bucktail bubblin'

jiggerjohn

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Mar 23, 2010
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547
In recent correspondence with famed bunnystrip tier, Paul Jensen, I was rather excited about an interesting jig method for Spring/early Summer northern pike. Paul is often featured in In-Fisherman stories on using his very long, unique rabbit zonker style lures for muskies,pike, and lunker bass, yet he told of just employing a simple red & white bucktail jig, tied since his youth, that is fished near the surface over & around emerging weed beds. Jensen merely attaches a bobber or water bubble a few feet above his jig and proceeds to work it in with constantly varying rod positions to create a slow motion zig zag action. To keep them buoyant, Paul purposely ties the white only bucktail full and long (starts wrapping bundles at the rear of the hook shank for length,then stacks above and below this initial tie), and ,interestingly, uses just a light 1/16 or 1/8 jighead (painted red).

In water, the fat bucktail flits around, depending on the rod angled pull  on the float, while also pulsating and swimming when slowly sinking ( tho' not far)between the mild jerks. Onlooking pike find the action of this easy prey hard to resist ! To me, the blooming jig reminds of a plump red& white bluegill (nope, never saw a r&w 'gill,either!) surface feeding, tho I'm sure this big bucktail could resemble many tasty chunk-style minnows , or just something highly visible & in distress! Whatever,Mr. Jensen maintains that since boyhood, he has caught far more pike on his basic red&white bucktail than anything!

The float approach is simple - merely secure a half filled standard water bubble about 30 inches upline and gently heave it out. It'll travel a long way, much further than the light headed, air resistant, full bucktail  will go. This bubble is also fairly visible to concentrate on rod motion and changing pulling angles. Another idea was recently supplied by our own super tier from Germany, Bucho , with the use of their streamlined Bombardas ; these cast a full bodied jig out even better, and offer even less resistance on the retreive & jerking motions. However you're rigged, tho, don't forget the wire leader !
 

Hawnjigs

KISS
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Mar 23, 2010
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Location
Ogallala, NE
There's a good reason why red & white, tho somewhat overlooked nowadays, is an effective color for pike lures, like the classic Daredevle spoon.

Myself, tho I used to be a fan of black, now think that red head white tie would be my "if only one" choice for all species.

Also overlooked is the value of a float to present light jigs or flies, particularly by head in the sand pure jig holdouts like myself.
 

Fatman

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May 1, 2011
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Northfield, Vermont
He's a great tyer and has lot's of good articles on bunny ties - but when the hair style jigs kind of went on the back burner people who knew how effective they were kept right on fishing them, and catching lots of fish.
 

JUNGLEJIM1

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Mar 23, 2010
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3,173
Location
Saint Louis,Mo
I wish we had some pike around here. Recently I came across a 1/8 oz chatterbait that I purchased several years ago. I took off the skirt and tied it with a few strands of glow silicone rubber and white zonker and crosscut strips. It casts well even on 10lb mono and bass have been all over it the past two trips so made a trip to Cabelas yesterday and picked up 15 more. Tied up a half dozen in a few colors and I'm ready to go tomorrow. These bass get a lot of pressure but I know they haven't seen anything like this before.
 

jiggerjohn

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Mar 23, 2010
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547
JJ1, Anymore, I'm not surprised when I work my longer, "high flying" jigs for pike/muskie and have a hefty largemouth engulf it ! And these ALWAYS seem to be lunkers! Paul Jensen relates that his mentor toward tying bucktail jigs during his youth, became an avid bass angler in recent decades; Jensen goes on to say that this fellow is the best bass fisherman he has ever seen, catching up to 10,000 bass EACH SEASON -mostly on the simple ole red&white bucktail jig!! I'm very interested in other's experiences with r&w bucktails for bass , gotta hunch there's a lot of them out there!!
 

jiggerjohn

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Mar 23, 2010
Messages
547
JJ1, While you're tying up those productive chatterbaits, tie up a couple in red & white bucktail, and report how bass react to them !!
 
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