I think he is,  but Ive emailed a few times and no response
Anyone know for sure?

We had a good cold streak that added a nice 8" to 10" of ice on my local lakes. Been doing good with panfish and will put some fish pics up on the bragging board here soon.

Unfortunately, we are on a warm spell and bringing the ice season to an end pretty soon. A panfish ice tournament popped up for this Sunday and had a friend invite me to be a partner with him. Figured what the heck, I'll be fishing anyways so might give it a shot. Up in the air if the ice will survive till Sunday though.

Anyway, the tourney is on East Harbor that is a popular protected harbor of Lake Erie. Expansive weed beds cover this 8' to 10' deep harbor. Excellent population of bluegill and pumpkinseed along with crappie and yellow perch. With the weeds the main food source is bugs so the smaller jigs usually work best.

These are 1/100 jigs with about as junky a hook as can ever be imagined. Think I got them from Jann's sold as trout heads. They are crap.... but they are the smallest I have. 2lb line and loose drag are key to landing fish. I did tie one on a 2X strong #12 cadis hook with a tungsten bead.



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I was a little bored this morning and made a quick video tying a bucktail jig.

https://youtu.be/XZp8Ub4pWIs

Slow Jigging is all the rage overseas while many Americans look at casting jigs and wonder what the fuzz is all about since they`ve been doing almost the same thing for ages. Almost the same....  The thing is, there are some interesting new perspectives to it. In their attempt to evade fishing pressure into the depth, the Japanese  have perfectioned the way not only to work large metal jigs on soft overloaden rods but also to hook fish well with them.

Key to that is the use of assist hooks. I have very recently found my own little way to incorporate the idea of soft, overloaden rods and assist hooks in an environment that is rather shallow  and askes for casting jigs that cover some structure rather than pin point vertical signals on the sounder. I now fish lead slabs on very light spining gear, say, a 3/4 lead slab on a rod that is much happier with a 1/2 oz spoon, and restrict myself to mediocre casting range in which I can work the jig properly. It has proven very successfull.

For the upper hook, I use Ali Baba ware. Can`t touch 25ct.   Since the small casting jigs are very delicate and easyly overloaden with material, I have to calibrate with -if any - a very skinny tailhook that I haven`t found yet. I have to make them myself using 200lbs hollow core wels catfish kevlar from a local supplier that I splice over a solid ring. And once I am at it, why not make it look like a little fly?

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 ! GOAL REACHED !
$150.00 Raised  /  $150.00 Goal

Hey all!  As most of you know, i have debated on what to do with the site looking forward.  The posting has sure slowed down and i don't have an answer for why.  I still do tie my own jigs and flies, but maybe not as much variety as i did at one time.  The last few years i have purchased the hosting and domain fees for JigCraft with no actual income or revenue coming from the site.  Total cost is right around $150 annually to keep it rolling.  That said, many of you have come forward and said you would like to contribute money to keep it going..... for at least another year.  I have gotten a few emails and PM's about money but would like to start fresh and keep it all current.  I am not looking to profit from the site at all so i am going to try and run it as a "break even" fundraiser.  

If you would like to contribute to the fund to keep JigCraft alive, here is how it will work......

- Post on this thread with the dollar amount you would like to contribute

- Send me a PM' with the dollar amount you would like to contribute if you would like to keep it private

I will keep a running tally of money raised at the top of this post and when we hit the goal, we will call it good!  I do have PayPal and will PM my info to you if you would like to pay that way.  Otherwise i can give you my snail mail address to send check or cash.

I'm starting with this image above, as I'm loving the concept that a small company, husband/wife team (Thomas Custom Lures) from NM is doing with their jigs. They seem to understand the concept of WATER PUSH, and vibration in their well tested, colorful little jigs. First they tie in short deer belly hair, which flares much more than straight bucktail for the moving of water (which I'm always convinced  is a huge factor in initially alerting fish to its incoming presents ; ever lay on a water bed and have your dog jump on???), and then they later added a short, simple straight shaft ,online spinner to really make "noise" and flash! Yeah, Mrs. T is a genuine ARTIST, who ties absolutely beautiful patterns (for US anglers appreciation - perhaps not so important to fish!!) but this robust ,short length jig is bound to be a water-elbowing trigger!! Melissa Thomas tells me that they originally started tying these deer hair models for the big trout in northern NM rivers, and were mildly surprised that they caught the living heck out of them (just using the unspinnerd jig). Then they started adding this small panther-martin type blade on a short wire and found largemouth, smallmouth, especially white bass, plus big blue cats went berserk over it! Excites me as to use of MATERIAL / minimal hardware to create a ruckus and improved action in a jig! Maybe it's cabin fever overtaking me, another cold morn (but with sun!), but am quite anxious to try a jig set-up like this! At one time I have actually used something similar (even with that type blade) with my jigs, and it DID work great (esp early season largemouth) ,much better than overhead spinner harnesses, but being typical fisherman-stupid, never followed up on it ! Maybe a concept (at least for me!) who's time has come -pushing water in 2021!

I'm starting with this image above, as I'm loving the concept that a small company, husband/wife team (Thomas Custom Lures) from NM is doing with their jigs. They seem to understand the concept of WATER PUSH, and vibration in their well tested, colorful little jigs. First they tie in short deer belly hair, which flares much more than straight bucktail for the moving of water (which I'm always convinced  is a huge factor in initially alerting fish to its incoming presents ; ever lay on a water bed and have your dog jump on???), and then they later added a short, simple straight shaft ,online spinner to really make "noise" and flash! Yeah, Mrs. T is a genuine ARTIST, who ties absolutely beautiful patterns (for US anglers appreciation - perhaps not so important to fish!!) but this robust ,short length jig is bound to be a water-elbowing trigger!! Melissa Thomas tells me that they originally started tying these deer hair models for the big trout in northern NM rivers, and were mildly surprised that they caught the living heck out of them (just using the unspinnerd jig). Then they started adding this small panther-martin type blade on a short wire and found largemouth, smallmouth, especially white bass, plus big blue cats went berserk over it! Excites me as to use of MATERIAL / minimal hardware to create a ruckus and improved action in a jig! Maybe it's cabin fever overtaking me, another cold morn (but with sun!), but am quite anxious to try a jig set-up like this! At one time I have actually used something similar (even with that type blade) with my jigs, and it DID work great (esp early season largemouth) ,much better than overhead spinner harnesses, but being typical fisherman-stupid, never followed up on it ! Maybe a concept (at least for me!) who's time has come -pushing water in 2021!

Another warm winter here in Ohio with temps barely below freezing. Booked a hotel over the long New Years weekend and made the 5 hour drive North to Cadillac, MI. Fished Friday afternoon,, Saturday,, Sunday and Monday morning. They had enough ice to get out on, but not near as much as a normal year. I measured about 6"-8" everywhere I cut holes. Everyone up there seemed to be OK with it and were running sleds and 4-wheelers all over. A snow storm 2 days before I left dumped 6" of snow on everything and then a fast storm on Friday night added another 3". Coming off the lake in the storm on Friday I had to use my GPS on the Humminbird to find my truck! Turned into a white out quick. Overall, had a great time. Caught lots of fish and managed to bring home several bags of fish.

Fished Lake Mitchell, Cadillac & Missaukee, but did the bestat Missaukee on Sunday. Caught bluegill, perch, pike and walleye all out of the same holes in a small area. The hike to my spot was brutal though. Dragging my gear though 5"+ of snow made me realize quick how out of shape I am. Had a way point set from last year that was a full mile walk from the launch but only managed to make it out .75 mile from the launch. That was after taking several breaks too. Settled for a spot that looked good on Navionics and lucked into some fish. The pike measured 18" and no size limit on them in this Lake since they are over populated. The big surprise was a 22" walleye! Biggest walleye I have caught through the ice and sure was a rush.

By the looks of the forecast, I may be heading up again in a few weeks. Still no deep freeze in the extended outlook for Ohio. Oh well, gotta use my gear somewhere!

Hot lure for the weekend was a Rapala ultra light rippin rap in Clown color. Caught perch, crappie and a couple smaller walleye on it. The big walleye came on a tiny tungsten jid with a small minnow. Not bigger than a #10 hook on my bluegill rod with 4lb line so got lucky on that fight.

















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Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a healthy, Happy  New Year!!
Next year’s gotta get better. 

Love the tug!

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