How you know the hand-ties have spoiled you

[Shoemoo]

Was watching a fishing video on YouTube with some hotshot tournament bass angler. He was talking about rigging swing heads and said something like, "This is going to save you a lot of money on plastics because you can get two to four bass before you have to change baits!" and I was like, "That's it?"

Seriously, I have hooked dozens of bass and hundreds of crappie off one jig.

 

[hookup]

I've hooked numerous bass on one soft plastic bait ... lol

But I got you. My buddy tied a white buggy looking jig & when we went to the high sierra's fish it for trout for 5 days. He must have caught hundreds of the little slim rockets with it. Thread became undone after a bit, but he just rewrapped it by hand and tied a couple overhand loop knots & kept on fishing with it.

 

[AtticaFish]

No doubt! Most days i loose them in the rocks long before they are ready to give up catching fish. What always gets me is how wide eyed people get when you show them how well hair and feathers move in the water................ then they go right back to fishing (and buying new) plastics and cranks.

 

[Pepop]

Another sure sign is when you get a report that the crappie bite was GREAT today but they were ONLY biting a particular plastic bait in a particular color combination though many others were tried, and the first thing you do is hit the vise and knock out a few feather & chenille jigs to match the color scheme to take to the lake the next day! Heck, I have the very same plastic that was used successfully today but "I MUST FISH HANDTIES"!!!!

 

[Bucho]

It´s not just the hand ties any more, it´s jigging spoons, blades etc. as well. I have gotten very reluctant to fish any kind of lure that I can not reproduce at will. Even when I´m trolling spoons I prefer apex since I can make custom colored resin knockoffs.

Talking durability... just received a call from a fishing travel guide asking me about larger bucktails for peacock bass fishing. They use my hairjigs on their south america trips because at rate of 30-40 massive fish a day, they simply couldn´t affort the excess luggage for to-be-shred plastics even if they got them for free.