on the heavy side of belly spinners

[Bucho]

traded some custom jigs for steel plating work on my kayak. Was a good deal, the guy and his 2 friends tested them extensively on a 5 day fishing trip to northern norway.

16oz spire point jig with 12/0 big game hook, 8" sea witch skirting material. The STW 155 wire insert was oviously too weak but the best I could improvise a spinner blade arm with. Planning to switch to 1mm twisted feather steel which is about the maximum I can homeshop with my cordless drill (last picture).

The other two guys started out working large plastics like everybody else, but all 6 halibut (4 landed) and all 3 large cod over 100cm (up to 20kg) went for the Jigs tipped with 40cm long whole coalfish or cutbait. Bonus were several lumb of 7-8kg and a wolffish, both praised table fare.

Findings:
- the nose ring for an extra treble, requested by my friend, was utterly useless. Large halibut gobbled the whole thing up, smaller ones where hooked with a 8/0 single hook stinger in the rear of the bait
- 8" hair was too long, it fouled badly
- the wire needs to be shifted forward, the guys had fouling issues with hair in the blade
- fluorescent hair did better than plain white, so did an extra spinner blade on top of the jig

 

[Fatman]

Nice seeing your jigs catching fish!!!!

 

[toadfrog]

cool . Every body that saw any of my big jigs always asked if I was going to haul hay with that damn thing . Hope you don't get the same kind of abuse .

 

[Hawnjigs]

Man, those guys are gonna eat good !

There's some sheet materials both natural fish skin and synthetiic that could partially skirt your floss.

 

[jiggerjohn]

Now that's what I call an impressive, well made HEFTY jig!! And the best underspin design I've ever seen !! Really nice,meaty fish ,too -absolute proof of that jigmaster's building skills!!

 

[Bucho]

Thanks everybody!

Since hair jig crafting is virtually unheard of over here, I always bring a  :jig: in the 8 oz+ range to fairs just to make clear that I`m not tying for the fly rod. Works a treat

BTW I forgot to mention that I had to engrave a new eye about half an inch or so back in order to balance the jig.  The original spire point is slightly tilted up and leans into the blade, you can´t have that with underspins.

 

[AtticaFish]

Very cool. Those are some large jigs and outstanding fish! It looks like it could be a tough area to fish and you guys are dressed for the cold... can see the snow on the mountains in the back and looks foggy and misty on every picture. Definitely does not look like weekend warrior fishing. Has to be fun painting those big jig heads, lots of room to play.

 

[hookup]

Nice jigs & results

Looks cold with those suits one