailer" tied into the pattern.  I'm most successful letting the jig fall on a semi-taught line (yes it pendulums some) and lifting it off the bottom to pendulum back down after a short rest on the bottom... the length of rest is determined by response of the bass.  I will also "swim" the jig if I can keep it within a foot of the bottom; wind and current can make this difficult.   The bottoms I fish will not allow dragging an open hooked hair jig.

 

 

oe

[travis23]

You probably want a standup head (football/ arkie) casting style jig for dragging. I look at bucktail as another material for jig skirts, just like silicone or rubber.

Pork should float. If it doesn't and you can't make it float, it isn't worth anything.

Do you mean the hooks are so light that the trailer can make it float straight up with just the head on the bottom?

Yep and some dont even need the pork or other trailer to float.

[travis23]

Thanks for the responses. I may get a situation where i can use them tomorrow. Hopefully because i was pretty excited to get them.

[primetime]

Good thread, I just learned some good stuff to try out. Always struggle with hair jigs, only use em on a float and fly, but I have wanted to get into some heavier ones...good stuff.